On Monday 17 September 1956, at her usual time of 8.45am, 57-year-old daily help Mrs. Helen Collison made her way around the side of 5 Fennsbank Avenue, High Burnside, Lanarkshire, Scotland, to the back door.
Number 5 was a small, neatly-kept bungalow owned by William and Marion Watt. William Watt, aged 52, was a master baker by trade and owned a large bakery in Glasgow. His wife had recently undergone a heart operation and was still not fully recovered. Mr Watt felt that he badly needed a holiday, so despite his wife's illness he had gone off on 9 September, alone except for his Labrador dog Queenie, on a fishing holiday to Argyll. His 16-year-old daughter Vivienne and Marion's sister, 42-year-old Margaret Brown, were looking after his wife in his absence.
Mrs. Collison had noticed that all the curtains were still drawn, and when she reached the back door she found it locked instead of being open, as it usually was at that time of day. She knocked twice, but received no reply. Then she made her way back round to the front of the bungalow, calling out to Mrs. Watt at each curtained window, but without success.
Nobody stirring
As she passed Vivienne's room, she saw that the window was slightly open. She prized it open a little more until a window lock stopped her from opening it further, but this was enough for her to be able to see inside. She could make out the shape of the bed, and what she thought was a figure at the foot of the bed. But still she could make no-one hear her.
Mrs. Collison then walked round to the front door, intending to ring the bell, but when she reached it she saw that the glass panel above the lock had been smashed. She looked through the hole and noticed that every door inside the bungalow was open, which was unusual. She shouted to Mrs. Watt again, without success.
Thinking that there might have been a burglary, Mrs. Collison went to one of the neighbors’ homes and told the woman what she had discovered. They both returned to No. 5 and tried knocking again. Then the postman joined them, out his hand through the broken pane of glass and slipped back the door catch. Mrs. Collison brushed past and made her way to the bedroom, where she thought she might find Mrs. Watt.
The sight that met her eyes made her cry out. In the curtained room were the bodies of Mrs. Watt and her sister in bed, and both pillows were soaked in blood.
Daughter dies
Bravely, Mrs. Collison went to young Vivienne's bedroom. Pushing open the door, she made another grim discovery. Vivienne was also lying in bed, her head on a bloodstained pillow. As Mrs. Collison approached, the girl gave out a spine-chilling groan and died before her eyes.
Police were at the scene within minutes. They soon established that all three victims had been shot by a .38-calibre revolver, and at point-blank range. There did not, however, seem to be any motive for the killings as there was no evidence of robbery or of sexual assault. But for some reason food had been scattered over the floor.
The pathologist confirmed that Vivienne had only recently died. He found a bruise on the left side of her chin and a bullet wound on the outer side of her left eye. Mrs. Watt had a bullet wound on the outer side of her right eye, and Mrs. Brown had wounds under her right eye and one on the side of her head. All the gunshot wounds were surrounded by powder burns, proving that the shots had been fired at close range.
The officer in charge, Superintendent Andrew McClure, also noted that Vivienne's body was in an unnatural position, with her right arm behind her back. Clothing found on the floor had been torn, and her wrist-watch had stopped at 2.52. There was a broken lamp base and pieces of light bulb and buttons on the floor, and also a button on the bed.
There had been two other break-ins in the area. One, the previous evening, had occurred just before midnight at 18 Fennsbank Avenue, a few houses away from the Watts's. Money and jewelry had been stolen, soup had been poured from tins on to the carpet and shoe marks left on the bedding. The other incident happened the night before that, on 15 September, at a house in nearby Bothwell. There too food had been scattered and footprints left at the scene.
Suspicion, both for the burglaries and the murders, immediately fell on a local man, Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel, who was well known to the police for theft and sexual offences. He had started out as a lone operator, but had recently teamed up with other local burglars.
Detective Chief Superintendent Hendry of the Lanarkshire CID was put in charge of the investigation. Within 24 hours of the grim discoveries he had arranged for a search warrant to be issued to gain access to Manuel's home in Birkenshaw, Oddington, and by 2am on 18 September police were banging on the door of the house where Manuel lived with his parents.
