Post by Elly on Nov 8, 2005 10:18:29 GMT 10
'Callous' beast who rattled Scotland
IAIN LUNDY
WHEN the body of Peter Manuel swung from the gallows in Barlinnie Prison on 11 July 1958, Glasgow and much of Scotland breathed a long sigh of relief. The reign of terror caused by one of the most "callous" and psychopathic killers in British criminal history was at an end.
Manuel was hanged at the age of 31, convicted of the murders of seven people. Many who were closely connected with his case believe the true total could be as high as 15, putting him in the serial killer league table above the 13 murders linked to the Yorkshire Ripper. He displayed a brutality and viciousness that was truly shocking, even in 1950s Glasgow where gangland feuds, bungled robberies and pub fights often ended in death.
There was something chillingly different about Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel. He was no gangster; he just seemed to kill for the sake of killing. None of his victims had any connection with him; they simply appeared to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. On two occasions he blasted three people to death inside their homes. Middle-aged men and women, teenage girls, a young boy, Manuel did not discriminate. If they got in his way, then he killed them. By the beginning of 1958 people in the west were locking their doors, genuinely fearing a madman was on the loose.
When he was captured in January, hardened police officers were struck by Manuel's audacity and complete indifference to the horrific fate of his victims. When he took authorities to the spot where he had buried the body of 17-year-old Isabella Cooke, he told them: "This is the place. In fact, I think I'm standing on her now."
After gunning down Peter Smart, his wife Doris and their ten-year-old son Michael at their home in Uddingston, Lanarkshire, on New Year's Day 1958, Manuel returned to the house several times. He helped himself to the festive leftovers and fed the family cat. He even drove Mr Smart's car, once giving a uniformed policeman a lift to his office. Ironically, the officer was involved in the search for Cooke. Manual casually told him he thought police were looking in the wrong place.
There were early signs of antisocial behaviour in Manuel, he was what the authorities termed a juvenile delinquent at school, and as he progressed up the criminal ladder so too the atrocity of his actions intensified. Born in 1927 in New York into a family of Scottish immigrants who returned to the UK when Manuel was five, he spent most of his young life in Coventry.
He was first arrested for burglary at the age of 12 and spent the next three years in and out of reform school. His first spell in jail came when he was 16 for the sexual assault of a school employee. Now a habitual offender he served further sentences for housebreaking and rape.
By this time his family had moved to Birkenshaw, in the east end of Glasgow, and between his release from prison in 1953 and his capture five years later, he embarked on his killing spree. In 1956 he was questioned but not charged over the death of 17-year-old Anne Kneilands, whose body was found battered to death on the fifth fairway at East Kilbride Golf Course. Manuel later confessed to this brutal killing although his trial judge ordered the jury to find him not guilty.
In September the bodies of Marion Watt, 45, her 16-year-old daughter Vivienne, and sister Margaret Brown, 41, were discovered by a postman at a house in the High Burnside section of Glasgow. All had been shot through the head. Watt's husband, William, a baker who owned a string of shops, had been on a fishing trip. Again Manuel was questioned but he was such a convincing liar that suspicion fell on William, who spent two months in jail before police were certain of his innocence.
A period of respite followed as Manuel served a jail sentence for breaking into a local colliery. Then on 29 December 1957, Cooke, who had set out to meet her boyfriend at a dance the previous night, was reported missing. Four days later - on New Year's Day - he shot dead members of the Smart family. It was six days before they were found.
Police caught Manuel when they discovered that the serial numbers of banknotes he had used to pay for drinks in his local pub had been paid to Mr Smart before the New Year holiday. He led investigators to Cooke's body, near the Garrowhill Brickworks in Glasgow. At his trial Manuel skilfully conducted his own defence – although not skilfully enough to satisfy the judge of Manuel's insanity plea.
Lord Cameron, the trial judge, would write: "I saw no sign indicative to a layman of any illness or abnormality beyond callousness, selfishness and treachery in high degree, but I did form the impression that he was even then laying the foundation of a suggestion that he might in the end of the day be presented not as a criminal, but as one in need of medical care."
Manuel was sentenced to hang for the murders of seven people.
On the day of his execution, the last in Glasgow's notorious history, it was as though a black cloud of terror - in the true sense of the word - had been lifted from the west of Scotland.
