Peter Manuel: The Beast of Birkenshaw (Part 1) | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is [Music] morbid this is more mid I forget what I
was going to say I had something to say at the beginning of this one I was actually going to sing it and it was
like a song about recording but then I forgot it you know what happens yeah sorry it's windy out and maybe it we're
not outside but maybe the wind just blew it right out of your brain I didn't know
where you were going I know I'm looking wind out and you know we're not outside I was like where are we going like she
right over there like oh we lost her oh There She Goes the wind took her but then I was like ah wind blowing mind
even though we're not outside no but it was thundering earlier I know only very quickly it just gave a little Rumble
Rumble yeah I didn't check the uh the radar so I don't know I don't think anything's coming in don't say that well
I'd like to say that tonight because I'd like to have a fire I want I want Thunder don't you want to drink Mo
Thunder oh rainfor cter to start in 31 minutes oh okay so maybe we'll get in a thunderstorm everybody it's a little
scatter a little scatter not a lot so we can still do our fire and little I got stuff to make um mocktail padas I love
that so fancy F SWA and swwa exactly I love that so much I love it well today we're going to be doing um part one of a
Tata a t a tup because there's just a lot of information you know there's a lot of stuff going on in this all right
all right but when I tell you just um it really hits you over the it just like boom get you right from the get-go it's
like hillbilly moment hits you over the head with a pineapp B there you go it's a it's everybody remembers that right
from the show Hill Billy moment and it yeah and she'd be like I'm going to hit you with
a pineapple yeah it was hilarious I love that show I want Amanda bines to do well
she's doing pretty well she I hope she thrives I really do I think she passed her nail test and she's I think she's
going to open up her own space I just like I'm starting to see cuz like she has like Tik Tok and and she comes
across my feed and every once in a while I'm like I feel like I can see like a little bit of the light come back when
she talks about stuff like that that she's like excited about and I'm like she's one of those people that you're
just like you know you're rooting for I'm rooting for yeah it's like Lindsay Lohan she looks [ __ ] incredible
lately she looks amazing in in a lightness way too like a light is coming like a light is like back at her that
was there and then like turned off for a little while and now it's back and she's
here now yeah we're getting a Freaky Friday pot too I love it with Jam Lee Curtis it's all it's all happening again
I'm like let's go back to that time let's do this I know it let's have Amanda bines thriving let's have lindzy
Lohan right back at it again go back to the early as but make it non-toxic exactly let them Thrive and just be who
they is I agree let's do so let's all root for them you know why not nobody's rooting for anyone anymore let's root
for people let's do I love rooting for people I'm rooting for you what's in for you thanks so today we're going to be
talking about Peter Manuel who is known as the Beast of birkenshaw that sounds terrifying yes uh he's terrifying and he
is one of Scotland's worst serial killers oh [ __ ] um yeah and he's he's one of Scotland's he's known as one of
Scotland's like very first like known worst serial killers too okay um so we're going to begin this happened
way back we're going to start in like the 50s here 19 or 18 1950s thank you for making me clarify cu no problem
could have been either with me I was going to say with you you never know you never know so on the evening of December
30th 1955 17-year-old Anne neand and her sister Alice so an and Alice oh cute I love the literation right they went to a
dance at the Glen Le Social Club in East killbride which was a neighborhood in East lenar Shear I looked up how to
pronounce that um I love the idea of a dance at a social club in the ' 50s yeah sign me right the fu doesn't that just
feel yes so wholesome I give me a poodle skirt or you know or else or else yeah or you know like or bust poodle skirts
are bust dances at Social Clubs in the 50s are bust and this and as we go like obviously this is going to turn out very
tragic just so you know ahead of time um but the it's morbid but there like the leadup to this you're just like oh sh
like an was just like having a quintessential 50s gal experience you know what I mean like young gal just
like going out to a social club to dance meeting a young Soldier on leave kind of
thing like it's one of those okay so while she was there um nean and nean met Andrew mnin who was a young Soldier on
leave uh he was um and they they hit it off immediately they just really got along and after spending the whole night
at the dance together the two of them made a date to see each other again a few days later on January 2nd now their
plan was that they were going to meet together at the KA rig Farm bus terminal and so the problem here so they were all
excited they leave blah everything's fine the problem here though was that Andrew Merin had been drinking heavily
that night oh he was very drunk and later he said he claimed that he actually had no recollection of making
this date with an wow um he said like it's not that I wouldn't have I just didn't remember that I had done it which
it's like oh that's that just makes sense yeah it's just like oh man so an however was
unaware that Andrew had no recollection of making this date so Anne went to the bus stop a little after 6:00 p.m. the
day they had plan to meet up and waited for him to show up uh he hadn't shown up
by 6:30 p.m. so she wed walked down the road a little bit and she went and visited some family friends The Simpsons
she was like whatever I'll just go hang out with them yeah let me do something so they chatted The Simpsons cut you
know chatted with Anne for about 15 20 minutes and then she caught the 6:45 p.m. bus back to East Kilbride she was
very frustrated that Andrew had stood her up she assumed had stood her up yeah and you know she was a little annoyed
rightfully so and actually later when um when the bus driver was questioned by police the bus driver said that she
remember seeing an on the bus and she specifically remembered that she seemed very irritated and put out so she was
just like [ __ ] this guy yeah now Ann got off the bus at the Willow Cafe which was
a popular hangout for teenagers and killbride like they would all just kind of like hang out have a cup of coffee
kind of thing nice and when the bus driver passed the stop about a half hour later she said she could have sworn she
saw Anne in the crowd outside the cafe she just recognized her but that was the last time anyone would ever be able to
report seeing an K and neand Alive oh now at the time an was 17 years old she was out of high school she was working a
full-time job like she was really she had a whole life um so she did live at home with her parents but her parents
were trying to be like kind of respectful of her autonomy at this point cuz she was a good kid like she was
