IN the grey light of a freezing Lanarkshire morning, a team of policemen yesterday began digging up the grave of John Irvine McInnes, the man suspected of being Bible John.

Five and a half hours later, the frozen earth yielded the remains of a man thought to have killed Mrs Helen Puttock in October 1969 and who also may have murdered on at least two other occasions.

The remains were removed to Glasgow city morgue for forensic examination. DNA extracted from a semen stain on the tights used to strangle Mrs Puttock has been matched with that from a close member of the family of McInnes, one of the chief suspects at the time.

Further DNA will be extracted from his remains - a process which could take three weeks. Should this provide a match, it would give a very strong indication that he was present in a sexual context with Mrs Puttock close to the time of her death.

Eye-witnesses at the time said Mrs Puttock was picked up at Barrowland Ballroom, adding that the Scripture-quoting man had distinctive, overlapping front teeth.

The police also possess a cast of a bite mark found on Mrs Puttock's body and an attempt will be made by a forensic odontologist to check this against McInnes's teeth.

That could provide, should they also match, sufficient evidence for police to conclude they have at least a strong case pointing to McInnes as the murderer, although it would also raise a serious question of how they then handle the information.

DNA sampling no longer carries with it the reputation of total infallibility claimed in its early days so there will be great legal interest in whether the police or the Glasgow procurator-fiscal decide they are qualified to act as judge and jury and announce McInnes is their murderer.

It is also understood by The Herald that there is nothing to link Mrs Puttock's killer with the previous murders of two women also picked up at Barrowland Ballroom. This would cast serious doubt on the idea of Bible John as a serial killer.

Psychologists have already said that were McInnes such a murderer, it would have been unique for him to have stopped killing when he did. The former soldier committed suicide 16 years ago, 10 years after the three killings.

Yesterday was the first time even the most experienced policemen could remember that a body had been exhumed in Scotland in relation to a murder.

To reach the corpse of McInnes, buried close to the boundary wall at the cemetery in Stonehouse, his home village, they had first to remove the remains of his mother, Elizabeth, who died seven years after her son's suicide.

This was achieved with as much dignity as possible in an operation which of necessity had to involve the use of a pneumatic drill to break the frozen ground and which was conducted before a media pack around 60 strong.

The remains of Mrs McInnes were uncovered by overall-clad officers, wearing face masks, then recovered by two of Scotland's leading forensic pathologists, Professor Anthony Basuttil of Edinburgh University and Dr Marie Cassidy of Glasgow University.

The remains were placed in a new coffin and removed to a local funeral parlour. At a later date, they will be reinterred with a proper family funeral service.

Residents of Stonehouse stayed away from the cemetery yesterday. The exhumation of a decent, religious family troubled many local people.

In the local cafe, one lady said: ``It is upsetting for the village and there will be those who point the finger and say that the family must have had suspicions about what John McInnes was up to. That is very unfair after all this time. We just want to get this over as quickly as possible and to get back to normal.''

The element of farce almost surfaced early on, however, as three people claiming to be psychics from Glasgow, said they had been in touch with McInnes and Helen Puttock from beyond the grave and were besieged by the media.

Police teams moved in to the cemetery shortly after 6.30am with temperatures well below zero.

A large tent was erected over the family grave and the operation began in the presence of Chief Superintendent James Young, the Strathclyde Police divisional commander whose detectives - led by Detective Chief Inspector James McEwan - are running the inquiry, cemetery staff, a representative of the Glasgow procurator-fiscal, environmental health officers, and a McInnes family solicitor.

Around 10.17am, the policemen reached the first coffin. Shortly afterwards, large gas heaters were taken into the tent as the sweat was freezing on the officers' backs.

Just before 11am, Professor Basuttil, clad in a ground-length green apron, emerged from the tent and a few minutes later the body of Mrs McInnes was taken to a hearse.

Half an hour later, the coffin of John McInnes was reached and at 12.20 his remains were removed from the tent and taken to the hearse.

When the tests are complete, McInnes will also be reinterred with a proper funeral service at the family grave.

It emerged yesterday that the service records of McInnes, a former Scots Guard, have gone missing from Wellington Barracks in London.

The Army said yesterday it was possible they had been handed over to police at the time of the original investigation into the three murders and not returned.

All that remains is a card showing that McInnes was discharged in July 1959. An attempt will be made by the regiment to retrieve the records from the police.