John Reginald Halliday Christie
Encyclopedia
John Reginald Halliday Christie (8th April 1899 – 15th July 1953), born in Halifax, West Yorkshire
, was a notorious English serial killer
active in the 1940s and '50s. He murdered at least eight females – including his wife Ethel – by strangling them in his flat at 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill
, London. Christie moved out of Rillington Place in March 1953, and shortly afterwards the bodies of three of his victims were discovered hidden in an alcove in his kitchen. His wife was concealed beneath the floorboards of the front room at Rillington Place. Christie was arrested and convicted of his wife's murder, for which he was hanged in 1953.
While serving as an infantryman during the First World War, Christie was apparently injured in a gas attack, which he claimed left him permanently unable to speak loudly. He turned to crime following his discharge from the army and was imprisoned several times, for offences including theft
and assault
. On the outbreak of World War II
in 1939, he was accepted for service in the War Reserve Police, when the authorities failed to check his criminal record. He committed his murders between 1943 and 1953, usually by strangling his victims after he had rendered them unconscious with domestic gas; some he rape
d as they lay unconscious.
There was formerly some controversy over the responsibility for the deaths of Beryl Evans and her daughter Geraldine, who, along with Beryl's husband Timothy Evans
, were tenants at 10 Rillington Place during 1948 and 1949. Timothy Evans was charged with both murders, found guilty of the murder of his daughter, and hanged in 1950. Christie was a key prosecution witness, but when his own crimes were discovered three years later, serious doubts were raised over the integrity of Evans' conviction; Christie himself also subsequently admitted killing Beryl Evans, although not Geraldine. It is now generally accepted that Christie murdered both Beryl and Geraldine Evans, and that a serious miscarriage of justice
occurred when Timothy Evans was hanged. Police mishandling of the original enquiry, and their incompetence in searches at the house allowed Christie to escape detection, and enabled him to murder four more women.
In an official inquiry conducted 1965–6, Mr Justice (Sir Daniel) Brabin concluded that it was "more probable than not" that Evans killed his wife but that he did not kill his daughter Geraldine. This finding, challenged in subsequent legal processes, enabled the Home Secretary
to grant Evans a posthumous pardon
for the murder of his daughter in October 1966. The case contributed to the abolition of capital punishment
for murder in the United Kingdom
in 1965.
, Christie was the sixth child in a family of seven children. He had a troubled relationship with his father, carpet designer Ernest John Christie, an austere and uncommunicative man who displayed little emotion towards his children; he would also punish them for trivial offences, such as taking a tomato from a plate. Christie was also dominated by his five sisters, leading his mother, Mary Hannah Halliday, to overprotect him, all experiences that undermined his self-confidence. In later life, Christie's childhood peers described him as "a queer lad" who "kept himself to himself" and "was not very popular". As an adult, Christie spoke of seeing at the age of eight the open coffin of his maternal grandfather and how profound an experience it had been to see the dead body of a man who had previously frightened him.
At the age of 11 Christie won a scholarship to Halifax Secondary School, where his favourite subject was mathematics, particularly algebra
. It was later found he had an IQ of 128. Christie sang in the church choir and was a Boy Scout
. After leaving school aged 15, he took a job as an assistant film projectionist.
In September 1916 Christie enlisted in the army and in the following April he was called up to join the 52nd Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment
. In April 1918 Christie's regiment was despatched to France
, where he was seconded to the Duke of Wellington's (West Riding) Regiment
as a signalman. In June, Christie was injured in a mustard gas attack and spent a month in a military hospital in Calais
. Later in life, Christie claimed to have been blinded
and rendered mute
for three and a half years by the attack. Christie's period of muteness was the alleged reason for his inability to talk much louder than a whisper for the rest of his life. Author Ludovic Kennedy
points out that no record of his blindness has been traced and that, while Christie may have lost his voice when he was admitted to hospital, he would not have been discharged as fit for duty had he remained a mute. His inability to talk loudly, Kennedy argues, was a psychological reaction to the gassing rather than a lasting toxic effect of the gas. That reaction, and Christie's exaggeration of the effects of the attack, stemmed from an underlying personality disorder
that caused him to exaggerate or feign illness as a ploy to get attention and sympathy.