responsible she had it together had fulltime job they believed you know they could give her a little bit of I don't
need to be on top you I don't need to know where you are at every given moment I'm trying to let you be like an
independent woman here yeah that must be so hard exactly oh I can't imagine but that's why when Anne didn't return home
that night they thought maybe she just stayed with a friend maybe she was and she would be back the following day yeah
she relable yeah but she didn't come back the next day and this is when they got worried and they reported her
missing to the police now then after noon as the local police were taking the report from Anne's parents GE um George
gribben Who was a laborer from East Kilbride he was just having a Leisure moment he was just taking a nice little
walk around the Calderwood golf course which seems like it would be a lovely place to just take a quiet walk on a
morning you know like it's quiet no one's there yet you're not going to run into many people yeah and he said he was
just you know just having a nice casual day and and this is the beginning of his
day oh no and he approaches like um some trees that are near the fifth T and it was just like a collection of trees and
George said he looked over and he saw what he immediately identified as a person laying face down at the base of
one of the trees and he said at first he was like oh my god did someone like trip
and fall or did someone like like pass out drink too much and come and pass out in front of a tree so he moves in closer
to kind of inspect things a little bit and that's when he realized that it was definitely a person lying on the ground
but he said it was very clear that something bad had happened here it was a young woman he could clearly tell and he
said immediately he knew that she had been dragged into the wooded area by her ankles oh God he said her skirt was
pulled above her knees and her coat she was still wearing was disarranged really
rumpled like clearly all of it had shifted while she was being drapped yeah he said he couldn't identify the girl
but he said part of the reason that he couldn't identify the girl was how badly she had been beaten in the face and head
oh um he said there was no doubt in his mind that she was dead he didn't even need to check for a pulse no way imag
ever finding somebody like that I always think of the people who find these crime
scenes and find so scary these murder victims and it's like like what how do you get past that
no I I don't think you do I think that's got to be something that just like with
you yeah yeah like I this is you're and that's why I just made sure you knew like he was starting his day he's just
starting his day with a nice walk walk to kind of clear his head start the day off right yeah that's and this is what
you never think you're going to be walking in a golf course and come across a beaten to death 17-year-old girl
dumped in front of a tree it's just tragic so he immediately ran back to the work site and told the other contractors
what he had found um but assuming that you know he was playing a prank they were like maybe he's just trying to like
start us all off like you know in a crazy way this morning you know a wild way to start your wild and cooky over
here so they were just like shut up George and they just went back to work oh sounds to me like George might be a
little bit of a prankster yeah considering they didn't even come to look but he was frustrated so George ran
to the nearest house he was like [ __ ] you guys if you won't listen to me so he
ran to the near house and he called the police from that house okay good so good
for George I was like when did the police come into play yeah by the time he made it back to where the body was
laying some of the other laborers had decided to come check out what he had said and they had gathered around the
body just as the first officers were arriving oh man so the area had to be cordoned off obviously and investigators
started assessing the entire scene um it became pretty obvious to them like right
away what had happened because Footprints were leading from the golf course to where the body was laying oh
and it indicated that an had actually been chased by whoever had killed her oh I [ __ ] hate that so Chas and then she
was dragged into the woods where where she had been sexually assaulted oh no her shoes other personal items were just
scattered all around her uh one shoe was actually embedded in the wall of a nearby ditch what like she had kicked
somehow and it had stuck into the wall oh my God and the other shoe was laying about 70 ft from her so it obviously
came off while she was dragged or in the struggle or when she was running that's
so this is like a horror movie it literally is a horror movie like he's a this person is a horrible person
but a few feet away at the base of a tree the pathologist Andrew Allison identified what he believed to be where
the assault had started sure uh he said the ground was absolutely saturated with
blood and Allison described that there were also human debris found there fragments of bone hair and
tissue what yes so I'll tell you how she how he killed her and it's awful so given the state that the body was found
in her clothes had been torn disarranged the investigating officers naturally immediately assumed that ant
had been sexually assaulted it was confirmed later during her autopsy because that was later that day um but
her attacker had also stolen her underwear before leaving that's such a [ __ ] creepy thing to do yeah her
cause of death death was uh noted as repeated blows to the head with a blunt object they said it was so vicious and
so many hits to her skull that quote The Vault of her head had been destroyed that means the skull cap that means the
thing containing your brain oh had been absolutely destroyed that's a lot and that's where the fragments of bone and
hair and tissue were happening he had literally caved her head in oh my God he's a vicious
when they say the Beast of birkenshaw they are not kidding he's a [ __ ] monster he's a and we're going to get to
it don't worry but somebody should have stopped him a long time before this happened I hate
when that happens he had every single indication that he was going to escalate to something yeah it's really
frustrating there were also cuts and scrapes on an's hands that the pathologist thought could have been from
the barbed wire on the golf course fence like she might have climbed over to get
to try to get away oh God now police officers fanned out across the neighborhood and they canvas door too
but there was really only one neighbor who reported hearing any kind of commotion 36 hours earlier no one else
really saw or heard anything suspicious and unfortunately those who knew an were
really not a lot of help either according to her sister Alice and it's not because they intended to not be a
lot of help what were they going to say like they didn't you don't have anything
she did it's not like and was doing things that they could have been like well she was hanging around this Creek
yeah she wasn't doing anything wrong she was just living her life so an or her sister Alice said an was a pretty girl
with lots of boyfriends she went dancing about once a week but Anne did not tell
