45 Facts About Peter Tobin

Peter Tobin was convicted of the murder of Vicky Hamilton in December 2008, resulting in his minimum sentence being increased to 30 years, and of the murder of Dinah McNicol in December 2009.

Peter Tobin was diagnosed as a psychopath by a senior psychologist and it was thought he might be connected with the Bible John murders of the late 1960s, but police eventually ruled him out.

Peter Tobin was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland, on 27 August 1946, the youngest of eight children to Daniel and Marjorie Tobin.

Peter Tobin had four older sisters and three older brothers.

Peter Tobin was a difficult child and in 1953, aged 7, he was sent to an approved school.

Peter Tobin reportedly joined the French Foreign Legion but later deserted.

Peter Tobin later served a sentence in a borstal and in 1970 was convicted and imprisoned in England for burglary and forgery.

Peter Tobin moved to Brighton, Sussex, England, where he married his 17-year-old girlfriend, Margaret Mountney, a clerk and typist, in August 1969.

In 1973, Peter Tobin married a local nurse, 30-year-old Sylvia Jefferies.

Peter Tobin then had a relationship with Cathy Wilson; the couple married in 1989, with a son named Daniel born later that year.

In May 1991, Peter Tobin moved to Margate, Kent, and, in 1993, to Havant, Hampshire, to be near his son.

On 4 August 1993, Peter Tobin attacked two 14-year-old girls at his flat in Leigh Park, Havant, after they went to visit a neighbour who was not at home.

Peter Tobin then turned on the gas cooker without lighting it and left them for dead, but they both survived the attack.

Peter Tobin was later captured in Brighton after his blue Austin Metro car was found there.

On 18 May 1994, at Winchester Crown Court, Peter Tobin entered a plea of guilty and received a fourteen-year prison sentence.

In September 2006, Peter Tobin was working as a church handyman at St Patrick's Church in Anderston, Glasgow.

Peter Tobin was last seen alive in the company of Tobin on 24 September 2006 and is thought to have been attacked by him in the garage attached to the presbytery.

Peter Tobin had been admitted to hospital under a false name, and with a fictitious complaint.

Peter Tobin was found guilty of raping and murdering Kluk and was sentenced to life imprisonment, to serve a minimum of twenty-one years.

Peter Tobin is believed to have left Bathgate for Margate a few weeks after her disappearance.

The investigation later led to a forensic search of a house in Southsea in early October 2007, where Peter Tobin is believed to have lived shortly after leaving Bathgate.

In November 2008, Peter Tobin was tried at the High Court in Dundee for Hamilton's murder.

Peter Tobin was again defended by Donald Findlay, while the prosecution was led by the Solicitor General for Scotland, Frank Mulholland QC.

The prosecution case went beyond the circumstantial evidence of Peter Tobin having lived at the two houses in Bathgate and Margate in 1991 and consisted of eyewitness testimony of suspicious behaviour by Peter Tobin in Bathgate, evidence to destroy his alibi, and DNA and fingerprints left on a dagger found in his former house, on Hamilton's purse and on the sheeting in which her body was wrapped.

On 11 December 2008, Peter Tobin gave notice to court officials that he intended to challenge the verdict and overturn the sentence imposed on him.

Peter Tobin's friend was dropped off at Junction 8 of the M25, near Reigate, while McNicol stayed in the car with the driver.

On 1 September 2008, the Crown Prosecution Service served a summons on Peter Tobin's solicitors, accusing him of her murder.

Peter Tobin is reported to have claimed forty-eight victims in boasts made in prison.

Peter Tobin was linked to the disappearance of 18-year-old Louise Kay from Beachy Head in Eastbourne in 1988.

Peter Tobin had a history dealing cars for an auction company, and had links to scrapyards.

Detectives investigated whether Peter Tobin was responsible but could never prove his involvement.

At the time of the disappearance, Peter Tobin owned the property 22 Windlesham Road in Brighton; the house and its garden have never been searched for remains.

Shortly after the discovery of Earl's body became public knowledge in 1989, Peter Tobin hurriedly moved with his wife and child a great distance to Bathgate, Scotland, without prior discussion with his wife of these plans, which suggested he had an underlying reason to suddenly leave the area.

In Mark Williams-Thomas's 2018 documentary on Louise Kay, he supported the theory that Peter Tobin could be responsible for Earl's death after linking her case to Kay's disappearance.

Peter Tobin's convictions led to speculation in the late 2000s that he was Bible John, a serial killer who murdered three young women in Glasgow in the 1960s: Patricia Docker, 25; Jemima McDonald, 32; and Helen Puttock, 29.

Peter Tobin has since been eliminated as a suspect by police.

Peter Tobin moved from Glasgow to Brighton with his fiancee, Margaret Mountney before the second murder attributed to Bible John.

Peter Tobin had married his first wife in Brighton on 6 August 1969, ten days before Bible John's August 16 murder of Jemima McDonald, as recorded on their marriage certificate.

Peter Tobin was still living in Brighton at the time of the third murder, meaning he would have had to travel without his wife's knowledge to Glasgow and back from Brighton to have committed the murder of Helen Puttock, Bible John's third victim.

Peter Tobin's DNA was ultimately checked against a semen stain on Puttock's tights as part of Operation Anagram, which was the only remaining forensic evidence in the Bible John case.

Also, contemporary photos of Peter Tobin showed he did not have red hair like Bible John was described to have had.

In February 2016, Peter Tobin was hospitalised again following a suspected stroke.

Peter Tobin was taken to hospital again on 30 March 2022 and released two days later.

Peter Tobin died at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary on 8 October 2022, aged 76.

Peter Tobin's body was cremated and on 16 October 2022, his ashes were scattered at sea after no relatives or next of kin claimed his body.