Serial killer Peter Tobin who murdered three women - and is suspected of killing many more - dies of cancer while chained to his death bed at age of 76
- Peter Tobin, 76, was convicted of three murders, plus two rapes of young girls
- Polish student Angelika Kluk was discovered under a Glasgow church in 2006
- He also murdered 15-year-old Vicky Hamilton and 18-year-old Dinah McNicol
- Tobin has had a raft of health issues and was in hospital twice this year
The infamous Scottish serial killer and paedophile Peter Tobin has died aged 76 following a series of health problems.
The murderer was known to have killed three women but is thought to have slaughtered many more.
Tobin was serving a life sentence for raping and murdering Polish student Angelika Kluk, 23, and hiding her body under the floor of a Glasgow church in 2006.
Tobin had worked in the church as a handyman, which is how police identified him as a suspect.
He is thought to be one of the UK's worst ever serial killers.
The killer was also serving life terms for the murders of 15-year-old schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton, of Redding, near Falkirk, in 1991, and 18-year-old Dinah McNicol the same year.
Their bodies were found 17 years later, buried in the garden of his former home in Margate, Kent.
He had previously been convicted of raping two 14-year-old girls in 1993.
Evil serial killer Peter Tobin has died at age 76 after a battle against numerous health issues
He was convicted for the murders of (L-R) Angelika Kluk, Vicky Hamilton and Dinah McNicol
Vast police hours were spent in recent years piecing together the loner's nomadic lifestyle on the fringes of society, where he hid behind a variety of identities.
Officers believe Tobin will have killed others and had at least 40 aliases and 150 cars during his life to hide his tracks as he targeted vulnerable women.
Born in August 1946 in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Tobin's life of crime began after he was sent to a reform school at the age of seven.
In his teens and early twenties he served jail terms for burglary, forgery and conspiracy.
In 1994 he was jailed for 14 years for a sickening double sex attack on two schoolgirls at his flat in Hampshire.
The girls had travelled to visit a neighbour who was out, so they asked if they could wait at Tobin's flat.
He held them at knifepoint, raped them, stabbed one and turned the gas on in his flat, leaving them for dead.
Miraculously, they both survived the attack and Tobin was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Tobin was also a serial wife beater, with all three of his former spouses claiming he repeatedly and viciously attacked them.
Tobin's first confirmed murder was that of 23-year-old student Angelika Kluk, who was originally from Poland.
She had been staying in premises on the site of the church where Tobin worked.
Ms Kluk was last seen alive in the company of Tobin on 24 September 2006.
Forensic evidence showed that she was beaten, raped and stabbed before being hidden in an area under the church floorboards while she was still breathing.
Her body was found after five days, and Tobin was arrested in London shortly thereafter.
For Ms Kluk's rape and murder, he was sentenced to life in prison to serve a minimum of 20 years.
While in prison in 2007, police searched two properties connected to Tobin as they investigated the disappearance of 15-year-old Vicky Hamilton.
She was last seen on 10 February 1991 as she waited for a bus to take her home to Redding, near Falkirk.
Police discovered her body in the garden of one of the properties, complete with a knife, and Tobin went on trial in 2008 and was convicted of her murder.
A month after the initial find, police confirmed they had discovered a second body, that of 18-year-old Dinah McNicol.
Ms McNicol was last seen in August 1991, when she hitchhiked home from a festival with a friend. After the friend was dropped off first, Ms McNicol was never seen again.
According to criminologist Professor David Wilson, Peter Tobin is reported to have told a prison psychiatrist he killed 48 women before smiling and saying: 'Prove it.'
It's impossible to know how many women he raped and killed, but criminologists think the true number is likely to be far higher than three.
If the 48 number is accurate, it is thought that would make him the second-worst identified serial killer in the UK in modern times, behind Dr Harold Shipman, who is thought to have killed around 250.
Now many families who suspect their daughters may have been taken from them by the evil serial killer will never know for sure whether it was him.