Impotence was a lifelong problem for Christie. Whilst a post mortem report confirms Christie's genitals were normal physically, his first attempts at sex were failures, branding him throughout adolescence as "Reggie-No-Dick" and "Can't-Do-It-Christie". His difficulties with sex remained throughout his life, and most of the time he could only perform with prostitutes. On 10 May 1920 Christie married Ethel Simpson Waddington from Sheffield
, at Halifax Register Office
, but his problems with impotence remained, and he continued to frequent prostitutes. The couple moved to Sheffield, but separated after four years of marriage. Christie moved to London, and Ethel remained in Sheffield with her relatives.
s while working as a postman, for which he received three months' imprisonment on 12 April 1921. In January 1923 Christie was convicted of obtaining money on false pretences and violent conduct, for which he was bound over and put on 12 months' probation respectively. He committed two further crimes of larceny
in 1924 and received consecutive sentences of three and six months' imprisonment from September 1924. In May 1929, he was convicted of assault
ing a prostitute with whom he was living in Battersea
and was sentenced to six months' hard labour; Christie had hit her over the head with a cricket bat, which the magistrate described as a "murderous attack". Finally, he was convicted of stealing a car from a priest
who had befriended him, and was imprisoned for three months in late 1933.
Christie and Ethel were reconciled after his release from prison, but although Christie was able to end his course of petty crime, he continued to seek out prostitutes. In December 1938, Christie and his wife moved into the ground-floor flat of 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill
, then a rather run-down area of London. The house was a three-storey brick terrace; the ground and first floors contained a bedroom, living room and kitchen but the second-floor flat had no kitchen. Living conditions were "squalid" – the building's occupants had just one outside lavatory to share, and none of the flats had a bathroom. The street was close to an above-ground section of the Metropolitan line
(now the Hammersmith & City
and Circle lines), and the train noise would have been "deafening" for the occupants of 10 Rillington Place.
On the outbreak of the Second World War Christie applied to join the War Reserve Police and was accepted despite his criminal record, as the authorities failed to check his background. He was assigned to the Harrow Road
police station, where he met a woman with whom he began an affair. Their relationship lasted until mid-1943, when the woman's husband, a serving soldier, returned from the war. After learning of the affair he went to the house where his wife was living, discovered Christie there, and assaulted him.
n-born munitions worker and part-time prostitute. Christie claimed to have met Fuerst either while she was soliciting clients or in a snack bar in Ladbroke Grove
. According to his own statements, he impulsively strangled her during sex at Rillington Place in August 1943. He buried Fuerst's body in the back garden after initially hiding it beneath the floorboards of his front living room.
Shortly after the murder, at the end of 1943, Christie resigned as a Special Constable. The following year he found new employment as a clerk at a radio factory. There he met his second victim, co-worker Muriel Amelia Eady. In October 1944, he invited Eady back to his flat with the promise that he had concocted a "special mixture" that could cure her bronchitis
. Eady was to inhale the mixture from a jar with a tube inserted in the top. The mixture in fact was Friar's Balsam
, which Christie used to disguise the smell of domestic gas. Once Eady was seated breathing the mixture from the tube with her back turned, Christie inserted a second tube into the jar connected to a gas tap. As Eady continued breathing, she inhaled the domestic gas, which soon rendered her unconscious – domestic gas in the 1940s was coal gas
, which had a carbon monoxide
content of 15 percent. Once Eady was unconscious, Christie raped and then strangled her, before burying her body alongside Fuerst's in the back garden.
and his wife Beryl moved into the top floor flat at Rillington Place, where Beryl gave birth to their daughter, Geraldine, in October 1948. In late 1949 Evans informed police that his wife was dead. A police search of 10 Rillington Place revealed the dead bodies of Geraldine and Beryl Evans in an outside wash-house. Beryl's body had also been wrapped twice over in a blanket and then a table cloth. The autopsy
revealed that both had been strangled, and that Beryl Evans had been physically assaulted before her death, judging by the bruises on her face. Evans at first claimed that Christie had killed his wife in a botched abortion
operation, but under police questioning he eventually confessed to the murder himself. The alleged confession was most likely fabricated by the police themselves, as the statement appears contrived and artificial. After being charged Evans withdrew his confession and once again accused Christie, this time of both murders. On 11 January 1950, Evans was put on trial for the murder of his daughter, the prosecution having decided not to pursue a second charge of murdering his wife. Christie was a principal witness for the Crown and gave evidence denying Evans' accusations. The jury found Evans guilty despite the revelation of Christie's criminal record
of theft
and violence, and, after an appeal
on 20 February had failed, Evans was hanged on 9 March 1950.