But Manuel refused to answer any of their questions. His clothes were inspected and the house searched, but no evidence was found, and the police were forced to leave empty-handed.
Police then turned their attention to another suspect, William Watt. He was staying in the Cairnbaan Hotel in Lochgilphead, about 85 miles outside Glasgow. Police broke the news of the murders to him there and arranged for him to be brought home.
The proprietress of the hotel, Mrs. Leitch, said William Watt had arrived on 9 September and that she had seen him at midnight on Sunday 16 September in the hotel. He had told her he wanted to go fishing before breakfast the next day, so she gave him the kitchen alarm clock. Watt had remained with Mrs. Leitch, her husband and another couple until about 12.30pm and he was seen again just after eight the following morning.
The police theorized that he could have driven home that night, committed the murders and arrived back at the hotel in time for breakfast: the journey time would be about two hours 15 minutes, and an experienced police driver took 11 minutes less than that to do the journey. But there had been a very heavy mist at Lochgilphead on the night of the murder, and this would have made the journey much longer.
Despite this apparent alibi, the police were still not happy with Watt's story, and when they heard there were rumors of him having had a mistress in the past they decided to pursue their enquiries. They found a ferry master and a motorist who had seen a man of Mr Watt's description on the Renfrew ferry on the night of the murder. This seemed to point to Watt once more: the ferry ride made an ideal short cut across the Clyde. Watt was put on an identity parade, and both witnesses picked him out as the man they had seen.
Husband’s apparent calm
The matter was clinched in the minds of the police when the sergeant who had driven Watt part of the way home from the hotel reported to his seniors that the bereaved man had seemed anything but grief-stricken during the journey. Watt was arrested and charged with the three murders, and on 22 September was taken to Glasgow's Barlinnie Prison.
On 2 October Peter Manuel was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment for the attempted burglary of a colliery office. He too was sent to Barlinnie, where he met up with Watt and goaded him that he knew the identity of the real killer of his wife, daughter and sister-in-law. On 8 October Manuel also wrote to Watt's solicitor, Laurence Dowdall, asking him to visit him in prison, as he had information 'of mutual advantage'. Intrigued, Dowdall went to see Manuel on 10 October. Manuel told him details of the crime that he said had been obtained from the killer.
Dowdall knew these details had not been published in any newspaper reports, and was convinced that the reason Manuel knew them was that he himself was the killer. When confronted, Manuel denied it but refused to reveal the name of the real killer.
Dowdall told the police about his meetings with Manuel and they interviewed him too, but he refused to co-operate or answer any questions. Then an informant told them that Manuel had obtained a gun a week before the murders, and they began to suspect that Watt might not be their man after all. They searched Manuel's home once more, but again nothing suspicious was found. Meanwhile, William Watt was released from prison, after 67 days in custody, on 3 December 1956. Nearly a year later, on 30 November 1957, Peter Manuel was also released.
The police enquiry seemed to have stalled. But Chief Superintendent Hendry had strong reasons for suspecting Peter Manuel to be a killer. He cast his mind back to another murder early the previous year, nine months before the murder of Mrs. Watt and her daughter and sister.
On 2 January 1956 17-year-old Anne Knielands had left her home on the Calderwood Estate near East Kilbride at 6.40pm to walk to a nearby farm, where she was planning to catch a bus to go to a dance in the town. She had arranged to meet her boyfriend, Andrew Murnin, an ambulance driver, when she got off the bus at about 7pm. But he went to a party with friends instead, and failed to turn up.
Anne's parents had been out visiting friends that evening, and when they got home Anne had not returned. They sat up waiting for her, but by the early hours of the morning they decided she had probably stayed the night with friends. But 24 hours later she had still not returned, and they reported her missing.
Anne’s body was discovered at 3pm that day by a 48-year-old laborer named George Gribbon. He had been walking alongside the fifth fairway of East Kilbride golf course looking for golf balls and was horrified to find a woman's body, her head savagely beaten. Gribbon ran back towards the road and raised the alarm with some Gas Board engineers who were working nearby.
