Serial killer Peter Tobin died riddled with a plethora of diseases including cancer, vascular disease and a lung infection.
Documents obtained by the Scottish Sun, since reported by Edinburgh Live, reveal that the killer was likely in agonising pain before he died in October 2022 at the age of 76. One of Tobin's victims told the paper that his only regret was that Tobin, who was officially convicted of murdering three women, did not suffer for longer.
Tobin was moved from his cell at HMP Edinburgh, also known as Saughton prison, to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh for surgery a month before he ultimately died. Reports at the time noted that the cause of death was "unascertained (pending investigations)".
However, new Scottish Prison Service documents state that Tobin died of "Bronchopneumonia in a man with a fractured right neck of femur (surgically treated on September 9, 2022), generalised vascular disease and prostate cancer."
The details of his death were welcomed by Michael Hamilton, 72, dad of one of the killer's victims – Vicky Hamilton, who died at the age of 15 in 1991.
He said: "It's what he deserved really. He should have suffered more pain and I'd have wanted it to go on longer. I wish he'd have lived a bit longer with all that pain."
Tobin's other confirmed victims were Angelika Kluk, 23, whom he beat, raped and stabbed in September 2006, and Dinah McNicol, 18, who was last seen alive in August 1991. She was discovered 16 years later in November 2007.
However, police also investigated possible connections between Tobin and a number of other women who disappeared or were killed. He is alleged to have once boasted to a prison psychiatrist that he murdered 48 women.
Tobin was serving three life sentences at the time of his death. It was reported that he was given a "pauper's funeral", at a cost of less than £700 to the public purse.
His next of kin were said to have "declined in writing to make any arrangements". Council chiefs arranged for his cremation at Edinburgh's Mortonhall facility before his ashes were scattered at sea.
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