me the name of the boy she was going to meet and I didn't inquire oh no because again they didn't really have a reason
to they weren't worried about her right and it's because she was a good responsible G yeah Jean Simpsons who was
um one of the people who she was visiting one of the family friends um she and it was the night she died that
she visited her she also said when she came into the house she was very excited and nervous she didn't talk much but I
can remember her saying she had been in the house over New Year and that she had
missed the 17 15 bus but otherwise neither Jean Simpson nor her husband knew where an was headed after she left
their house that night right cuz she just kind of was like all right I'm off I'm gonna head out see later yeah and
all we know is she stopped at the Willow Cafe now within 24 hours investigators had
found Andrew Merin the young soldier who she was supposed to meet that night and
mnin said yeah I was like super drunk the night that we met I didn't remember making plans with her he felt bad that
he had unintentionally stood her up right well I'm sure now he feels knowing what happened he worse but he offered up
an Albi and so he was quickly ruled out because they can confirm The Alibi right
um many of the other boys and men who hung out at the Willow Cafe were also questioned um a lot of locals were
questioned especially locals with any history of sexual offenses but they all had aliis and they were all crossed off
the list it was they could not find a lead anywhere then on January 4th a patrol
officer stopped by a work site near the crime scene and he stopped there because
he wanted to question a gang of day laborers working for the gas board um so he asked them all like have you know do
you remember that day do you remember seeing anything do you remember hearing anything do you know anybody who has
been acting strange they all denied knowing anything about the murder of an nean um but one man Peter
Manuel appeared to have fresh scratches on his face interesting that were very noticeable and Manuel claimed that he
got the scratches when he was in a fight in Glasgow on New Year's Eve but the officer was like huh they look fresher
than that I don't know about that and he was just like M I don't know those look
like pretty deep pretty like brutal scratches and to this officer they just thought that seems like somebody who was
fighting for their life yeah so later this officer couldn't put this away so he went to the home of Peter Manuel and
Peter Manuel lived with his father and he talked to both of them and Peter Manuel's father confirmed his Alibi for
the night of the murder but the officer said I don't buy it I justo by it something just rang feeling yeah and he
was like I'm not letting it go so he went back and he was able to secure a warrant to go back to that house cuz he
said those scratches they something is matching here and that alibi doesn't make sense and the only person that can
confirm it is his own father who he lives with we have a bit of a bias going on here yeah something's a little off
here and he said something about this guy just doesn't sit right with me so they returned to the house on January
12th with warrant and with this warrant they were able to remove a bunch of items a bunch of clothing from the house
and they also brought Peter to the local Precinct to question him and by that time a foreman at the work site that
Peter Manuel had been the previous week they found what they described as a sonoff pickaxe H handle buried beneath
one of the temporary buildings on the site the [ __ ] and they turned it over to
police cuz they said maybe this is a potential weapon yeah now detectives question Peter for more than 4 hours but
he stuck to his story and his father further said nope I'm verifying his Alibi which I'm like do you feel good
about that yeah um also despite their best efforts to connect Peter to an nean they just couldn't connected there
wasn't a connection that they could find and they couldn't put him at the crime scene like definitively so they had to
let him go they didn't have anything to hold them with they were like that close
now without any evidence or new le and now with this whole thing drying up the nean case just went cold and the
detectives shifted their attention to other stuff going on now investigators in lanarch Shear continued investigate
even though it was like going cold they didn't like shove it you know were doing
their best they continued investigating anan's murder but they weren't getting anything and they really little progress
was being made and to make matters worse in September of that year another horrific crime was committed that ended
up kind of distracting them from the Nan's case on September 9th 1956 William wat packed up his fishing gear and his
dog and left for a nice solo fishing trip in the highlands and when he left he was leaving his wife Maran who I
believe was 40 at the time and their 16-year-old daughter Vivien at home in Burns sign uh lanarch share uh so
because her husband was going to be gone Maran watt invited her sister Margaret to stay with her and Vivian while
William was away on the morning of September 17th 1956 the Watts housekeeper Helen kisan
she came to work a little before 9:00 a.m. and she went open the back door and it was locked which was strange because
she had worked for this the Watts Watts family for a many years so she knew them
very well and they had a very fixed Arrangement that was if viven's Mom was um still asleep when she left left for
school in the morning Vivian would leave the back door unlocked for Helen the housekeeper that makes sense and she's
like so she never didn't do that and like and then she was like oh no what are they sick like did something happen
so Helen walked around the house the outside of the house looking in knocking on the windows and she went along to the
side of the house and she found that a glass panel on the front door had been smashed in oh that's terrifying so
immediately she's like [ __ ] like what is this so she Flags down a passing mailman
named Peter Collier who immediately helped and he put his hand through the glass and unlocked the door damn um
which I was like Peter to the rescue this is good Peter good Peter so once inside he Peter went to the first Peter
colier he went to the first yeah PC not pm he went to the first bedroom he found
and he came across a horrific site oh no he found the bodies of Marian and Margaret the sisters the mom and the
aunt on the again an alliteration Maran and Mar yeah you're right um they were very
obviously Dead uh he said in the bed were two bodies and the bed clothes were covered with blood oh man um they were
laying side by side in the bed it looked like they were sleeping like on their sides oh man and each had a very large
gunshot to their head what the [ __ ] yeah so Peter Co are immediately called the
police from the house phone and while he was waiting for them to come they kind of told him like you know don't don't
leave but they were also like if you see anything else like you know tell us yeah
so he continued looking around he knew some by Helen telling him that there was a daughter that should be in the house
so she was like you need to find her so he continued looking and he found viven in her bed with a similar wound to that