Police gather evidence
Police put the time of death as being 36 hours before the discovery. Pieces of skull were found nearby, and blood was discovered on the gate leading to the golf course. The girl's clothing had been ruffled up, indicating that she had perhaps been pulled across the ground. Her underclothes had been interfered with but, although semen stains were found on her clothing, she had not been sexually assaulted. A belt from her coat and a wristwatch were found nearby. So too were her headscarf, an earring and a French coin. Her left stocking and shoes were missing. The shoes were found later in the mud, one on each side of a deep ditch that separated the golf course from a plantation.
A bus conductress told police that Anne had travelled on her bus. Another witness, 68-year-old Hugh Marshall, said that while taking his dog for a walk he had heard a couple of yells coming from the direction of the golf course at between 8.40 and 8.50pm. He was unable to say whether they had come from a man or a woman.
Then the police got a break. The foreman of the Gas Board work gang reported that one of his men had a scratched face. The man was convicted rapist Peter Manuel.
Tell-tale scratches
Chief Superintendent Hendry interviewed Manuel on 12 January, and Manuel said he had received the scratches in a New Year's Eve fight. On the evening of 2 January, he had been at home, and his father later confirmed this. Manuel's clothes were also examined, but nothing incriminating was found, and the police were forced to release him.
With Manuel under suspicion for four killings, but the police unable to prove anything against him, the Knielands and Watt murder files remained open, with no progress being made. Then came another spate of killings.
On Sunday 29 December 1957, at 10am, Mr William Cooke of Carrick Drive, Mount Vernon, walked into his local police station and reported that his 17-year-old daughter Isabelle had not returned from a Saturday night dance.
Police made the usual enquiries and searched the local area, which included the banks of the River Calder. The following day a shoe, a handbag and other personal possessions were found in a flooded colliery shaft, and were identified as belonging to Isabelle.
Detective Inspector John Wray, in charge of the investigation, was advised to liaise with Chief Inspector William Muncie, Hendry's assistant who was still investigating the Anne Knielands murder.
Then, on Monday 6 January 1958, three people were found dead at 38 Sheepburn Road, Uddingston. They were Peter Smart, his wife Doris and their son Michael, aged 11. They had been due to visit an old friend, William McManus, in Dumbarton on New Year's Eve, but had not arrived. What was even more unusual was that they had not telephoned to wish him a Happy Hogmanay either.
McManus went to their bungalow on 3 January, but, receiving no reply, left a signed message on the door that read 'Happy New Year 5.45pm'. Two of Mr Smart's work colleagues had also visited his home, on 6 January, after he had failed to return to work after the New Year break. They too received no reply.
Police broke into the bungalow at 11am that day after the family's car had been found abandoned in Glasgow. All three members of the family had been shot in the head. A bullet was found on a bloodstained pillow under Peter Smart's head. In the child's room there was blood on the walls and bedclothes and a bullet was found in the pillow. There was no sign of disorder in the house, but in the kitchen they found an open tin of salmon. The time of the murders was put at early on New Year's Day.
Enquiries at neighboring houses revealed that over the five days that the family had lain dead the curtains had been opened and closed several times and lights had been switched on and off. A neighbor said the curtains were closed on the Friday and that the windows were open that day but closed on Saturday. She also noticed after a few days that the garage doors were open and the family car was missing. The killer had obviously stayed in the house or returned on several occasions.
Manuel questioned again
Chief Inspector Muncie recalled a case 11 years earlier, when a house had been burgled and he had caught the culprit returning to the scene of the crime. That culprit had been Peter Manuel. He decided to pull Manuel in for questioning.
Another incident came to Muncie's attention. Two days earlier, a Mr and Mrs. McMunn had been woken at about 5.45am in their home in Uddingston when a man had appeared at their bedroom door. Mr McMunn, thinking quickly shouted to his wife, 'Where's the gun?' and the man fled. On 13 January, while Peter Manuel languished in his cell, police paid another visit to his home. They found a Kodak camera in a sideboard and gloves in an upstairs bedroom, both of which had been stolen from a house in Mount Vernon. Manuel's father Samuel, however, said that he had bought them at a local market. He was arrested and charged with receiving stolen goods.