in the garden shortly after the police searches, which he removed and left in a nearby bombed-out house. There was clearly no systematic search made of the crime scene
in which this or other human remains would have been found, and pointed to Christie as the perpetrator. The skull, ironically, was handed in to Notting Hill police station during the investigation, but ignored. The several police searches of the property showed a complete lack of forensic expertise and were superficial at best. Had the searches been conducted effectively, the investigation would have exposed Christie as the murderer, and the lives of four women as well as Evans would have been saved.
The evidence of builders working at the house was ignored, and their various interviews with Evans suggest that the police concocted a false confession
. It should have been clear, for example, from the very first statement made in Wales that Evans was totally unaware of the resting place of the body of his wife, or how she had been killed. He claimed that his wife's body was in a drain at the front of the house, but a police search failed to find any remains there. That in itself should have prompted a thorough search of the house, wash-room and garden, but no further action was taken until later, when the two bodies were found in the wash-room outside. He was also totally unaware at his first interview, that his daughter had been killed. The police interrogation in London was mishandled from the start, when they showed him the clothes of his wife and baby and revealed that they had been found in the wash-room. Such information should have been kept from him so as to force him to tell them where the bodies had been concealed. The several "confessions" apparently made by Evans bear no relation to what he probably said, and were inventions made by the police, as Ludovic Kennedy
pointed out much later, when the truth about Christie emerged.
The police accepted all of Christie's statements as factual without bothering to probe further, and indeed, he was the crucial witness at the trial of Evans. Unlike Evans, Christie had criminal convictions for theft
and malicious wounding, the latter when he struck a woman on the head with a cricket bat.
Nearly three years passed without major incident for Christie after Evans's trial. Christie lost his job at the Post Office Savings Bank because his criminal past had been disclosed in the trial, but he found alternative employment as a clerk with the British Road Services at their Shepherd's Bush depot. At the same time, new tenants arrived to fill the vacant first and second-floor rooms in 10 Rillington Place. The tenants were black immigrants from the West Indies, which horrified the Christies, who regarded their neighbours as inferior and despised living with them. Tensions between the new tenants and the Christies came to a head when Ethel Christie prosecuted one of her neighbours for assault. Christie successfully negotiated with the Poor Man's Lawyer Centre to continue to have exclusive use of the back garden, ostensibly to have space between him and his neighbours, but probably to prevent anyone from stumbling upon the human remains visible there.
and could not write herself; to one neighbour, he explained that she was visiting her relatives in Sheffield; to another, he said that she had gone to Birmingham
. Christie had resigned from his job on 6 December and had been unemployed since then. To support himself, Christie sold Ethel's wedding ring, watch, and furniture. Every week he went to the Labour Exchange to collect his unemployment benefit On 26 January 1953 he forged his wife's signature and emptied her bank account.
area. Nelson was from Belfast
and was visiting her sister in Ladbroke Grove when she met Christie. Christie first met Maclennan, who was living in London with her boyfriend, Alex Baker, in a café. All three met on several occasions after this, and Christie let Maclennan and Baker stay at Rillington Place while they were looking for accommodation. On another occasion, Christie met Maclennan on her own and persuaded her to come back to his flat where he murdered her. Later, he convinced Baker, who came to Rillington Place looking for her, that he had not seen Maclennan. Christie kept up the pretence for several days, meeting Baker regularly to see if he had news of her whereabouts and to help him search for her.
For the murders of his final three victims, Christie modified the gassing technique he had first used on Muriel Eady; he simply used a rubber tube connected to the gas pipe in the kitchen which he kept closed off with a bulldog clip
. He seated his victims in the kitchen, released the clip on the tube, and let gas leak into the room. The Brabin Report pointed out that Christie's explanation of his gassing technique was not satisfactory because he would have been overpowered by the gas as well. Nevertheless, it was established that all three victims had been exposed to carbon monoxide. The gas made his victims drowsy, after which Christie strangled them with a length of rope.
