The Evil Within - A Top Murder Squad Detective Reveals The Chilling True Stories of The World's Most Notorious Killers (45 page)

Around the same time, Christie encountered Kathleen Maloney, 26, although he recalled that it was February. Christie had met her three weeks before. He had gone with her and another prostitute to a room where he had taken photographs of the other girl in the nude. On this night, he went into a Notting Hill café and sat at a table where Kathleen and another girl were discussing their search for flats. Kathleen was an orphan who had given birth thus far to five illegitimate children. That night, she went home with Christie and was never seen again. He later claimed that she had made advances as a way to get him to use his influence with the landlord and then threatened violence. He said he only recalled that she was on the floor and that he put her into the cupboard right away. He did not recall killing her, though he had, in fact, since devised a new gas contraption. Christie placed her in the chair, an easy matter since she was quite drunk, and used the gas. Then he strangled her with a rope. He had intercourse with her and placed a ‘nappy’ between her
legs. He then went to bed. (He did not confess the sexual contact or the gassing of these women until later.) The next morning, he made tea, with the body still sitting in the chair. He wrapped her body in a blanket, put a pillowcase over her head and placed her inside the alcove. Her body lay on the floor with her legs vertical against the back wall. He covered her with dirt and ashes and then closed up the cupboard.

Christie’s statement about Hectorina McLennan, 26, indicated that she and her boyfriend were hard up for a place to stay, so he had invited them to share with him. They stayed together in a barely furnished flat for several uncomfortable days. In one version of the story, Christie had asked the two people to leave. The girl returned alone the next night to wait for her boyfriend and when Christie tried to get her out, they struggled. Some of her clothing got torn. She fell limp and sank to the floor and Christie thought that some of her clothing got wrapped around her neck. He pulled her into the kitchen and sat her on a chair. She seemed to be dead, so he hid her body in the cupboard as well.

He also confessed another version. While Hectorina and her boyfriend were at the Labour Exchange, Christie showed up and invited Hectorina to come to his house that morning alone. He poured her a drink and then unfastened a clasp that released the gas. She tried to leave, but he stopped her in the hallway. ‘I seized hold of her by the neck and applied just sufficient pressure to make her limp. I took her back to the kitchen and I decided that it was essential to use the gas again. I made love to her, and then put her back in the chair. I killed her.’ He shoved her into the alcove in a sitting position, keeping her upright by hooking her brassiere to the blanket around Maloney’s legs. When Hectorina’s boyfriend came looking for her, Christie denied having seen her. He invited the man in to have a look around and made him some tea, whereupon he noticed a nasty odour. However, he left without further exploration.

In Brixton prison, several psychiatrists examined Christie,
who provided many details, of varying reliability. The doctors were unanimous in their dislike of the man. He was ‘nauseating’ and ‘snivelling’. He seemed always to whisper when asked a question that he did not like, similar behaviour to the Evans trial. He also dissociated when describing his foul deeds, talking about himself in the third person as if he were a spectator. His confessions were peppered with evasions and lies.

Christie also boasted about his nefarious deeds to other inmates, comparing himself to the infamous John George Haigh, the acid-bath killer who had also murdered six women. Christie claimed that his goal had been 12. Once confronted with evidence, he quickly admitted to killing his first two victims, but resisted the idea that he had killed the Evans mother and child. Then he changed his confession to an admission of killing Beryl Evans, but not her child. Beryl’s was a mercy killing, similar to his wife’s. She had tried to kill herself with gas and when Christie rescued her (according to him), she begged him to help her do it. The next day, he gassed and then strangled her. (He could not have done this, since holding the gas close to her would have affected him as well. None of his details about rescuing her and then assisting her were supported by medical fact.) Christie claimed that Beryl offered him sex in exchange for his assistance and he tried but failed to perform. He later said to a chaplain that he did not think he had murdered Beryl Evans, but had had the impression from his lawyer that for an insanity defence it would be better for him to admit to as many murders as possible. When asked about the pubic hair collection, he said that one clump was Beryl’s. Her body was exhumed for comparison, but it was evident that no hair had been cut from her. To whom this hair belonged remained a mystery, as Christie could not or would not tell.