Whether or not it was his father's arrest that jolted Peter Manuel into coming clean will remain unknown, but on 15 January he told police that if his father were released, he would make some admissions. 'Bring my father and mother here,' he said. ‘After I have made a clean breast with them I will clear up everything for you and take you to where the girl Cooke is buried.' Turning down his right to a solicitor, he started to write a confession to killing the Smarts, Isabelle Cooke, Anne Knielands and the three women in the Watt household. Manuel's parents were present during these confessions. Samuel Manuel was returned to prison, but charges against him were soon dropped.
Towards midnight on the day of his confessions, Peter Manuel took police to a ploughed field in Mount Vernon and told them where he had buried Isabelle Cooke. He also showed them where he had thrown a Webley .38-calibre revolver used in the Watt murders, and the Beretta from the Smart murders, into the River Clyde. A piece of iron used to kill Anne Knielands was recovered from the Calder River. When Isabelle Cooke's body was unearthed, she was wearing only a cardigan, suspender belt and nylon stockings. A brassiere was tied tightly around her neck and a head scarf around her face, with the knot tucked into her mouth.
Strong circumstantial evidence
Another valuable piece of evidence was obtained from Mr Henry Platt, a previous neighbor of the Watts. Mr Platt's home had been burgled prior to the killings and the premises ransacked. The Platts had discovered a small hole in a blanket and bedspread on their bed and a large hole and long slit in the mattress. The following year they had moved, and Mrs. Platt had found a bullet and a wristwatch she had mislaid tucked into the mattress slit. Firearms experts were able to prove that the bullet, a .38-calibre, had been fired from the gun used in the Watt family murders. Manuel was the main suspect for the burglary, and this pointed to him being the owner of the murder weapon.
Peter Manuel’s trial, for eight murders and several thefts, opened at Glasgow High Court on Monday 12 May 1958. Manuel pleaded not guilty to all charges against him, and claimed that the Watt murders had been committed by William Watt. He also said he had been at home, with five other people, at the time of the killings. Two rings, four pairs of nylons and six shillings alleged to have been stolen by him had in fact been stolen, he said, by Charles Tallis and Mrs. Mary Bowes.
In all, 169 witnesses were called. When all the evidence had been heard, Manuel spoke to the jury without notes for 150 minutes and presented a complex list of alibis. He tried to convince the jury that his confessions had been extracted from him by police using threats that made him fear for his family's safety.
Skillful defense
Before the jury retired to consider their verdict, the judge said: 'The accused has presented his own defense with a skill that is quite remarkable.’ He also directed them to return a verdict of not guilty to the charge of murdering Anne Knielands, as there was no evidence to substantiate the charge.
The jury had not been swayed by Manuel’s eloquence. They unanimously found him guilty of all charges, and on 30 May 1958 he was sentenced to death for seven murders.
The date of his hanging, set for 19 June, was set back when Manuel appealed. But the hearing, on 24 June at the Scottish Criminal Appeal Court, was unsuccessful, and he was hanged at Barlinnie Prison on 11 July 1958. □
Born bad
Peter Manuel was born in New York City in 1927, and spent the first five years of his life there and in Detroit. But when his father Samuel was laid off in the Depression, the family moved back to Scotland from where they had emigrated early in the 1920s.
When Peter was 10 the family moved to Coventry. He was a small, solitary boy, whose American accent made him stand out from his contemporaries. He had no friends.
Peter Manuel's first recorded crime came in 1938, when as an 11-year-old he stole the offertory from a local chapel. This was the first of many crimes: a string of thefts and burglaries meant that Manuel spent most of his teenage years in reform schools, Borstals and prison.
Burglary and assault
At the age of 15, while on the run from Borstal, Manuel battered a woman with a hammer while burgling her house. Not long afterwards he committed his first indecent assault.
The family home in Coventry was destroyed by German bombers, so after the war the Manuels moved to Scotland. Peter joined them after he was released from Borstal training, but was soon back to his old ways.
While on bail awaiting trial on 15 burglary charges, he committed two indecent assaults and a rape. In court the 19-year-old conducted his own defense, but in spite of his intelligent, articulate argument he was sent to prison for eight years.