As with Eady, Christie raped his last three victims while they were unconscious and continued to do so as they died. When this aspect of his crimes was publicly revealed, Christie quickly gained a reputation for being a necrophilia
c. One commentator, however, has cautioned against categorising Christie as such; according to the accounts Christie gave to the police, he did not engage sexually with any of his victims exclusively after death. After he murdered each of his final victims, he hid their bodies in a small alcove behind the back kitchen wall, which was covered over with wallpaper. Christie wrapped his semi-naked victims' bodies in blankets, similar to the way in which Beryl Evans's body had been wrapped.
After he left Rillington Place, Christie went to a Rowton House
in King's Cross
, where he booked a room for seven nights under his real name and address. He stayed for only four nights, leaving on 24 March when news of the discovery at his flat broke, after which he wandered around London, spending much of his time in cafés. On the morning of 31 March Christie was arrested on the embankment by Putney Bridge
after being challenged about his identity by a police officer; all he had in his possession were some coins and an old newspaper clipping about the remand
of Timothy Evans.
, Christie confessed to seven murders: the three women found in the kitchen alcove, his wife, and the two women buried in the back garden. He also admitted being responsible for the murder of Beryl Evans, which Timothy Evans had originally been charged with during the police investigation in 1949, although he denied killing Geraldine Evans.
Christie was tried only for the murder of his wife Ethel. His trial began on 22 June 1953, in the same court in which Evans had been tried three years earlier. Christie pleaded insanity and claimed to have a poor memory of the events. The jury rejected the plea, and after deliberating for 85 minutes found Christie guilty. Christie did not appeal against his conviction, and on 15 July 1953 he was hanged at Pentonville Prison
by Albert Pierrepoint
, who had also hanged Evans. After being pinioned for execution, Christie complained that his nose itched. Pierrepoint assured him that "It won't bother you for long".
The controversy prompted the then Home Secretary
, David Maxwell-Fyfe, to commission an inquiry led by John Scott Henderson, QC
, the Recorder
of Portsmouth
, to determine whether Evans had been innocent of his crimes and if a miscarriage of justice
had occurred. Scott Henderson interviewed Christie before his execution as well as another twenty witnesses who had been involved in either of the police investigations. He concluded that Evans was in fact guilty of both murders and that Christie's confessions to the murder of Beryl Evans were unreliable and made in the context of furthering his own defence that he was insane.
Far from ending the matter, questions continued to be raised in Parliament
concerning Evans's innocence, along with newspaper campaigns and books being published making similar claims. The Scott Henderson Inquiry was criticised for being held over too short a time period (one week) and for being prejudiced against the possibility that Evans was innocent. This controversy, along with the unusual coincidence that two stranglers would have been living in the same property at the same time if Evans and Christie had both been guilty, kept alive the issue that a miscarriage of justice
had taken place in Evans's trial.
This uncertainty led to a second inquiry, chaired by High Court judge, Sir Daniel Brabin, which was conducted over the winter of 1965–66. Brabin re-examined much of the evidence from both cases and evaluated some of the arguments for Evans's innocence. His conclusions were that it was "more probable than not" that Evans had killed his wife but not his daughter Geraldine, for whose death Christie was responsible. Christie's likely motive was that her continued presence would have drawn attention to Beryl's disappearance. Brabin also noted, however, that the uncertainty involved in the case would have prevented a jury from being satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of Evans's guilt had he been re-tried. These conclusions were used by the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins
, to recommend a posthumous pardon
for Timothy Evans, which was granted, as Evans had been tried on and executed for the murder of his daughter. Jenkins announced the granting of Evans's pardon to the House of Commons on 18 October 1966. It allowed authorities to return Evans's remains to his family, who had him reburied in a private grave.
There was already debate in the United Kingdom over the continued use of the death penalty in the legal system. The controversy generated by Evans's case, along with a number of other controversial cases from the same time, contributed to the 1965 suspension, and later abolition, of capital punishment in the United Kingdom
for murder.
