‘...and Sydney Dunn I slew’

TAXI driver Sydney John Dunn was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The unassuming 36-year-old was nearing the end of an unremarkable shift when he picked up a fare at Newcastle Central Station in the early hours of Sunday, December 8, 1957.

Little did he know that the man with slickedback black hair and a Scottish accent, who was in the city looking for work, was no ordinary passenger.

Hours later, Dunn’s lifeless body was found yards from his abandoned cab on a remote County Durham road. He had been shot in the back of the head and his throat had been cut.

Dunn is the forgotten victim of one of Scotland’s worst mass murderers – the Beast of Birkenshaw, Peter Manuel.

New York-born psychopath Manuel was a prolific criminal and had already spent eight years in prison for rape when he committed his first murder.

Two days into 1957, he stalked 17-year-old Anne Kneilands onto East Kilbride Golf Course and bludgeoned her to death with an iron bar.

Although a suspect, Manuel’s father gave him an alibi and he was freed to kill again.

Nine months later, he shot Marion Watt, her 16-year-old daughter, Vivienne, and her sister, Margaret, as they lay in bed in their Glasgow home. All three were shot in the head.

Manuel was in the frame once more and even wrote letters about the case from his cell in Glasgow’s notorious Barlinnie Prison, where he was serving time for housebreaking.

But despite appearing to have detailed knowledge of the crime, there was with no hard evidence and he slipped through the net again.

Days after his release, Manuel claimed his fifth victim – Sydney Dunn.

At 6.25pm on Sunday, December 8, a police officer spotted an abandoned taxi on a lonely moorland road between Stanhope and Edmundbyers.

The headlights and interior lights were broken and the key was still in the ignition with the engine running. Dunn’s body, with his overcoat pulled over his head, lay about 140 yards away from the vehicle.

Durham County Police initially said “foul play was not suspected”, but their opinion changed drastically 24 hours later following a post-mortem examination.

Dunn had been shot in the back of his head while in the driving seat, probably by a backseat passenger, and fallen forward onto the steering wheel. While he was in this position, his throat had been cut. The motive for the crime was unknown.

Police launched an intensive search, both for the mysterious passenger two fellow cabbies had seen Dunn pick up in Newcastle and the weapon used to slay him.

Officers and soldiers with mine detectors combed the moors, door-to-door inquiries were started and a police sketch of the suspect was issued.

After a week of fruitless searching, baffled detectives were giving “serious consideration” to the theory that someone was shielding the wanted man.

But by that time Manuel was back in Glasgow.

And he would kill again.

An increasingly confident and deranged Manuel raped and strangled 17-year-old Isabelle Cooke as she was on her way to a Glasgow school dance on December 28. He buried her body.

Three days later, he shot Peter and Doris Smart and their ten-year-old son, Michael, at their Glasgow home.

The bodies lay undiscovered for five days.

Chillingly, Manuel repeatedly returned to the house to calmly eat the leftovers from a New Year’s Eve meal and feed the family cat.

Manuel was finally arrested when banknotes he had been spending were found to have been stolen from the Smarts.

The 31-year-old initially denied everything.

But after police arranged a meeting with his tearful mother, who pleaded with him to tell the truth, he confessed to the eight Glasgow murders.

AT that time there was nothing to link Manuel to the Edmundbyers murder.

But a few days later, the taxi drivers who had seen Manuel get into Dunn’s cab in Newcastle picked him out of an identity parade and he was charged with a ninth murder.

Manuel, who by now had retracted his earlier admissions, never confessed to killing Dunn and when his case came to court he was tried for only eight murders.

Following a sensational trial, during which Manuel skilfully conducted his own defence, he was found guilty of all charges – except for that of his first victim, Anne Kneilands, which was bafflingly dropped due to lack of evidence.

Manuel was hanged on the gallows at Barlinnie Prison on July 11, 1958.

A little over two weeks later, an inquest into Sydney Dunn’s death was held at Shotley Bridge Hospital.

The jury heard from the two taxi drivers, Thomas Greener and Albert Younger, who had both picked Manuel out of an identity parade and were adamant he was the man they had seen with Dunn.

Forensic evidence matched a brown button and a yellow fibre found in Dunn’s cab to a suit owned by Manuel, and a red fibre to one of his pullovers. Grass in the turn-ups of Manuel’s trousers matched moorland vegetation.

It was enough to convince the jury that Dunn was indeed murdered by Manuel, but doubts about his killer’s identity remained.

That is until two years ago when The Scottish Daily Record uncovered a document that amounts to a confession from beyond the grave.

A poem, written by Manuel while he was facing the gallows, was found amongst the personal papers of Duncan Mackensie, the former Governor of Barlinnie.

In it, Manuel described himself as “Scotland’s Frankenstein” and “the foulest beast on earth”. It is an eight-verse rhyme, which constitutes a macabre confession in which Manuel admits to “causing the death of nine”.

Verse four reads: “I murdered Isabella Cook/And young Anne Knielands too/Shot the Watts and shot the Smarts/And Sidney(sic) Dunn I slew.”

It was the first and only time he had confessed to Dunn’s murder.

On Monday, December 16, 1957, a week after the taxi driver was brutally slain, an article in The Northern Echo asked several questions of the police under the headline: “Why was Sidney (sic) John Dunn murdered?”

More than 50 years later, that question remains unanswered. But although we may not know why, at least we now know who.

• Did you know Sydney Dunn? Contact Andrew White on 01325-505054.