Today we talk about Bible John: A New Suspect, a book by Jill Bavin-Mizzi published with our publishing house Europe Books.
Europe Books had the pleasure of interviewing the author, Jill Bavin-Mizzi, to get to know her better, the moment that brought her to the writing of her book Bible John: A New Suspect, as well as how her publishing experience was.
Below you can find our interview. Take a seat and enjoy your reading!!!
- What is the moment that brought you to the writing of your book?
I have been interested in the history of crime for a very long time, especially crimes against women. My academic work as an historian focused on sexual assault cases in the late nineteenth century. More recently, I began investigating cold cases. I published my first true crime non-fiction, The Wanda Beach Killer, in 2021 and I then searched for a cold case where I felt that enough evidence had been gathered by police to enable a serious hunt for the killer – using historical sources and techniques. The Bible John murders were (and still are) unsolved and yet the police knew so much about the killer. I began to read about the murders of Patricia Docker, Jemima MacDonald and Helen Puttock and was immediately struck by the similarities in the three cases, especially the fact that the three young mothers, Patricia, Jemima and Helen, were all menstruating at the time they were raped and murdered. It seemed to me that the odds were stacked against coincidence. So, how and why would the killer have deliberately selected menstruating women? The hunt for the women’s killer led me to some very interesting answers.
- What are the crucial themes of your book?
The themes in this book are many and varied – some are the obvious themes about violence against women and the need to keep searching for justice. Other themes are more about the discipline of history. Too often people believe that historians write only about the past and that their work, at best, touches on issues of the present. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only can the past inform our understandings in and of the present, it can help in the search for very specific information. Genealogy is just one example of this. Cold cases are historical by their very nature and the sources that historians use can be vital tools. Something as seemingly unlikely as education department records or divorce court records can shed new light on cases which seem impossible to solve.
- What is the message you want to communicate to your readers?
If I was to communicate any message to readers, my first choice would be that violence against anyone is unacceptable. We should never give up on any case involving the rape and murder of women and, of course children. Cold cases must be revisited for as long as it takes in the search for justice. Another, perhaps less obvious message, would be that there is meaning in patterns. It’s not feasible to read murder case files and jump to conclusions. The details matter and the search must be, above everything, an honest one. Near enough doesn’t lead you to the killer.
- How was your publishing experience?
I have published many times before, sometimes with academic presses and sometimes with commercial. I can honestly say that my experience with Europe Books has been the happiest one. I have appreciated the positive and thorough editing of my work and the readiness of all departments to take into consideration my ideas and preferences. In a non-fiction book about sexual violence, there are many titles and covers which I would consider inappropriate. I have previously been unable to prevent a publisher from romancing the title and cover of one of my books. This time around, I have felt that the publication has been completely in line with the topic, the writing and my wishes.
- Are you working on a new writing project you can tell us about?
I have begun research on another cold case. Again, it involves three unsolved murders, this time of prepubescent girls – the double-initial (or alphabet) murders of Carmen Colon, Wanda Walkowicz and Michelle Maenza in Rochester, New York in 1971 and 1973. Again, there are intriguing patterns in the three murders (not least the double-initials which might prove to be significant). And again, a great deal is known about the killer, including witness descriptions of him. The DNA material collected from two of the cases has been lost but not that taken from Wanda Walkowicz. The challenge for me, will be to find the records that I think might help solve the cases. These may not be the police files which have been examined at length and often. Strangely, the answers may well lie instead, as they did in part with the Bible John murders, in the education department files. As an historian, the sources I’m searching for will not necessarily be those that have been examined before.
Europe Books thanks the author, Jill Bavin-Mizzi, once again for taking the time and answering our questions. We are really pleased to have walked alongside her on the editorial path that led to the publication of her book Bible John: A New Suspect. We wish her the best of luck for her future works.
To you, my readers, may this book be very thought-provoking. Let us remember as the author says that “violence against anyone is unacceptable and that we must never give up on cases involving the rape and murder of women and, obviously, children”.
So, my dear reader, all I have to say is to enjoy your reading!
Your editor!