How I escaped World’s End killer
Predator could have been stopped My heartbreak for murdered girls
Patricia Wallace today reveals depraved Sinclair tried to force her into the caravanette that he used to snatch 17-year-olds Helen Scott and Christine Eadie before raping and killing them in 1977.
Sinclair tried to overpower Patricia in Glasgow and haul her into the vehicle, using so much force that he ripped the arm of her denim jacket.
That night, Patricia had taken the bus home to Eglinton Toll in the south side of the city.
She said: “At that time of night, the streets were deserted.
“I got off the bus and, as I went to cross the road, he appeared out of nowhere and grabbed me.
“He took me by surprise but I managed to push him away. He ripped the sleeve of my denim jacket as I escaped.
“I ran across the street and up the stairs of the tenement building I lived in. I was really shaken by him trying to haul me into the caravanette.”
When Sinclair failed in his attempt to abduct Patricia, he subjected her to a two-month campaign of terror.
Living in fear for her life, she moved house, changed job and altered her appearance.
She was interviewed by the police but her attacker – whose identity was then unknown – was never arrested.
Just weeks later, he killed Helen and Christine, a crime for which he was eventually convicted in 2014 and jailed for a minimum of 37 years – the longest sentence in Scottish criminal history.
Nearly 30 years after Patricia fought off Sinclair, she was told by police that she could have been one of his victims.
Patricia only learned the chilling news about the identity of her attacker when in 2004 Police Scotland detectives flew to the US to ask her to give evidence against him. She had moved to America 10 years after the attempted abduction.
Now the 67-year-old has spoken out after learning of Sinclair’s failed appeal against the length of his sentence for the World End’s murders earlier this year.
Patricia said: “The police called me and then, with the approval of the FBI, two officers flew here to interview me.
“They had been accompanied by an FBI officer, though he wasn’t with them when they interviewed me.
“They told me they were carrying out a cold case review of a series of murders.
“They said that the description I had given of the man – and the vehicle he drove – matched that of their suspect.
“They brought with them a book of mugshots and we went through the pictures. He was the one I recognised. He stood out. There were a couple of others who facially looked like him but they had different hair.
“They said, ‘You don’t know how lucky you were.’
“I realised that day I had been lucky but I also felt annoyed. I felt annoyed that it had taken them 30 years to follow up what had happened to me.
“I felt angry. If the police had come back in 1977 and checked out what I had told them, maybe those women might still be alive.
“I feel terrible for those women and their families. I wish he had been caught sooner. Perhaps I could have done more at the time or shouted more about it.”
The first time Sinclair talked to Patricia, he asked her to get into the white Toyota Hiace he was driving.
At the time, the mum- of-three worked in a bar in the evenings.
Sinclair approached her after she finished her shift in The Doctors pub in Paisley Road West.
Patricia, then 27, was walking home alone after 11pm when Sinclair pulled in beside her.
She recalled: “He stopped and asked me if I wanted a lift. I shook my head and kept walking. He drove ahead and then slowed down and did it again before driving off. He was greasy and creepy-looking. He had a sick kind of smile on his face.
“I could have been stuck in the middle of a desert and I wouldn’t have accepted a lift from him.”
Sinclair tried to abduct Patricia a second time a week later after she finished another evening shift and got the bus home.
She said: “I think he had been tracking me. It seemed too much of a coincidence.
“I was happy and relieved to have gotten away but terrified at the same time.
“I felt a whole range of emotions. I called the police and they interviewed me the next day.
“But I kept seeing the white caravanette going up and down Eglinton Street, even turning in Cardwell Street, the street I lived in.
“It was an unusual-looking vehicle. If it had been a car or a works van, I might not have noticed it.
“That went on for over two months. I had three children and I was absolutely terrified.
“I decided to get a dog, a German Shepherd. I had blonde hair and dyed it dark and got a
perm to change my appearance. I changed jobs and we moved house. I felt a lot safer then.”
Sinclair was convicted two years ago of the 1977 rape and murders of Helen and Christine, who he met in the World’s End pub in Edinburgh.
He has also been convicted of two other killings and detectives believe he may be responsible for many more.
There are six women, including Helen and Christine, whom Sinclair is believed to have killed during a six-month spell in 1977.
Two women disappeared close to where Patricia was almost abducted. Hilda McAuley, 36, was raped, beaten and dumped in long grass and bushes in Langbank, Renfrewshire, af ter a night with pals at the Plaza ballroom at Eglinton Toll.
Agnes Cooney, 23, disappeared following a visit to the Clada social club in Govanhill weeks later.
She was tortured, stabbed 26 times and dumped in Caldercruix, Lanarkshire.
Sinclair, 71, is now in failing health but Patricia is looking for answers from him before he dies. They g rew up near each other in Glasgow, Sinclair in St George’s Cross and Patricia in Garnethill. Patricia said: “I don’t remember him growing up and he showed no sign of recognising me but I had a sense that I knew him. “I often wonder if he knew me. He lived where I hung around with my friends. Maybe he recognised me.” Sinclair had bought the Toyota Hiace in June 1977.
Four months later, helped by brotherin-law Gordon Hamilton, who is now dead, he lured Helen and Christine into the back of it.
The girls weren’t sure about whether to go with them but Sinclair won them round with promises of a lift home. But he drove them to East Lothian instead, where they were beaten, raped and murdered.
Af ter Sincla i r wa s convicted of the murders two years ago, retired detective superintendent Allan Jones said their fates would have been sealed after they got into the caravanette.
He said at the time: “There would be a lot of physical violence to subdue them. The minute they got into that car, that would be it for them.”
Patricia said of Sinclair: “I just thought he was some kind of nutjob trying to pull girls. I was petrified and in shock when I later found out who he was and what he had done.”
Patricia, an education assistant, added: “I don’t believe in the death penalty but I think it should have been brought back for him.
“Though the death penalty would have been too quick for him. He should have suffered first, the way he made those girls suffer.”