Jessie Earl, a 22-year-old art student in Eastbourne, East Sussex, was last seen alive on May 15, 1980.
Her body was discovered nine years later, with all her clothing missing except for her bra.
Despite this, the Sussex Police investigation was shut down after just four weeks and her death declared 'non-suspicious'. An inquest four months later returned an open verdict.
Her father John previously told The Daily Mail: 'We were horrified. It seemed obvious to us from the start that she'd been murdered and all the evidence appeared to point that way.
'Jessie was found without a stitch of clothing apart from her bra, which was so tightly knotted it could only be undone with a metal probe. She didn't do that to herself, did she?'
The Earls refused to accept the verdict and began their tireless campaign to overturn it.
Last December — 41 years after Jessie's disappearance and the day before what would have been her 64th birthday — they finally won a High Court legal battle for a new inquest.
On Wednesday, May 14, 1980, Jessie Earl, a 22-year-old art student in Eastbourne, East Sussex, called her parents from a seafront phonebox to say she'd be home for the weekend. She sounded happy, opening the door so her mother could hear a brass band playing nearby, telling her: 'You'd love it here.' It would be the last time Valerie would ever speak to her only daughter
The High Court quashed the original verdict after hearing the 'flawed' police investigation in 1989 was shut down by a senior investigating officer — for reasons which remain unclear — leaving 103 open lines of inquiry that were never followed up.
Shockingly, Jessie's death wasn't even recorded as a crime, let alone a potential homicide. As a result, physical evidence, including the bra, was later disposed of.
Now her family will never know who killed their daughter, but they were told that evil killer Tobin was a possible suspect.
There have also long been rumours that Tobin was the real 'Bible John' killer, who murdered three young women in Glasgow in 1968-9 - but there is no evidence to prove this.
Tobin has now taken all of these dark secrets to his grave.
An insider told The Sun that Tobin has been at death's door for months.
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He was admitted to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh from HMP Edinburgh after falling ill in April of this year.
This came just two months after another trip to the hospital over his health issues in February.
Tobin has been at the centre of a string of reported health scares over the past decade.
In January 2019 it was reported that he was too frail to leave his cell after being struck down by cancer.
And in February 2016 he was taken to the Royal Infirmary by ambulance after he reportedly collapsed in his cell.
Tobin was also slashed in the face with a razor blade during what was said to be a prison attack back in 2015, leaving him with an 8in scar.
This story is being updated.
Angelika, Dinah and Vicky: The tragic victims of Peter Tobin
Tobin (above) was handed life terms for all three murders in separate trials
Until the body of Polish student Angelika Kluk was found in 2006, under the floorboards of a Glasgow church where Tobin worked as a handyman, his most serious offence was believed to have been the 1994 rape of two young girls, for which he received a 14-year jail term.
After his arrest for Angelika's murder, police began probing Tobin's earlier life and found the bodies of Vicky Hamilton and Dinah McNicol in a shallow grave in his former home in Margate, Kent.
Hitchhiker Dinah had just finished her A-levels in 1991 and was hitching with a man she had befriended at a music festival.
Thrice-married Tobin, a father of two, had been visiting his son in Portsmouth and picked them up.
He dropped the man off near the M25 and no one saw Dinah again.
Tobin's looks and car matched the description provided by Miss McNicol's friend of the man who had given them a lift.
Her body was found bound and gagged a few feet from another teenage victim, Vicky Hamilton, who had been snatched in Bathgate, Lothian, as she headed home, also in 1991.
Vicky's body had been cut in half - probably to make it easier to transport from Scotland. Both bodies were wrapped in rubbish sacks which had Tobin's fingerprints.
The remains of Miss Hamilton and Miss McNicol were found to contain traces of an anti-depressant that can cause drowsiness and dizziness.
He was handed life terms for all three murders in separate trials.
Police set up Operation Anagram in 2006 to see if they could connect Tobin with hundreds of other unsolved crimes, though the investigations were wound down in 2011.
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