On the gallows he showed the same disregard for his own life as those of his victims. His last words were, "Turn up the radio and I'll go quietly."
heritage.scotsman.com/myths.cfm?id=2190612005
IAIN LUNDY
WHEN the body of Peter Manuel swung from the gallows in Barlinnie Prison on 11 July 1958, Glasgow and much of Scotland breathed a long sigh of relief. The reign of terror caused by one of the most "callous" and psychopathic killers in British criminal history was at an end.
Manuel was hanged at the age of 31, convicted of the murders of seven people. Many who were closely connected with his case believe the true total could be as high as 15, putting him in the serial killer league table above the 13 murders linked to the Yorkshire Ripper. He displayed a brutality and viciousness that was truly shocking, even in 1950s Glasgow where gangland feuds, bungled robberies and pub fights often ended in death.
There was something chillingly different about Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel. He was no gangster; he just seemed to kill for the sake of killing. None of his victims had any connection with him; they simply appeared to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. On two occasions he blasted three people to death inside their homes. Middle-aged men and women, teenage girls, a young boy, Manuel did not discriminate. If they got in his way, then he killed them. By the beginning of 1958 people in the west were locking their doors, genuinely fearing a madman was on the loose.
When he was captured in January, hardened police officers were struck by Manuel's audacity and complete indifference to the horrific fate of his victims. When he took authorities to the spot where he had buried the body of 17-year-old Isabella Cooke, he told them: "This is the place. In fact, I think I'm standing on her now."
After gunning down Peter Smart, his wife Doris and their ten-year-old son Michael at their home in Uddingston, Lanarkshire, on New Year's Day 1958, Manuel returned to the house several times. He helped himself to the festive leftovers and fed the family cat. He even drove Mr Smart's car, once giving a uniformed policeman a lift to his office. Ironically, the officer was involved in the search for Cooke. Manual casually told him he thought police were looking in the wrong place.
There were early signs of antisocial behaviour in Manuel, he was what the authorities termed a juvenile delinquent at school, and as he progressed up the criminal ladder so too the atrocity of his actions intensified. Born in 1927 in New York into a family of Scottish immigrants who returned to the UK when Manuel was five, he spent most of his young life in Coventry.
He was first arrested for burglary at the age of 12 and spent the next three years in and out of reform school. His first spell in jail came when he was 16 for the sexual assault of a school employee. Now a habitual offender he served further sentences for housebreaking and rape.
By this time his family had moved to Birkenshaw, in the east end of Glasgow, and between his release from prison in 1953 and his capture five years later, he embarked on his killing spree. In 1956 he was questioned but not charged over the death of 17-year-old Anne Kneilands, whose body was found battered to death on the fifth fairway at East Kilbride Golf Course. Manuel later confessed to this brutal killing although his trial judge ordered the jury to find him not guilty.
In September the bodies of Marion Watt, 45, her 16-year-old daughter Vivienne, and sister Margaret Brown, 41, were discovered by a postman at a house in the High Burnside section of Glasgow. All had been shot through the head. Watt's husband, William, a baker who owned a string of shops, had been on a fishing trip. Again Manuel was questioned but he was such a convincing liar that suspicion fell on William, who spent two months in jail before police were certain of his innocence.
A period of respite followed as Manuel served a jail sentence for breaking into a local colliery. Then on 29 December 1957, Cooke, who had set out to meet her boyfriend at a dance the previous night, was reported missing. Four days later - on New Year's Day - he shot dead members of the Smart family. It was six days before they were found.
Police caught Manuel when they discovered that the serial numbers of banknotes he had used to pay for drinks in his local pub had been paid to Mr Smart before the New Year holiday. He led investigators to Cooke's body, near the Garrowhill Brickworks in Glasgow. At his trial Manuel skilfully conducted his own defence – although not skilfully enough to satisfy the judge of Manuel's insanity plea.
Lord Cameron, the trial judge, would write: "I saw no sign indicative to a layman of any illness or abnormality beyond callousness, selfishness and treachery in high degree, but I did form the impression that he was even then laying the foundation of a suggestion that he might in the end of the day be presented not as a criminal, but as one in need of medical care."
Manuel was sentenced to hang for the murders of seven people.
On the day of his execution, the last in Glasgow's notorious history, it was as though a black cloud of terror - in the true sense of the word - had been lifted from the west of Scotland.
On the gallows he showed the same disregard for his own life as those of his victims. His last words were, "Turn up the radio and I'll go quietly."
heritage.scotsman.com/myths.cfm?id=2190612005
