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Chilling true story of killer clown linked murder of 10-year-old girl in Glasgow has been released in time for Halloween

Killer Clowns in Glasgow (Truth Behind The Myth) is based on a shocking true story.

By Ned BarrPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 4 min read
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Killer Clowns: Stalked Glasgow housing schemes in the early 90s.

A chilling tale based on the true story of a 10-year-old girl’s sickening murder that spawned rumours of killer clowns stalking Glasgow's streets in transit vans has been re-released in time for Halloween.

Killer Clowns in Glasgow (the truth behind the myth), from crime-writer P.K Stein, is based on the real-life killing of schoolgirl Christine Lee in Castlemilk in 1990.

The sickening murder was national news at the time and as the long hunt continued for Christine’s killer an urban legend that would go on to terrify children throughout the country for generations was born.

A series of strange events following the brutal slaying of Christine as she made a short journey between her gran’s and mum’s house convinced many in the area that so-called ‘Killer Clowns’ were involved.

Killer Clowns in Glasgow (The Truth Behind The Myth) is told from the point of view of a schoolboy the same age as Christine in the time leading up to and after her death and describes a distressed housing scheme in turmoil.

Clown: The Urban Legend has survived for 30 years.

Names and places have been changed but the story is undeniably linked to the murder that shocked a community which never really recovered.

The story follows the story of a young boy who is the first to notice the strange goings on and circumstances surrounding the grizzly murder.

At first no one believes or listens to the young boy with the big imagination with most dismissing the rumours as kids struggling to understand the evil of the situation and telling stories to scare each other.

But the more he digs into the issue the more he realises he is potentially making himself a target in the process, and when the strange occurrences become more frequent and harder to explain, his curiosity gets the better of him as he decides he needs to get to the bottom of it.

So with a group of friends they decide to defy school and adult instructions to go looking for the clowns but as things begin to slowly unravel they realise they may have bitten off more than they can chew when it gets too late to turn back.

There follows a whirlwind weekend as more kids go missing and a gang of clowns in a blue van are seen approaching youngsters all over the city.

The gripping story is available now on Kindle with a potential made-for-tv film or series potentially in the mix for next year.

The full fictional story is loosely based on the very real life killing of innocent little Christine in February of 1990.

Christine Lee: Ten-year-old was murdered in Glasgow in 1990.

The 10-year-old, described as a loving and gentle girl who loved nothing more than spending time with and helping her grandmother, was found lifeless under bushes in a body of water in parkland at the heart of the sprawling community of Castlemilk that, at the time, had over 40,000 residents.

The Braeside Primary School pupil’s tiny body was battered and mutilated beyond recognition a mere 300 yards away from her grandmother’s house on Ballantay Road and roughly the same distance to her mum’s on the other end of the area known locally as the pond.

The walk between the two homes would have normally taken around eight minutes and family members said the area she was found was off her usual track and would have been unusual for her to walk there alone.

The murder shocked and stunned the community, which at the time had a reputation as one of the roughest and most violent in the country, and a manhunt was soon underway with several suspects linked to the death.

Around 3500 local men had DNA taken from them in hope it would match DNA found on or around the scene of the youngsters death in what was one of the biggest police operations ever in the UK at the time.

It was during this time that stories of the clowns appearing at school gates, football pitches, play parks and other locations.

The tales spread throughout the country like wildfire and the Urban Legend of the Killer Clown stuck.

All the stories, being told as far as Motherwell and Ayrshire and every school in Glasgow, were remarkably similar in their content - despite being long before the days of social media.

Most of the stories centred around a blue transit van and told of horrible men in clown costumes playing out their deranged fantasies on tortured victims.

Castlemilk streets near to where Christine was snatched.

A 19-year-old man was finally arrested, charged and jailed for the murder by the end of the year.

John Dowling, who stayed just a few doors away from Christine in Ballantay, was described as being a ‘loner’ with ‘learning difficulties’ and would pass by the area the schoolgirl was found in a few times a day.

The teenager denied the murder and, rather than squash any rumours of something more unbelievable, his bizarre evidence in court only poured fuel on the 'killer clown' fire when he claimed that he seen a man wearing a mask, wig and big long shoes ‘like diving flippers’ at Machrie Pond around the time Christine went missing.

His mumbling- sometimes incoherent claims - were dismissed as the rants of a fantasist and he was found by a jury to be the lone killer - despite none of his or his dogs DNA being a match to numerous strands found on the murdered child.

It was revealed in court that Dowling grabbed the 10-year-old off the street, beat her up and choked her with a piece of wood before raping and killing her and dumping her lifeless body at Machrie Pond.

Three decades on and the community of Castlemilk has never been the same or come to terms with the most disgusting and sinister crime ever committed in the sprawling but close-knit housing estate.

Killer Clowns in Glasgow (The Truth Behind The Myth) is available on Amazon for Kindle here https://amzn.to/30hnEkk .

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  • Jamye King4 months ago

    Some of this is pretty wrong. I lived beside where it happened and walked to school in the morning with the killers little brother.

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