How families were devastated by the cruelty of serial killer Peter Tobin | Global News Avenue

That day, police found the second body behind the house that had been occupied by the murderer. The father of a missing teenager raised his hand and stretched out his fingers, saying he hoped it was his daughter.

Dinah McNicol disappeared in 18 in 1991 after hitchhiking at the dance music festival in Hampshire.

Her father has since spoken to countless journalists and it happens that I am interviewing him when the 16-year twists and turns are coming to an end.

Ian McNicol was left in a dark place and he wanted his daughter to be a person in a shallow grave because it meant that the family would eventually know where she was, let her come back and let her rest.

His words reveal the terrible cruelty of serial killers, and they have bothered me ever since.

A new BBC documentary, Peter Tobin, explains how the murder of a young Polish student ultimately resolves the mystery of Dinah and the second teenager, 15-year-old Vicky Hamilton, who disappeared in central Scotland before February 1991.

Tobin was a registered sex offender for the authorities when he killed Angelika Kluk and covered up the body under the floor of Glasgow Church in September 2006.

He was 60 years old at the time. The crime was so terrifying that the detective believed he had to kill him.

Strathclyde police launched Operation Anagram, a nationwide scope exercise that attempts to determine whether Tobin can be linked to unresolved cases in the UK.

Within months, officers realized that when Vicky Hamilton disappeared in the town of West Lothian, he lived in the bathroom.

Despite the enormous inquiries and attraction of her upset family, 15 years have passed and no trace of Vicky has been found.

The link to Tobin changed everything.

Forensic scientists reexamined the evidence from their disappearance and found DNA from the wallet of Tobin’s son Vicky, which was left near the Edinburgh bus station.

In June 2007, Lothian and Borders police searched Tobin’s former residence in the bathroom. In the attic, they found a knife with traces of Vicky DNA on it.

Operation Anagram continues to link Tobin to Dinah, who disappeared on the other end of the country in August 1991.

Her cash card has been used in towns and towns in southeast England, from Hove to Margate and Ramsgate in Kent.

The money exhausted from Dinah’s account was compensation for her mother, Judy, after she died in a six-year-old road accident.

Police found evidence linking Tobin to Ka and determined that he lived in Margate when Dinah failed to return home.

One of Tobin’s neighbors recalls “Scottish Pitt” digging a deep hole in his back garden at that time.

Essex police believe that when they went to Tobin’s old house at Tobin, 50 Irvine Drive in November 2007, they would get answers for Ian McNicol and his family – but they found Vicky, not Dinah.

After searching Bathgate, I headed south to Margate with an incredible feeling, which Scottish officers shared in investigating Tobin’s past.

Everyone in Scotland knows the smiling schoolgirl’s face, wrinkled black hair.

this Discover her body So far, leaving home has been horrifying and confusing. How did she get there?

The answer is that Tobin killed the bath door’s Wiki, dismembered her body, and took her away when he moved to a new house 470 miles south of England.

In the days that followed, as police continued to search for Dinah on Irvine Drive, I interviewed her father at his home in Tillingham, a small village of Essex built around Norman Church.

Ian is a person in his 60s and is a person who can be loved immediately. A retired musician originally came from Glasgow and he was daughter by jazz standards.

Over the years, Dinah’s disappearance caused his health to be damaged. We sat down and started shooting.

“When I lost my wife, we knew she was dead because we had to bury her,” he said.

“We went through a normal sad process.

“When your family members go missing, it’s 20 times worse than death because you don’t know one thing and all kinds of things go through your imagination.”

He is getting help from another family in the exact same situation, and even if his daughter is not found, he has some solace.

Ian turned to the camera and spoke to Vicky’s family and said, “If you’re looking at me and my family, good luck. We wish you all the best.”

The doorbell rang. Another reporter told us that the police just announced The second body discovery.

Ian agreed to continue the interview, crossing his fingers with his right hand and said, “If they say, be Dinah and let us get rid of this pain.

“I’ll bury her next to her mother. So please let it be Dinah.”

Later, after police confirmed that the body was his daughter’s body, Ian said he could die peacefully. He died in 2014.

In the BBC documentary, Vicky’s sister Lindsay Brown tells the impact of her disappearance on her mother Jeanette. Her family said from a sad heart that Vicky died two years after her mother disappeared.

Archive footage shows that Lindsay announced a statement to the media in 2008 in Dundee High Court that Tobin was convicted of Vicky’s murder, flanked by her sister Sharon and twin brother Lee.

Given all their experiences, what she did that day was as brave as it was ugly.

She said: “Vicch is much more than the girl who was kidnapped and killed by a stranger or a girl. We were kidnapped on the missing poster.

Detectives who investigate Tobin’s past determine that he has other victims. They did everything they could to find answers from other families, to no avail.

Tobin brought his secret to the grave and served his sentence when he died in 2022.

No one stood up. His ashes were disposed of at sea.

When I was interviewed by a BBC documentary, the producer asked me what I thought when I heard the news.

I told him I was happy and hoped his death was not pleasant. Should I be that honest? Has it crossed the line? I have no idea.

All I know is that I will never forget what Ian McNicol or he said to me 17 years ago: “Please be Dinah.”