A History of British Serial Killing by Martin Fido

Author:Martin Fido [Fido, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780110509
Publisher: Carlton Books Ltd

1953–1965

CHRISTIE WAS A MEAGRE, middle-aged man, an ordinary clerical worker and a sexual inadequate. Since his best-known predecessor, Peter Kürten, the Düsseldorf monster, was another neatly suited, middle-aged clerical worker with a dowdy wife who never found him sexually demanding, this was thought to be the model of the multiple sex killer. It was not realized that Kürten had got away with killing since he was very young, and Christie was unusual in taking up sex murder at the late age of 44. When the young, reasonably good-looking and extravagantly sexually active Albert DeSalvo was identified by Massachusetts police as the Boston Strangler in 1965, it came as something of a surprise to the general public.

Yet a mere five years after Christie, a Scottish court tried a good-looking young man who had perpetrated eight or possibly nine murders on four or possibly five separate occasions. Peter Manuel, however, was a professional thief, who killed six of his victims in the course of two robberies. He was not identified as first and foremost a serial killer. He was seen as a plain crook, whose nasty habits included rape and indecent assault, and who completed some of his crimes by killing the victims.

In the summer of 1956 Manuel shot dead Mrs Marion Watt, her sister Margaret Brown and Mrs Brown’s daughter, Vivienne, after breaking into their house south of Glasgow while Mr Watt was away on a fishing trip. He was not suspected. The police thought Mr Watt had driven back overnight to murder his wife. Manuel then did one of the serial killer’s occasional peculiar actions: he injected himself into the case unnecessarily. He was arrested for burglary and happened to be in Barlinnie Prison while Mr Watt was held there. He told Mr Watt’s solicitor that he had information about the murders which could clear his client. Although his account persuaded both Mr Watt and the solicitor that he must have been either the perpetrator or an accomplice, he was not charged. But Mr Watt was released.

This was actually Manuel’s second murderous outing. In January 1956 he had taken 17-year-old Anne Kneilands into woodland near Glasgow and battered her to death. He had been questioned as someone in the neighbourhood at the time, but was never suspected.

The authorities were later sure that in December 1957, after he had come out of jail, Manuel went to England and shot Newcastle taxi driver Stanley Dunn. But charges were never brought. Manuel was to be tried under Scottish jurisdiction for his eight Scottish murders.

His fifth came soon after Stanley Dunn’s death. Like Anne Kneilands’ killing, this murder was also motivated by sex. Seventeen-year-old Isabelle Cooke was killed and buried in a field between Glasgow and the town of Uddingston, where she was going to meet her boyfriend for a dance. Her petticoat and knickers were found, but her body was not traced until Manuel was arrested and questioned a month later.

Manuel was arrested for another mass murder in an Uddingston family home he was robbing.

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