TOBIN: THE ENDURING EVIL

10 years ago, Angelika Kluk was murdered in a crime whose depravity shocked Britain and led to the unmasking of a monster. Now her killer is urged: Unburden your hellish mind. Tell where ALL the girls are buried

IT was a savage and barbaric crime: a young woman raped and murdered, her mutilated body hidden under the floorboards of a church.

In September 2006, police found the body of Polish student Angelika Kluk in St Patrick’s in Glasgow. The 23-year-old had been stabbed 16 times.

Her appalling injuries left police in no doubt: they were on the trail of a maniac.

A nationwide manhunt was followed by a six-week trial that unmasked the killer as convicted rapist Peter Tobin.

Investigations into his background led detectives to believe the man guilty of Angelika’s murder was also one of the country’s most vile serial killers, a sadistic psychopath responsible for crimes that had baffled police for years.

Now, on the tenth anniversary of Angelika’s murder, the retired police officer who led the investigation has urged him to reveal his other victims.

In a plea to Tobin, who is serving life in Edinburgh’s Saughton Prison for three known murders, former Detective Superintendent David Swindle said: ‘You are an evil, sadistic killer but I would like to think that some day you will have the humanity and respect to admit everything you have done.’

Speaking exclusively to The Scottish Mail on Sunday, Mr Swindle insisted there are other victims and said he hoped advances in science could one day uncover them and bring peace to their families.

He added: ‘There are definitely other people Tobin has killed and only he knows who they are. Tobin was a sadistic killer who was determined to take lives and conceal them for his pleasure. Ten years on from the murder of Angelika Kluk, it’s a poignant time for the families.

‘You should never give up, that was my attitude. Push, push, push and get the truth. I still think of Tobin a lot, particularly at this time of year. You should never forget the victims and you should never forget the evil killers who hold the key to the victims. I live in hope that some day we will get the truth about what Tobin has done.’

In particular, Mr Swindle said 32 items of jewellery Tobin apparently kept as sick trophies in his former homes could yield vital clues.

‘Science has improved so much since I joined the police and since the murder of Angelika Kluk. With advancements in DNA profiling, trace evidence chemistry and human identification, I really do live in hope that science will uncover what he has done. Tobin will die but hopefully he won’t take his secrets to the grave.’

Mr Swindle retired from Strathclyde Police in 2011 but said he will never forget Tobin. ‘He is the most evil person. His eyes are black and void of feeling. He’s an evil, evil individual and is probably enjoying the notoriety. I will never forget his brutality and what he did to poor Angelika Kluk.’

Angelika was a student from Skoczow, near Krakow, in Poland whose sister Aneta worked as a receptionist in Glasgow. Angelika first came to the city in 2005 and worked and stayed at St Patrick’s Church.

In a bizarre twist that only emerged during Tobin’s trial, parish priest Father Gerry Nugent and Angelika began a sexual relationship.

Despite the affair souring, Father Nugent allowed her to stay in a neighbouring parish house in exchange for working as a cleaner.

Angelika returned the following summer and became friends with a local handyman who called himself Patrick McLaughlin and helped at the church.

She was last seen on September 24, 2006 – only days before she was due to return to her Norwegian studies at the University of Gdansk – painting a shed with McLaughlin.

Police issued a missing persons alert, which turned into a murder inquiry when, five days later, her body was found.

The hunt was on for McLaughlin, who had fled Glasgow two days after Angelika’s disappearance. Police discovered he had been living under a false identity and was actually a convicted rapist named Peter Tobin. He had been jailed in 1994 for raping a 14-year-old girl and indecently assaulting her friend at his flat in Havant, Hampshire.

Only 24 hours after Angelika’s body was discovered, police arrested Tobin in London when a hospital nurse recognised him from his picture in the media.

As prosecutors began to prepare

‘There are definitely others – and only he knows who they are’

the case against Tobin, detectives began an exhaustive trawl of his past.

Convinced that the brutality of the murder bore the hallmarks of a serial killer, Mr Swindle launched Operation Anagram.

‘I set up Operation Anagram because I was convinced Tobin had committed crimes other than Angelika Kluk,’ he said. ‘For the next four years you could say I became quite obsessed by it. I was obsessed with the truth and obsessed with

getting justice for families.’ In May 2007, Tobin was found guilty of raping and murdering Angelika. Behind the scenes, police investigating Tobin’s past were horrified as they began to construct a profile of a psychopathic sadist who glorified violence.

Even in his early years, Tobin, who was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, in 1946, had displayed uncontrollable anger that had seen him removed from the family home and sent to a reform school at seven.

Detectives who interviewed his first wife Margaret Mountney, whom he married in 1969, learned he had decapitated her pet puppy, then raped and assaulted her with a knife. Two more marriages followed. Both wives told similar tales of violent abuse.

As they traced Tobin’s addresses around Britain, police solved an horrific crime that had baffled detectives for 15 years: the disappearance of Vicky Hamilton in 1991 in Bathgate, West Lothian.

Tobin had lived in Bathgate in the early 1990s, only a mile from where Vicky went missing. In the attic of his former home, officers found a knife with a tiny fleck of matter that was confirmed as Vicky’s skin – but there was no sign of her body. Then in another of Tobin’s old homes, in Margate, Kent, police made a macabre discovery – Vicky’s skeleton buried under the lawn.

Beneath the soil, a few feet from Vicky’s body, they found dismembered remains that tied Tobin to another unsolved murder.

Dinah McNicol, 18, had also vanished in 1991. She was last seen hitchhiking home to Essex from a Hampshire music festival. Tobin had abducted and murdered her.

He was convicted of Vicky’s murder in December 2008 and of Dinah’s in December 2009.

For Mr Swindle, providing families with answers was the most satisfying part of the operation. ‘It’s all about families, that’s what makes it all worthwhile,’ he said.

After Tobin’s three murder convictions, speculation mounted he could also have been responsible for the notorious Bible John killings in Glasgow in the late 1960s. But Mr Swindle has never been convinced. He said: ‘There’s nothing to indicate that Tobin was involved.’

Even today, Mr Swindle cannot tear himself away from Tobin. ‘Although I’ve retired, I was a police officer for 34 years and I’ll always have an interest in anything linked to Peter Tobin.’

Last week, Police Scotland said they were not pursuing any active lines of inquiry in relation to Tobin but would welcome any relevant information.