of her mother and Aunt she was still breathing what she was shot in the head and you'll find out she had various
other injuries to her and her story is very it's chilling oh God so she was still alive she was still breathing but
before Emergency Services came she passed away Oh I thought you were going to say she Liv no yeah um from their
initial evaluation of the whole scene detectives thought that the killer probably broke into the house in the
middle of the night by Smashing through that window and unlocking the front door
like reaching it that's [ __ ] so scary and the fact that the dad just happened to be away you have to wonder like was
the killer watching the house I think he was watching oh I hate that and that's even more horrifying it's so scary to
think back and like to think that family was just going about their business and
somebody was watching and waiting prowling I hate that it's it's so chilling it's like a horror movie mhm
now they believed once inside the killer moved quietly to the first bedroom they
found they found Marian and Margaret sharing the bed both women had been shot to the right side of their heads as
though they were asleep when the whole thing happened but Margaret had also been shot in the face just below the
right eye oh wow I wonder if she like woke up if she had been the second person killed yeah they they they're not
sure cuz there were powder burns on the skin of both women as well so that would
indicate that the barrel of the gun was pretty close to their head or against their skin and later the coroner
confirmed that both head wounds would have been immediately fatal so it's likely that nether woman knew what was
happening or felt what was happening or woke up yeah maybe he just shot twice but the investigators also noted that
the the nightclothes of both women were definitely like rumbled and rearranged likely after death though um there were
no signs of sexual assault here but maran's dress had been hiked up to expose her lower half and Margaret's
pajama bottoms had been pulled down so he's doing this as a shame like let me humiliate their dead bodies the [ __ ]
which like you have to be so [ __ ] far [ __ ] to be like messing with dead bodies that you have just killed killed
yeah so from the looks of what happened they believe that the gunshots must have
woken viven right um she was obviously asleep in the other room but she was still in bed with the covers pulled up
to her chin when they found her oh but the room was in disarray they said there was obvious signs of a struggle here
there were clothes other items strewn around the room the furniture was knocked over like a fight had happened
and the killer had stubbed out his cigarettes on the carpet what yeah so just the fact that he hung out and
smoked for a while yeah and stubbed them out on the carpet viven had also been shot in the head at close range but she
had additional injuries including bruising to her face and her pubic area oh god um her arm had also been wrenched
very violently behind her back her brwn underwear had been torn away from her body but she had not been sexually
assaulted that they could find huh in the source um by McLoud that will'll link in the show notes um they say there
was a possibility that she had been tormented and tortured by her attacker before being shot yeah so they believe
she was like tortured and that he was like stubbing out the cigarettes as he was doing this it seems like there was
like a sexual element to that torture if her pubic area was bruised it feels like
there was always a sexual element in it somewhere or another yeah unfortunately like she wasn't sexually assaulted by a
criminal definition but she pretty much was was now the Press came to the scene almost before the investigators did oh
good they were immediately on it um and this got sensationalistic coverage I mean yeah yeah Vivian's friend and Nick
store neighbor Deanna um wasted no time telling the Press how they had been together the previous evening and she
had just narrowly avoided being the fourth victim and she said as I was leaving her
at the front door she jokingly suggested that that I spent the night with her her
mother and Aunt were still up at the time and it's like yeah that's really scary yeah that is scary so for the most
part the neighbors really spoke highly of this entire family they called them very nice people very friendly um one
neighbor told a reporter I'd spoken to the girl once or twice she was very attractive okay and kind yeah and a good
person yeah now while detectives were combing over the scene at the Watt House a neighbor approached them to report
that a a feud door's dead down at another house it seemed like they had also been broken into while the
occupants were away though but they said they saw something happen you imagine coming back to your house to see that
and then to know what happens a few doors down and it looked like the Intruder had gotten into the house by
Smashing the glass panel on the front door oh my God I'm not going to look at my glass panels the same a patrol
officer was sent to check this out and found a scene that was eerily similar to the WT house except no one had died but
did they do the whole cigarette on the carpet I knew someone had broken in they had trashed the house this time they had
dumped canned soup and canned spaghetti all over the floor oh [ __ ] like [ __ ] that who does that and they attract
mud all throughout the house like seemingly on purpose I'm so pissed right now imagine coming home to this I would
be through the roof and then there were a bunch of cigarettes step dumped out in
the carpets it's like a thing and it's like does he know these people that he's attacking and doing this to cuz that's
such a big disrespect it almost feels personal he has no respect for anyone we see he's been an [ __ ] since he was
little fantastic but also one of the beds looked like it had been slept in recently but the homeowners had been
away oh yeah I would I'd be like well we're sell in the house yeah I'd burn the house down I think I'd be like bye
can't look at this ever again oh God but investig initially assumed that the motive for the break-in was robbery but
once the owners had been contacted and came back they confirmed that the only items that were missing were two gold
rings and they weren't worth a lot of money and they said the more expensive items are right out in the open and this
person obviously spent considerable time in this house possibly even slept they didn't take them so so they were just
doing this to be a [ __ ] creep yeah so what they thought was did the Killer of the watt family stay in this house while
these people were gone to watch the watt family oh may wait for the right moment
to strike oh that's on another [ __ ] L ey shot like they could see the watt family
house and they would be able to see their comings and goings what the [ __ ] that's disturbing yes an to like even
just like the the the Breakin it's like how do you ever gain a sense of privacy back oh I always wonder that about it
must be so hard to just how do you go to sleep night how vulnerable you must feel
like you hear about stories like this and you're like oh I'm like afraid to go to sleep tonight you live something like