, who played Christie in the film, spoke of his reluctance to accept the role: "I do not like playing the part, but I accepted it at once without seeing the script. I have never felt so totally involved in any part as this. It is a most devastating statement on capital punishment."
In January 2003 the Home Office
awarded Timothy Evans's half-sister, Mary Westlake, and his sister, Eileen Ashby, ex-gratia payments as compensation for the miscarriage of justice in Timothy Evans's trial. The independent assessor for the Home Office, Lord Brennan QC, accepted that "the conviction and execution of Timothy Evans for the murder of his child was wrongful and a miscarriage of justice" and that "there is no evidence to implicate Timothy Evans in the murder of his wife. She was most probably murdered by Christie." Lord Brennan believed that the Brabin Report's conclusion that Evans probably murdered his wife should be rejected given Christie's confessions and conviction.
Writing in 1978, Professor Keith Simpson, one of the pathologists involved in the forensic examination of Christie's victims, had this to say about the pubic hair collection:
However, no attempts were or have been made to trace any further victims of Christie, such as examining records of missing women in London during his period of activity. Michael Eddowes
suggested in his book of 1955 that Christie was in a perfect position as a police constable during the war to have committed many more murders than have been discovered.
Halifax, West Yorkshire
Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...
, was a notorious English serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
active in the 1940s and '50s. He murdered at least eight females – including his wife Ethel – by strangling them in his flat at 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is an area in London, England, close to the north-western corner of Kensington Gardens, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...
, London. Christie moved out of Rillington Place in March 1953, and shortly afterwards the bodies of three of his victims were discovered hidden in an alcove in his kitchen. His wife was concealed beneath the floorboards of the front room at Rillington Place. Christie was arrested and convicted of his wife's murder, for which he was hanged in 1953.
While serving as an infantryman during the First World War, Christie was apparently injured in a gas attack, which he claimed left him permanently unable to speak loudly. He turned to crime following his discharge from the army and was imprisoned several times, for offences including theft
Theft
In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...
and assault
Assault
In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...
. On the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in 1939, he was accepted for service in the War Reserve Police, when the authorities failed to check his criminal record. He committed his murders between 1943 and 1953, usually by strangling his victims after he had rendered them unconscious with domestic gas; some he rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
d as they lay unconscious.
There was formerly some controversy over the responsibility for the deaths of Beryl Evans and her daughter Geraldine, who, along with Beryl's husband Timothy Evans
Timothy Evans
Timothy John Evans was a Welshman accused of murdering his wife and daughter at their residence in Notting Hill, London in November 1949. In January 1950 Evans was tried and convicted of the murder of his daughter, and he was sentenced to death by hanging...
, were tenants at 10 Rillington Place during 1948 and 1949. Timothy Evans was charged with both murders, found guilty of the murder of his daughter, and hanged in 1950. Christie was a key prosecution witness, but when his own crimes were discovered three years later, serious doubts were raised over the integrity of Evans' conviction; Christie himself also subsequently admitted killing Beryl Evans, although not Geraldine. It is now generally accepted that Christie murdered both Beryl and Geraldine Evans, and that a serious miscarriage of justice
Miscarriage of justice
A miscarriage of justice primarily is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. The term can also apply to errors in the other direction—"errors of impunity", and to civil cases. Most criminal justice systems have some means to overturn, or "quash", a wrongful...
occurred when Timothy Evans was hanged. Police mishandling of the original enquiry, and their incompetence in searches at the house allowed Christie to escape detection, and enabled him to murder four more women.
In an official inquiry conducted 1965–6, Mr Justice (Sir Daniel) Brabin concluded that it was "more probable than not" that Evans killed his wife but that he did not kill his daughter Geraldine. This finding, challenged in subsequent legal processes, enabled the Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
to grant Evans a posthumous pardon
Pardon
Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...
for the murder of his daughter in October 1966. The case contributed to the abolition of capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
for murder in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1965.
Early life
Born in the family home near Halifax, West YorkshireHalifax, West Yorkshire
Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...