He stood trial at the Old Bailey on 22 June 1953 on the charge of murdering his wife. Christie pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The trial lasted only four days and the jury deliberated only an hour and 20 minutes, returning a guilty
verdict. He was sentenced to death. Christie did not appeal and there appeared to be no medical grounds for reprieve. He was hanged at Pentonville Prison on 15 July 1953.

Christie’s conviction, and his confession to Beryl Evans’s murder, raised questions about the execution of Timothy Evans three years earlier, but a brief enquiry at the time found no reason to doubt Evans’s guilt in the murder of his daughter. Several years later, journalist Ludovic Kennedy and barrister Michael Eddowes fought to clear Evans’s name. Evans was granted a posthumous pardon in 1966. The outcry over the Evans case contributed to the abolition of the death penalty in the United Kingdom.

On 16 November 2004, Timothy Evans’s half-sister, Mary Westlake, started a case to overturn a decision by the Criminal Cases Review Commission not to refer Evans’s case to the Court of Appeal to have his conviction quashed. She argued that although the previous enquiries concluded that Evans probably did not kill his daughter, they did not declare him innocent, since a pardon is a forgiveness of crimes committed. The request to refer the case was dismissed on 19 November 2004, with the judges saying that the cost and resources of quashing the conviction could not be justified, although they did accept that Evans did not murder his wife or baby.

John Haigh was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, in 1909 and grew up in the nearby village of Outwood. His parents, John and Emily, were members of the Plymouth Brethren. He was confined to living within a 10ft fence that his father put up around their garden to lock out the outside world. Haigh won a scholarship to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield. He then won another scholarship, his parents having switched their belief from the non-conformist Brethren to the high church of Wakefield Cathedral, where he became a choirboy.

Haigh, however, developed a passion for cars and dishonesty. After leaving school, he was apprenticed to a firm of motor
engineers, which at least satisfied one of his hobbies. After a year, he left the garage business and took a job in insurance and advertising. However, he was later sacked after being suspected of stealing from the petty cash box.

On 6 July 1934, Haigh married Betty Hammer, 21, a lively woman described in some accounts as a good-time girl. The marriage soon floundered. The same year, Haigh was jailed for fraud. Betty gave birth while he was in prison, but she gave the baby up for adoption and left Haigh.

It wasn’t long before Haigh’s dishonesty caught up with him again. He was arrested for car fraud for which he was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment. Upon his release, he attempted to reform by becoming a partner in a dry-cleaning business. Sadly, this also failed when his business partner was killed in a motorcycle accident.

He then moved to London and became chauffeur to William McSwann, wealthy owner of an amusement park. Haigh and McSwann became friends but Haigh still wanted to set himself up in business. He did, but as a bogus solicitor, earning himself four years in jail for fraud. Haigh was released just after the start of World War II, and then jailed again for theft. While in prison, he dreamt up what he considered the perfect murder: disposing of the body by dissolving it in acid. He experimented with mice and found it took only 30 minutes for the body to disappear.

He was freed in 1944 and became an accountant with an engineering firm. Soon after, by chance, he bumped into McSwann again in London. McSwann introduced Haigh to his parents, Donald and Amy, who mentioned that they had invested in property. On 6 September 1944, McSwann disappeared. Haigh had lured him to a basement at 79 Gloucester Road, London, where he hit him over the head and killed him. He then put McSwann’s body into a 33-gallon drum and tipped sulphuric acid onto it. Two days later, he returned to find the body had become sludge, which he poured down a manhole.

He told McSwann’s parents their son had fled to Scotland to
avoid being called up for military service. When McSwann’s parents became curious about why their son had not returned after the war was coming to an end, Haigh murdered them too. On 2 July 1945, he lured them to the same Gloucester Road address where he had murdered their son and disposed of them in the same way.

Haigh stole Donald McSwann’s pension cheques, sold his parents’ properties, making about £8,000 (worth approximately £80,000 today), and moved into the Onslow Court Hotel, Kensington. By the summer of 1947, Haigh, a gambler, was running short of money so he needed to find another couple to kill and rob.

