She was a baby when her city was terrorised by the unsolved murders of three women. Now Audrey Gillan has made a podcast about the victims’ lives – and the misogyny of the police investigation
Throughout the 1960s, suited, booted and elaborately coiffed Glaswegians would come to the Barrowlands, the city’s biggest ballroom, to escape the humdrum via a boozy combination of colour, glitter, dancing and debauchery. By the end of the decade, though, a shadow was cast over the venue, after three women’s bodies were found on the streets, on each occasion within hours of them leaving the dancehall. Glasgow was – and is to this day – haunted by the man believed to be their killer: Bible John.
“The city that loved dancing was suddenly living in fear of a killer who was picking his victims on the dancefloor,” says Glaswegian Audrey Gillan, who was two weeks old when the first victim was murdered. “They saw an artist’s sketch of him and thought, ‘That’s the guy at the corner shop.’ Or, ‘I see him walking his dog in the park.’ It changed the way women felt – and children like myself grew up thinking he was a bogeyman.”