, Christie was the sixth child in a family of seven children. He had a troubled relationship with his father, carpet designer Ernest John Christie, an austere and uncommunicative man who displayed little emotion towards his children; he would also punish them for trivial offences, such as taking a tomato from a plate. Christie was also dominated by his five sisters, leading his mother, Mary Hannah Halliday, to overprotect him, all experiences that undermined his self-confidence. In later life, Christie's childhood peers described him as "a queer lad" who "kept himself to himself" and "was not very popular". As an adult, Christie spoke of seeing at the age of eight the open coffin of his maternal grandfather and how profound an experience it had been to see the dead body of a man who had previously frightened him.
At the age of 11 Christie won a scholarship to Halifax Secondary School, where his favourite subject was mathematics, particularly algebra
Algebra
Algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning the study of the rules of operations and relations, and the constructions and concepts arising from them, including terms, polynomials, equations and algebraic structures...
. It was later found he had an IQ of 128. Christie sang in the church choir and was a Boy Scout
Boy Scout
A Scout is a boy or a girl, usually 11 to 18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement. Because of the large age and development span, many Scouting associations have split this age group into a junior and a senior section...
. After leaving school aged 15, he took a job as an assistant film projectionist.
In September 1916 Christie enlisted in the army and in the following April he was called up to join the 52nd Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment
Sherwood Foresters
The Sherwood Foresters was formed during the Childers Reforms in 1881 from the amalgamation of the 45th Regiment of Foot and the 95th Regiment of Foot...
. In April 1918 Christie's regiment was despatched to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where he was seconded to the Duke of Wellington's (West Riding) Regiment
Duke of Wellington's Regiment
The Duke of Wellington's Regiment was an infantry regiment of the British Army, forming part of the King's Division.In 1702 Colonel George Hastings, 8th Earl of Huntingdon, was authorised to raise a new regiment, which he did in and around the city of Gloucester. As was the custom in those days...
as a signalman. In June, Christie was injured in a mustard gas attack and spent a month in a military hospital in Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
. Later in life, Christie claimed to have been blinded
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
and rendered mute
Muteness
Muteness or mutism is an inability to speak caused by a speech disorder. The term originates from the Latin word mutus, meaning "silent".-Causes:...
for three and a half years by the attack. Christie's period of muteness was the alleged reason for his inability to talk much louder than a whisper for the rest of his life. Author Ludovic Kennedy
Ludovic Kennedy
Sir Ludovic Henry Coverley Kennedy was a British journalist, broadcaster, humanist and author best known for re-examining cases such as the Lindbergh kidnapping and the murder convictions of Timothy Evans and Derek Bentley, and for his role in the abolition of the death penalty in the United...
points out that no record of his blindness has been traced and that, while Christie may have lost his voice when he was admitted to hospital, he would not have been discharged as fit for duty had he remained a mute. His inability to talk loudly, Kennedy argues, was a psychological reaction to the gassing rather than a lasting toxic effect of the gas. That reaction, and Christie's exaggeration of the effects of the attack, stemmed from an underlying personality disorder
Histrionic personality disorder
Histrionic personality disorder is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, including an excessive need for approval and inappropriately seductive behavior, usually beginning in early...
that caused him to exaggerate or feign illness as a ploy to get attention and sympathy.
Impotence was a lifelong problem for Christie. Whilst a post mortem report confirms Christie's genitals were normal physically, his first attempts at sex were failures, branding him throughout adolescence as "Reggie-No-Dick" and "Can't-Do-It-Christie". His difficulties with sex remained throughout his life, and most of the time he could only perform with prostitutes. On 10 May 1920 Christie married Ethel Simpson Waddington from Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
, at Halifax Register Office
Register office
A register office is a British term for a civil registry, a government office and depository where births, deaths and marriages are officially recorded and where you can get officially married, without a religious ceremony...
, but his problems with impotence remained, and he continued to frequent prostitutes. The couple moved to Sheffield, but separated after four years of marriage. Christie moved to London, and Ethel remained in Sheffield with her relatives.