that and then you just have to like yeah you got to get you got to get through this right you got to get through this
you got to make it got to make it got to make it through like that's how do you like you it would take therapy I feel
definitely like it would take therapy to be able to like work through that definitely I don't know how I would work
through that God now this case received a ton of widespread coverage and it set off like a pretty sizable Panic among
young women and girls in lanarch share especially freaking out um so there was intense pressure to make progress in
this case which is not always great yeah it can work in our favor a little bit but sometimes you get that West Memphis
3 style how confident are you in this case 11 Yik Noe so don't want that so investigators turned to the most likely
suspect in most murder cases and started looking at the dad the husband William wat so they looked at his Alibi they
looked at his background like I was literally on a body of water and he's like of course I was on a solo fishing
trip oh and that looks so sketchy it does so neighbors and uh around and you know like residents in lanar Shear spoke
very highly of this family like I said but they couldn't say something nice about the remaining member of the watt
family while Mar and Vivian were considered very nice people and again I don't think this is William watt's fault
William watt was criticized for being absent on a fishing trip on the Lord's day that was where his downfall went
what an [ __ ] huh and it's like guys fact that people are sanctimonious even when somebody's entire [ __ ] family is
brutally murdered and their home is broken into yeah and in fact and they were criticizing him because he was on
this solo fishing trip so they he had to be tracked down by the Press at the lodge that he was staying at to be
informed that his entire family had been murdered in his house oh by the Press that's how he found out that's horrific
and in the weeks after this William watt would temporarily become the prime suspect because multiple Witnesses
picked him out of a lineup as well and he he's like I live here yeah like what so he was held at barin prison but after
several weeks he was released because the case against him was so questionable and there was nothing there they had
nothing that showed that he would murder his entire family like it just and they
were looking at this other house down the street and they were like so you're telling me that William watt the father
and husband booped down a couple of doors that's the other thing stayed at this house but like that doesn't even
make sense like it's like cuz he wasn't gone for that much time to be even doing
that so it's like how do you explain that was he a smoker that's the thing and it's like how do you explain that
there was this like Lookout clearly like somebody staked out here and obviously he wouldn't have needed to do that he
wouldn't need to so it's like that doesn't make a lot of sense so none of it made sense like they knew they had to
I understand why they went to him first because absolutely 90% of the time that's usually statistics talk um but
according to Hector McLoud to some he was a pathetic victim of outrageous Misfortune to others he was a scheming
villain who was fortunate not to be convicted of murder okay now as in the case of the nean of an
Nan's murder when it came to Alternative suspects Peter Manuel's name was at the
top of the detectives list hey imagine that yeah Manuel had a long criminal history of sexual assault among other
things and many still believed that he was absolutely the guy that was responsible for an Nan's murder right so
he seemed a strong suspect here too because he got away with it but when they questioned Peter about his
whereabouts he presented another strong Alibi which his father said yes absolutely Daddyo we need to talk yep
and they searched his home and they couldn't find anything related to the watt family murders so they said okay I
don't know what to do now Peter Manuel's connection to the watt case could have just ended then and there he had an
alibi they searched his home he nothing nothing no connection they got to let it
go mhm and they did they said all right but then but he just couldn't help involve himself he could have been Scot
free but he couldn't let it go while William watt was still being held at barini on suspicion of murder Manuel
Peter Manuel also became incarcerated at the time for another robbery and they were literally serving time next to each
other wait what so Peter Manuel was serving time next to William watt whose family spoiler alert brutally murder
Peter Emanuel is responsible for murdering holy [ __ ] yeah and so uh apparently Peter Manuel
at that time wrote a letter to William Watts's lawyer saying that he knew that William watt was
innocent and he said I know the man who did it according to Peter a day before the murders he said he'd been asked to
participate in the robbery at the watt home but he declined the invitation oh what a good said no thank you a day
after the murders the same man he said had come back to see him and he said having been afflicted by the horrors
he'd committed against the watt women he asked Manuel to get rid of the gun he'd
used oh okay and Peter Manuel said this was the same man who'd stolen the two rings from the home near the Watts uh
house sorry which it's like you seem to have a whole lot of information huh that's the thing he seemed to know a lot
about these two crimes and a lot about these two crime scenes sure did and although it was he was skeptical about
what Peter Manuel had told him the lawyer uh William wat's lawyer felt it was who knows stranger [ __ ] has happened
so he reported it to the authorities nice in time it became clear that Peter Manuel was angling for an early release
on this robbery conviction and was trying to use this supposed information as a bargaining chip being like it was
me but I know so much about it and it was true that he seemed to know a lot about the murders including several
little details that hadn't really been reported heavily in the Press but they said it was possible though that he had
learned them from maybe some of the papers they weren't heavily reported on these details but he said they were like
it's not impossible that he didn't see it somewhere okay and because after all in addition to his criminal history
Peter Manuel was known to police in lanarch Shear as an actual like a fantastic liar oh man so they were
understandably very skeptical about the report of some unnamed man being the real killer of the watt family yeah but
still if what he said was true they didn't want to be remiss and not just like do their due diligence and follow
it up which I'm glad they did Poli work here yeah so several officers began investigating his claims and they
started with a fullscale raid on Peter's home that he shared with his father damn
his dad's probably like can you get your [ __ ] together and it's also like I bet
you didn't see that coming I think he thought it was going to lead them further away yeah but not so much it
brought them closer oh know he was definitely trying to get that early release by being like look over there