Dr Archibald Henderson and his wife Rose were the unfortunate victims. Haigh met them after purporting to show an interest in a house they were selling. On 12 February 1948, he drove Dr Henderson to Crawley, on the pretext of showing him an invention. When they arrived, he shot him in the head with a revolver he had earlier stolen from the doctor’s house. He then lured Rose Henderson to the workshop, claiming that her husband had fallen ill, and shot her. By now, he had rented a small workshop in Leopold Road, Crawley, West Sussex, and moved acid and drums there from Gloucester Road. After disposing of the bodies in acid, he forged a letter from the Hendersons and sold all their possessions for £8,000, except their dog, which he kept.

Haigh’s next and final victim was Olive Durand-Deacon, 69, a widow and fellow resident at the Onslow Court. Fancying herself something of an engineer, she mentioned to Haigh an idea she had had for artificial fingernails. He invited her down to the Crawley workshop on 18 February 1949 and, once inside, he shot her in the back of the head, stripped her of her valuables, including a Persian lamb coat, and put her into the acid bath. Two days later, Durand-Deacon’s friend, Constance Lane, reported her missing.

Detectives soon discovered Haigh’s record of theft and fraud
and searched the workshop. Police not only found Haigh’s attaché case containing a dry cleaner’s receipt for Mrs
Durand-Deacon
’s coat, but also papers referring to the Hendersons and McSwanns, as well as a .32-calibre pistol that had recently been fired.

As a result, he was arrested, and when questioned by Detective Inspector Albert Webb, Haigh asked him: ‘Tell me, frankly, what are the chances of anybody being released from Broadmoor Hospital?’ The inspector said he could not discuss that sort of thing, so Haigh replied: ‘Well, if I told you the truth, you would not believe me. It sounds too fantastic to believe.’ Apparently thinking that he would be sent to Broadmoor, he waved away Webb’s cautioning words and said, ‘I will tell you about it. Mrs Durand-Deacon no longer exists. She has disappeared completely and no trace of her can ever be found again. I have destroyed her with acid. You will find the sludge, which remains at Leopold Road. Every trace has gone.’ He then showed his naive arrogance with, ‘How can you prove murder without a body?’ This admission seemed rather inexplicable at first, but as Haigh’s history was uncovered, it became clear what his intentions had been.

While in prison years before, Haigh had discussed this point of law with fellow prisoners. He had convinced himself that if there is no corpse (which is what he understood the term
corpus delicti
to mean; it is in fact Latin for ‘the body of the crime’), there could be no conviction. In fact, he had talked about this legal issue so often, he had acquired the nickname ‘Ol’ Corpus Delicti’. He was convinced that the police had to have a physical body to actually prosecute someone for murder, and there were ways to make sure that did not happen. He had also mentioned that to get real money, one had to prey on older, wealthy women.

However, Haigh had not taken into account the weight of circumstantial evidence, even without a body, that can be used to prove the overwhelming probability of guilt. He had already offered a confession, which in itself went a long way towards
helping the police prove their case. They only needed some corroborating evidence. They had Mrs Durand-Deacon’s coat and jewellery. It was time to find out if they could recover any evidence from the ‘sludge’. Further investigation of the sludge at the workshop by the forensic pathologist Keith Simpson revealed three human gallstones. Haigh was once again cautioned not to speak, but he went on to offer a full description of what he had done to Mrs Durand-Deacon. He dictated a statement that took two and a half hours to write down.

Haigh was still arrogant and sure that there would not be enough evidence to convict him of murder. He then confessed that he had not only killed Durand-Deacon, the McSwanns and the Hendersons, but also three other people, a young man called Max, a girl from Eastbourne and a woman from Hammersmith. The three others might have been part of Haigh’s attempt to convince the police of insanity. He went on to describe the murders in intricate detail.

In Haigh’s diary, found later by police, there is a cross etched in red crayon under the entry for 9 September; this may have been the day he either killed or disposed of McSwann. Haigh claimed that he had a sudden need for blood so he had hit McSwann over the head with a blunt instrument, possibly a table leg or a pipe. Then he slit his throat. ‘I got a mug and took some blood, from his neck, in the mug, and drank it.’ He left the body there overnight to die and had to decide what he was now to do with it. That was the night when Haigh dreamt of a forest of blood.