On being released in 1953 he immediately returned to a life of crime, and one of his trademarks was scattering food over the floors of homes he burgled.
Manuel's story
Peter Manuel told William Watt’s solicitor, Laurence Dowdall, that on the night before the murders he had been asked by a man to accompany him on a housebreaking expedition in High Burnside. Manuel said he had declined. The following day the man had told him that he had broken into the house and shot three women. Dowdall was not convinced that Manuel was telling the truth and arranged a second meeting. During this he suggested to Manuel that the information he had given previously had been obtained from a newspaper. Manuel strongly denied this, and volunteered even more information about what the killer was supposed to have told him.
‘Shot in the head’
'There were two women in bed. One of them sat up and he shot her in the head. The other sat up and he did the same thing. But, he said, the second woman was not dead and the man fired a second bullet into her head. He left that room and a girl came running out and he struck her on the chin with his fist, knocking her out. he then tied her hands behind her back and put her in the bed. He went through the house then and did a bit of ransacking, then... going into the girl’s bedroom found the girl had revived, and he shot her in the head.’
Peter Manuel served his 18 months' imprisonment and was released on 30 November 1957. Just before his release he wrote to William Watt’s solicitor and asked for another meeting, this time with Watt present as well. Dowdall, obviously keen to establish the identity of the real killer despite his client’s current freedom, agreed, and the meeting took place on 3 December, exactly one year after Watt himself had been freed.
Naming the killer?
Manuel now named the killer as one Charles Tallis. He said Tallis, a woman and another man arranged to blow open the safe of a house near the Watts’s bungalow, where they believed £10,000 was kept. But they broke into the Watts’s home in error, and shot the women. Tallis had then given the gun to Manuel, who had thrown it into the River Clyde. Watt, however, was not impressed. He still believed Manuel to have been in the house, but again Manuel denied this.
Ultimate power
Peter Manuel was not into burglary for the money. He felt very much at home alone and in the dark, and seemed to enjoy the thrill of crime more than anything else. Above all, he liked being noticed and talked about, and would occasionally return to the scene to see the police activity.
Basically a psychopathic personality, Manuel may have turned to murder out of the sense of power it gave him - the ultimate power of life and death over his chosen victims.
Manuel's Victims
Marion and Vivienne Watt
Marion Watt, her daughter Vivienne and sister Margaret Brown were found dead on 17 September 1956. Marion, seen here with Vivienne a few years before the murders, had suffered from heart trouble, but recent surgery had produced a dramatic improvement in her condition. Vivienne was 16 years old at the time of her death, and still at school.
Anne Knielands
Seventeen-year-old Anne Knielands was found dead on a golf course some nine months before the Burnside murders. At first her death had not been connected with those of the Watt family; she had been battered to death in the open, and they had been shot in their own home. But one link in the two cases was a possible suspect. The man who discovered Anne's body had gone for help to a nearby Gas Board work gang. Among the workmen was Peter Manuel, who had already served jail sentences for sexual assault and rape.
Isabelle Cooke
In December 1957, two years after the Watt family murder, pretty Isabelle Cooke was on her way to a dance near her home in Mount Vernon, south of Glasgow, when she disappeared. No trace of the 17-year-old was found, and the police began to suspect that she had been murdered.
Smart family
Eight days after Isabelle Cooke was reported missing, three more bodies were found in nearby Uddingston. Civil engineer Peter Smart, his wife Doris and their 11-year-old son Michael had each been shot through the head at point-blank range. Chief Inspector William Muncie immediately suspected Peter Manuel, who had recently been released from prison after serving 18 months for a burglary.
Another murder?
Had the appeal been successful and had Manuel got off on all the charges, police from County Durham were waiting to rearrest him as he left court and charge him with the murder of Sidney Dunn, a Newcastle taxi driver. Dunn had been hired at 4.30 am on 7 December 1957 outside Newcastle-upon-Tyne railway station, and his body was found the following day near Edmundbyers, 20 miles away, on a lonely moorland road. He was lying 140 yards from his cab and had been shot with a .38 bullet and his throat cut. It was known that Manuel had been in Newcastle that day.