it's some guy go find him but they were like no I think it's you actually and in
addition to William Watts's lawyer Peter seemed to speak openly with anyone about
several crimes including Anne Nan's murder where he wasn't saying he did it he speculated very heavily on the
Killer's identity ah in an interview Peter told reporters I wish to State emphatically that I did not kill any of
these unfortunate people he also publicly demanded that lanarch share police go on record to state that
investigators recent actions quote had no bearing on any murder case whatsoever he wanted them to literally go on record
and say yeah I know we're doing a full-on raid on Peter Manuel's home but it has nothing to do with murder not at
all nothing it's like that would be a lie Peter now although some members of the police force suspected Peter Manuel
of definitely being involved in the neeland and Watt cases it appears that at least at the time he was n considered
the most serious suspect really to them they said so McLoud wrote to them he was
just a Troublesome liar with an annoying tendency to claim he was involved in major crimes because he had done this
before right it was kind of hiso yeah and he he would claim he was involved in an outside way he never did the crime he
was he just got rid of something for somebody somebody wanted me to be involved but I said no no I would never
yeah so it's likely that for that reason that when William watt was finally released and ruled out as a suspect no
one really decided to take a closer look at Peter Manuel and after watt's release
from custody Peter Manuel kept writing these letters to law enforcement from prison making increasingly fantastic
claims about knowing some information about the recent murders but he wouldn't say what and he was very cryptic and
very and it what got more and more Fantastical what he was claiming he's intense yeah and the more fantastic
these claims became the less serious anyone was taking him and it's very like hey hey look at me Behavior like
everybody's like why would he do that no one would do that if they actually did it well yeah so in November
1957 Peter Manuel was released from barin and was back on the streets oh God now when an neans was murdered Peter
Manuel's name immediately came to the minds of several of the detectives working on the case yeah but like we
said it appeared he had that strong Alibi there was really nothing connecting him to it and when the watt
murders occurred his name was again up on that possible suspect list but again no evidence to really tie him to it but
these suspicions were growing stronger and stronger after he had written that first letter to William mz's lawyer
claiming knowledge and the thing is it's like when you look at that series of events
that Journey that we just took where you are your name comes up as a suspect in Mur because you have a history of being
[ __ ] up of being involved in sexual assaults and robberies and violent things that we will talk about you came
up you were cleared you came up again you were cleared again and then you insert yourself into Multiple homicide
cases when you were cleared that it's so interesting though that's so risky but it's like um I feel like as soon as they
started looking away from him it probably pissed him off wait a second cuz he likes the attention it sounds
like he likes the attention but doesn't want to like go in with both feet but as
soon as they start looking away he's like wait a second wa but me like he it's like he wants credit for it without
the punishment the punishment yeah he doesn't want the punishment he wants the credit for doing it and but it's just so
wild and it makes you say who the [ __ ] is Peter Manuel who is this and why the
[ __ ] is he going out of his way to be associated with two horrific crimes what
the [ __ ] tell me so pet Manuel was born in Manhattan actually on March 13th 1927 he was born to Samuel and Bridget
Manuel Scottish immigrants who'd come to the US to build a better life for their
family I love that at the time they already had one child named James who they had to leave behind in Scotland and
this was very uh common for this time they planed to send for him once they became established that would I've said
this in many other cases before that would happen yeah they would come over try to build that better life and send
for the child later um unfortunately the market crash of 1929 and the depression
that followed really dashed any hope of that American dream or economic Prosperity yeah so by 1932 the family
had to move back to Scotland and they settled in motherwell which is a village in
lanarkshire according to his brother James Peter struggled to adjust to his new life in Scotland he had spent the
first 5 years of his life as an only child also oh yeah then he just has a brother now he has a brother and he was
put into school with older more advanced children and he got teased a lot for not
really for being like very different and being unfamiliar with Scottish culture and like just being different
essentially culture shock so Peter's criminal career started very early really age 10 wow age 10 he broke into a
local Chapel in Coventry where the family was living at the time and he stole the church collection box what a
little [ __ ] which is [ __ ] up for anybody to do but a 10-year-old damn yeah the [ __ ] now around this time he had
also been acting out in school he was getting into trouble on a near regular basis like you said there were warnings
on yeah and on one occasion his teacher actually found an unspeakably filthy is how she described it drawing that one of
the students had left on her desk and they traced it right back to Peter oh no so that's you got to look at that yeah
that's freaky especially with like how he's going to treat women later uhhuh now when she confronted him about it she
said he showed no sign of remorse and that was a character trait that would go throughout his life people would must
immediately recognize that he showed zero remorse for for his actions right never the break-ins and Petty thefts
kept on going they started and kept on going into his teen years and he would get more and more Brazen with each one
that he committed because he's getting away with it and when he would get caught again not one shred of remorse
and he was really smart he did well in school but he didn't really apply that whole thing to his criminal career
because he was caught a lot he was caught a lot he was punished a lot eventually the authorities grew really
impatient and they were like you know what we got to stop doing probation and ver verbal reprimands with this kid so
they started giving him juen detention sentences yeah they're like he's not learning so so during one of those
sentences he was evaluated by a psychiatrist and they made the following observations the school report of the
probationer is anything but satisfactory I bet out of school he is said to be always in trouble at school he is said
to be cunning and puts on an air of innocence and is very deep he is deceitful difficult to believe and
appears to be the ring leader on most occasions he has led younger boys into trouble and he consorts with those
suspected of theft I'm not at all surprised that the boy has appeared again at court there is no doubt