Early criminal career
During the decade following his marriage to Ethel, Christie received many convictions for petty criminal offences. His first was for stealing postal orderPostal Order
In the United Kingdom , a Postal Order is used for sending money through the mail. In the United States, this is known as a Postal money order...
s while working as a postman, for which he received three months' imprisonment on 12 April 1921. In January 1923 Christie was convicted of obtaining money on false pretences and violent conduct, for which he was bound over and put on 12 months' probation respectively. He committed two further crimes of larceny
Larceny
Larceny is a crime involving the wrongful acquisition of the personal property of another person. It was an offence under the common law of England and became an offence in jurisdictions which incorporated the common law of England into their own law. It has been abolished in England and Wales,...
in 1924 and received consecutive sentences of three and six months' imprisonment from September 1924. In May 1929, he was convicted of assault
Assault
In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...
ing a prostitute with whom he was living in Battersea
Battersea
Battersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is an inner-city district of South London, situated on the south side of the River Thames, 2.9 miles south-west of Charing Cross. Battersea spans from Fairfield in the west to Queenstown in the east...
and was sentenced to six months' hard labour; Christie had hit her over the head with a cricket bat, which the magistrate described as a "murderous attack". Finally, he was convicted of stealing a car from a priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
who had befriended him, and was imprisoned for three months in late 1933.
Christie and Ethel were reconciled after his release from prison, but although Christie was able to end his course of petty crime, he continued to seek out prostitutes. In December 1938, Christie and his wife moved into the ground-floor flat of 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is an area in London, England, close to the north-western corner of Kensington Gardens, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...
, then a rather run-down area of London. The house was a three-storey brick terrace; the ground and first floors contained a bedroom, living room and kitchen but the second-floor flat had no kitchen. Living conditions were "squalid" – the building's occupants had just one outside lavatory to share, and none of the flats had a bathroom. The street was close to an above-ground section of the Metropolitan line
Metropolitan Line
The Metropolitan line is part of the London Underground. It is coloured in Transport for London's Corporate Magenta on the Tube map and in other branding. It was the first underground railway in the world, opening as the Metropolitan Railway on 10 January 1863...
(now the Hammersmith & City
Hammersmith & City Line
The Hammersmith & City line is a subsurface London Underground line. It connects Hammersmith in the west with Barking in the east, running through the northern part of central London. It is coloured salmon pink on the Tube map...
and Circle lines), and the train noise would have been "deafening" for the occupants of 10 Rillington Place.
On the outbreak of the Second World War Christie applied to join the War Reserve Police and was accepted despite his criminal record, as the authorities failed to check his background. He was assigned to the Harrow Road
Harrow Road
The Harrow Road is an ancient route in Greater London which runs from Paddington in a northwesterly direction to Harrow. With minor deviations in the 19th and 20th centuries, the route remains otherwise unaltered...
police station, where he met a woman with whom he began an affair. Their relationship lasted until mid-1943, when the woman's husband, a serving soldier, returned from the war. After learning of the affair he went to the house where his wife was living, discovered Christie there, and assaulted him.
Murders
Known victims:- (1943: Ruth Fuerst, 21)
- (October 1944: Muriel Eady, 32)
- (8 November 1949: Beryl Evans, 20)
- (8 November 1949: Geraldine Evans, 13 months)
- (12 December 1952: Ethel Christie, 54)
- (19 January 1953: Rita Nelson, 25)
- (February 1953: Kathleen Maloney, 26)
- (March 1953: Hectorina MacLennan, 26)
First murders
The first person Christie admitted to killing was Ruth Fuerst, an AustriaAustria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n-born munitions worker and part-time prostitute. Christie claimed to have met Fuerst either while she was soliciting clients or in a snack bar in Ladbroke Grove
Ladbroke Grove
Ladbroke Grove is a road in west London, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is also sometimes the name given informally to the immediate area surrounding the road. Running from Notting Hill in the south to Kensal Green in the north, it is located in North Kensington and straddles...
. According to his own statements, he impulsively strangled her during sex at Rillington Place in August 1943. He buried Fuerst's body in the back garden after initially hiding it beneath the floorboards of his front living room.
Shortly after the murder, at the end of 1943, Christie resigned as a Special Constable. The following year he found new employment as a clerk at a radio factory. There he met his second victim, co-worker Muriel Amelia Eady. In October 1944, he invited Eady back to his flat with the promise that he had concocted a "special mixture" that could cure her bronchitis
Bronchitis
Acute bronchitis is an inflammation of the large bronchi in the lungs that is usually caused by viruses or bacteria and may last several days or weeks. Characteristic symptoms include cough, sputum production, and shortness of breath and wheezing related to the obstruction of the inflamed airways...
