Sunday Mail (UK)

Two terrifying years, eight brutal murders, one accused father. And his mysterious 12 hours spent with a psychopath that could hold the key to a killing spree

AUTHOR SHINES SPOTLIGHT ON SECRET MEETING BETWEEN VICTIM’S HUSBAND AND SERIAL KILLER PETER MANUEL

- Jane Barrie

As the noose tightened around Peter Manuel’s neck in Barlinnie prison, Scotland breathed a sigh of relief.

The murderer’s two-year indiscrimi­nate killing spree had been brought to a swift end and he became one of the last men to be hanged in the country.

But a strange twist in the life and crimes of Scotland’s worst serial killer had become forgotten by the time he hanged on July 11, 1958.

Author Denise Mina is now shining a spotlight on a secret meeting that took place between Manuel and the husband of one of his victims 60 years ago, which suggests the family were targeted.

Denise’s first true crime novel, The Long Drop, centres on his 12-hour meeting with businessma­n William Watt, whose family Manuel murdered.

Watt was initially charged with killing his disabled wife Marion, daughter and sister- in- law and imprisoned for two months in 1956. Later released, he was determined to clear his name.

But in an extraordin­ary twist , he would meet Manuel at Whitehall’s Restaurant in Glasgow’s Renfield Street and then spend 12 hours in the city with him.

Manuel, a convicted housebreak­er, had not yet been charged with any murder.

The clandestin­e meeting was organised by lawyer Laurence Dowdall , who had acted for both men.

Today, even Watt’s relatives believe that he had something to do with the deaths of his own family.

Marion’s nephews Stuart and David Reid, whose dad was her brother, both say that Watt was involved.

Marion, 40, was killed in her home with her daughter Vivienne, 17, and sister Margaret Brown, 30.

Stuart, 72, said: “In a lot of ways, Denise Mina’s novel brings the final pieces of the jigsaw together. We will never know the truth 100 per cent as my dad never knew.

“But he did always maintain that Watt was in some way involved as he had taken the family dog away, which was there to protect Marion. He also believed that if the dog had been at home, they may have lived.”

Manuel was responsibl­e for at least eight murders between 1956 and 1958.

At his trial at the High Court in May 1958, he was convicted of seven murders – the Watt family, in Burnside, near Rutherglen, the Smart family, in Uddingston, and Mount Vernon teenager Isabelle Cooke.

The other case against him, the murder of Anne Kneilands, which he confessed to, was dropped due to lack of evidence.

In order to do the novel justice, Denise had to get inside Manuel’s head, spending hours talking to witnesses and poring over paperwork and court transcript­s at the National Archives of Scotland.

Denise, 50, a mum of two, said: “Manuel and Watt went out for a drink and spent 12 hours together. Nobody really knows what happened.

“There’s no question in my mind Watt was responsibl­e in some way or another for the death of his family.

“Everybody thought that in Glasgow but what was in the papers was ‘they’ve caught this scapegoat’.

“There’s the story that’s heard in court and published in the newspapers at the time, then there’s the story that people tell each other.

“It’s interestin­g to read the official version of events and then hear from people as to exactly what was going on.”

The title of The Long Drop references the “clean” and instantane­ous death method of hanging used in Scotland when Manuel went to the gallows at Barlinnie Prison in 1958. Denise, who has published 12 novels including the Garnethill series and The Field of Blood, which became a BBC drama, says her book is a universal story about a man wrongly accused of ki l l ing his family, who starts to investigat­e the case himself.

She said: “If you sit at a bus stop and a pensioner sits down and you say, ‘Do you remember Peter Manuel?’, it’s not long before they start talking and you end up there for 45 minutes.

“I went to all the sites related to the killings, many of which are not there anymore. The Watt family bungalow in Fennsbank Avenue, Burnside, was flattened years ago. Isabelle Cooke’s house was also gone. Florence Street in the Gorbals was where four of the trial witnesses lived and where Peter Smart’s car was found abandoned. That has completely changed too.

“I went to Fourth Street in Birkenshaw to Manuel’s house. I found the wrong door at first and was sitting outside thinking he can’t have snuck out in the night without anyone seeing him from that house.

“Then I found the right door, which looks out on bare fields, which would have been even more desolate then.”

Police at the time claimed that Watt, who had been on a fishing trip in Lochgilphe­ad,

Argyll, when the murders took place, had driven home through the night, killed his family, then returned to the hotel in time for breakfast.

A police driver even demonstrat­ed that the journey could have been done in just over two hours.

But Denise said: “There’s no way Watt did that drive. I’ve done that drive now. I went al l the way up to the hotel he was staying at and came back down and it took four hours and 15 minutes.

“In those days, you would go over the Rest and Be Thankful in an old car and you would have to stop to let the engine cool down. “I came to the conclusion Watt wouldn’t get his own hands dirty.”

Denise said the book very quickly became a labour of love.

She said: “I got really stuck in to the detail of the time and the place. It’s probably what drug addicts are like because l ife is going on around you but you are in a world of your own.

“But it was important to set it all down in writing as we’re on the brink of a generation dying who know the story of Peter Manuel and what actually happened.”

The award-winning writer uses humour throughout the book to give light relief to the

gruesome tale. She refers to the area around Renfield Street, the part of the city where Manuel and Watt meet at Whitehall ’s Restaurant, as “small as a midgie’s oxter”.

Denise said: “No one outside Scotland gets that. They don’t know what a midgie is and they don’t know what an oxter is.

“I’m getting emails from reviewers in New Zealand saying, ‘ What the hell is a midgie’s oxter?’

“But one of the things about really gruesome murders is they are quite funny. And if you use humour, it works well.

“Watt was a brilliant comedy character if he hadn’t been so sinister. He was ludicrous. There are archive photos of him leaving court in a stretcher after collapsing during the trial.

“And you can tell by the way journalist­s of the time are writing about it that they are killing themselves laughing.

“But it’s inconceiva­ble that anything big would happen in Glasgow and no one would make a joke about it. In Glasgow, people make jokes about things that are uncomforta­ble. That’s our humour.”

Denise, whose family are from Rutherglen, is working on a new project – a book about a woman who becomes obsessed with a true crime podcast.

And she is hoping The Long Drop will be made into a movie. She said: “I would love to see it as a film. But it’s more likely to happen in the States than here.”

The Long Drop, published by Harvill Secker, is out now.

Denise’s novel brings the final pieces of the jigsaw together

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 ??  ?? VICTIMS Marion and her daughter Vivienne were murdered at home
VICTIMS Marion and her daughter Vivienne were murdered at home
 ??  ?? CLAIMS Marion’s nephew Stuart
CLAIMS Marion’s nephew Stuart
 ??  ?? SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH Denise at Sheepburn Road in Uddingston, near the Smart family’s old home Pic Jamie Williamson
SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH Denise at Sheepburn Road in Uddingston, near the Smart family’s old home Pic Jamie Williamson
 ??  ?? COLLAPSE Watt, left, is carried out of court in Glasgow during the murder trial of Manuel in 1958
COLLAPSE Watt, left, is carried out of court in Glasgow during the murder trial of Manuel in 1958
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