whatever that the magistrates adopted a correct attitude and committed him to an
approved school so they were like he belongs here yeah although most of his off fenes up to
this point were nonviolent during this period they still included details at this moment that had implications that
things could escalate okay when he was 14 Peter ran away from that school and broke into a nearby house and he stole
the homeowner's purse M the woman returned home unexpectedly and found that he was carrying an axe like a large
axe oh okay he ran out but he was there with a weapon that's so [ __ ] scary and a year later Peter ran into a school
or ran away from school again and broke into a home with the intention of robbing it but when he discovered that
the female homeowner Always a Woman mhm the female homeowner was asleep in bed he beat her in the head with a hammer
and how old was he 14 or excuse me at this point 15 he beat her in the head with a hammer she lived yeah the attack
caused a concussion and hemorrhaging and resulted in hospital and when he was arrested he pleaded
guilty to the charge and they said but would not or could not explain why he attacked her he just did it [ __ ] and he
showed again no REM and again she's just sleeping in bed so it's not even like she was going to catch him yeah he just
beat her in the head with a hammer oh my God that should have been it uh yeah but
just a few months after the hammer attack Peter escaped from the school again and went to the home of a school
staff member Jesus the staff member wasn't at home but his wife was oh no and Peter beat her in the head with a
large piece of wood when she was incapacitated he dragged the woman to a wooded area
behind the house ripped off her clothes TR and intended to rape her oh yeah but stopped at the last minute for unknown
reasons just stopped what the [ __ ] she suffered a broken nose and a broken shoulder bone and was deeply traumatized
obvious she was literally dragged out of her home but now he is at there's one where
he brings the axe but he doesn't use it the second one is he beats a woman in the head with a hammer while she's
asleep the third one he beats a woman so she's incapacitated and then he UPS he's
upping at one every time yeah this time he drags her out to a wooded area and he
attempts to rape her and stops at the last second and this kid is literally like 14 15 16 and no one's sitting here
going the next thing he's going to do is murder rap or murder someone yeah now it
was during this time that another odd behavior came emerged in Peter which could also be significant later in his
life at some point in his mid- teens the break-ins which like we said were motivated by robbery increased the
violence against people now he has apted again where he started causing massive amounts of damage and destruction to
this homes themselves okay like we talked about how that one house was found with canned soup and spaghetti
everywhere mud everywhere stubbing the cigarettes out that started early really he would frequently rip up clothing and
furniture dump food on the floors vandalize the walls stub cigarettes out on the carpets this started in his teens
the [ __ ] is he so angry about I don't know and according to one newspaper report at the time the damage left was
of such enormity that words could not adequately describe it wow now Peter's violent Behavior continued to escalate
as he grew older and in 1946 he was arrested when he hid in the walls of a home he was robbing while waiting for
the police to leave oh they couldn't find him he was in the [ __ ] walls how did he get in
the walls no idea but he was caught trying to escape the scene later the there's too many stories where people
are the walls dislike it greatly everyone sto having walls I think I don't know what do you what else do you
do but while he was out on bail for that he committed three sexual assaults Jesus
on bail yep on bail and he was quickly rearrested and sentenced finally to 8 years in prison yeah what the [ __ ] but
it was during this time that Caper had gained a reputation among law enforcement and other criminals for
being a very big narcissist and a compulsive pathologic a cuckoo nut Man by most accounts he
would lie about literally everything and anything including one frequently told story that he would use where he said
his father had been electroc or executed in the electric chair no he's I'm vouching for your ass but he also
continued his habit of blaming others for his behavior and the consequences of those behaviors in this case for example
he blamed his incarceration on William Muny who was the detective Constable who arrested him at the scene of the robbery
and he was like no I just caught you you did it like I did not make you do this I'm literally a detective Constable so
[ __ ] off Peter's time in prison was also not he was not a model prisoner lots of
rules infractions violations violent outbursts involving other inmates and he would receive all the inevitable
punishments that followed but nothing worked and eventual eventually his continued outbursts and his
unwillingness to be even slightly easy to deal with got him sent to the prison psychiatrist who included the following
in his assessment of Peter his record from the age of 12 makes it clear he is an aggressive
psychopath oh he has all the benefits of the juvenile court treatment and Borel treatment and it is doubtful whether
even at the beginning of his sentence any constructive work could have been done with him there is nothing I can
suggest now so this psychiatrist said he is an aggressive psychopath and I cannot
do anything for him you cannot do anything for him and I don't think anyone ever could do anything for him
and they were like let's let him out huh but the GU and the guards and the staff
at the prison shared the psychiatrist's opinion they were like yeah no he's he's
bad MH and one officer summed Peter up as one of the worst types we have at peterhead his police and prison record
proves that it is utterly impossible to manage this man other than when he is locked up on his own so you know there
are special cases where that just [ __ ] happens yeah and let me remind you he was just labeled a very dangerous
aggressive psychopath with absolutely no hope of recovery but there was nothing that
authorities could do to keep him locked up after his sentence and Peter was released from hm prison Peter's head in
October of 1952 damn everybody must have been just shaking their heads like we're
really letting this one go and that's where I'm going to end for part one you [ __ ]
because Peter manual continues oh no he does not change he does not shift he continues in a very horrific way which
we will get into in part two but don't you worry he will get caught in part two okay good we love to hear that but we
are going to take a break for that one so I can do a little extra research on this one all right well in the meantime
we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it we but not s that you break into somebody's house and disrespect
their entire home by throwing SpaghettiOs everywhere and putting out your lit cigarettes douchebag [ __ ]
don't keep it that weird you're a piece of [ __ ] Peter man spaghetti on the carpet I would [ __ ] lose it
[Music] oh [Music]

With a violent criminal history going back to his early teen years, Peter Manuel turned out to be one of Scotland’s worst serial killers. His tumultuous early teenage years were peppered with break-ins and destruction of property, but quickly escalated to horrific acts of brutality.

Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research!

References Birmingham Post and Gazette. 1958. "3 shot dead: no gun found." Birmingham Post and Gazette, January 7: 1.

Coventry Evening Telegraph. 1956. "Three dead in bungalow beds." Coventry Evening Telegraph, September 17: 1.

Daily Record. 1956. "Fifth tee murder." Daily Record, January 5: 1.

—. 1956. "Fifth tee murder: dramatic appeal." Daily Record, January 6: 1.

—. 1957. "Teenager vanishes." Daily Record, December 30: 1.

—. 1958. "Two sensations as trial opens." Daily Record, May 13: 7.

Daily Telegraph. 1958. "1958." Daily Telegraph, May 15: 15.

Evening Sentinel. 1956. "Bloodstains found on bed sheets." Evening Sentinel, September 17: 1.

—. 1957. "Tjhick snow hampers moors hunt." Evening Sentinel, December 11: 1.

Hull Daily Mail. 1957. "Police seek fresh clues in murder mystery." Hull Daily Mail, December 10: 5.

Lundy, Iain. 2007. "Psychopath who brought terror to the west." Evening Times, December 27.

MacLeod, Hector. 2009. Peter Manuel, Serial Killer. Edinburgh, Scotland: Mainstream Books.

Nottingham Evening News. 1956. "Bungalow riddle: two women and girl dead in bed." Nottingham Evening News, September 17: 4.

Silvester, Norman. 2022. The story of Scotland's first known serial killer Peter Manuel. October 10. Accessed June 9, 2024. https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/23034356.story-scotlands-first-known-serial-killer-peter-manuel/.

The Times. 1958. "Statement on 8 murders." The Times, May 22: 5.

Western Mail. 1958. "Watt denies shooting his wife." Western Mail, May 16: 5.

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses Peter Manuel's violent history and the murder of Anne Neand in 1955 Scotland.

Key points

The Beast of Birkenshaw. Exploring the chilling story of Peter Manuel, one of Scotland's worst serial killers.
A Dance Turns Tragic. Anne Neand's night out at a dance ends in horror when she goes missing.
A Gruesome Discovery. George Gribben finds a body while walking, leading to a shocking investigation.
The Investigation Begins. Police begin their search for Anne Neand's killer, but leads quickly dry up.
The Watts Family Tragedy. A horrific crime scene unfolds as the bodies of Marian and Margaret are discovered.
Vivien's Chilling Fate. Vivien is found alive but succumbs to her injuries shortly after.

Episode highlights

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