. Eady was to inhale the mixture from a jar with a tube inserted in the top. The mixture in fact was Friar's Balsam
Tincture of benzoin
Tincture of benzoin is a pungent solution of benzoin resin in alcohol. A similar preparation called Friar's Balsam or Compound Benzoin Tincture contains, in addition, Cape aloes and storax .-Medical uses:Tincture of benzoin has two main medical uses: as a treatment for damaged skin in the...
, which Christie used to disguise the smell of domestic gas. Once Eady was seated breathing the mixture from the tube with her back turned, Christie inserted a second tube into the jar connected to a gas tap. As Eady continued breathing, she inhaled the domestic gas, which soon rendered her unconscious – domestic gas in the 1940s was coal gas
Coal gas
Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made by the destructive distillation of coal containing a variety of calorific gases including hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and volatile hydrocarbons together with small quantities of non-calorific gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen...
, which had a carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide , also called carbonous oxide, is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly lighter than air. It is highly toxic to humans and animals in higher quantities, although it is also produced in normal animal metabolism in low quantities, and is thought to have some normal...
content of 15 percent. Once Eady was unconscious, Christie raped and then strangled her, before burying her body alongside Fuerst's in the back garden.
Murders of Beryl and Geraldine Evans
At Easter 1948 Timothy EvansTimothy Evans
Timothy John Evans was a Welshman accused of murdering his wife and daughter at their residence in Notting Hill, London in November 1949. In January 1950 Evans was tried and convicted of the murder of his daughter, and he was sentenced to death by hanging...
and his wife Beryl moved into the top floor flat at Rillington Place, where Beryl gave birth to their daughter, Geraldine, in October 1948. In late 1949 Evans informed police that his wife was dead. A police search of 10 Rillington Place revealed the dead bodies of Geraldine and Beryl Evans in an outside wash-house. Beryl's body had also been wrapped twice over in a blanket and then a table cloth. The autopsy
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
revealed that both had been strangled, and that Beryl Evans had been physically assaulted before her death, judging by the bruises on her face. Evans at first claimed that Christie had killed his wife in a botched abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
operation, but under police questioning he eventually confessed to the murder himself. The alleged confession was most likely fabricated by the police themselves, as the statement appears contrived and artificial. After being charged Evans withdrew his confession and once again accused Christie, this time of both murders. On 11 January 1950, Evans was put on trial for the murder of his daughter, the prosecution having decided not to pursue a second charge of murdering his wife. Christie was a principal witness for the Crown and gave evidence denying Evans' accusations. The jury found Evans guilty despite the revelation of Christie's criminal record
Criminal record
A criminal record is a record of a person's criminal history, generally used by potential employers, lenders etc. to assess his or her trustworthiness. The information included in a criminal record varies between countries and even between jurisdictions within a country...
of theft
Theft
In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...
and violence, and, after an appeal
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
on 20 February had failed, Evans was hanged on 9 March 1950.
Police blunders
The police made many mistakes in the handling of the case, especially by missing the remains of previous murders left in the garden at Rillington Place: one thigh bone was later to be found propping up a fence, for example. The garden at the house was very small (about 16 by 14 feet), and the fence was next to the wash-house where the bodies of Beryl and Geraldine were found later. Several searches were made at the house after Evans confessed to putting his wife in the drains, but the wash-house wasn't entered at any point by the three policemen involved. The garden was examined and yet all the searches missed the visible bones. Christie later admitted that his dog had unearthed a skullSkull
The skull is a bony structure in the head of many animals that supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.The skull is composed of two parts: the cranium and the mandible. A skull without a mandible is only a cranium. Animals that have skulls are called craniates...
in the garden shortly after the police searches, which he removed and left in a nearby bombed-out house. There was clearly no systematic search made of the crime scene
Crime scene
A crime scene is a location where an illegal act took place, and comprises the area from which most of the physical evidence is retrieved by trained law enforcement personnel, crime scene investigators or in rare circumstances, forensic scientists....
in which this or other human remains would have been found, and pointed to Christie as the perpetrator. The skull, ironically, was handed in to Notting Hill police station during the investigation, but ignored. The several police searches of the property showed a complete lack of forensic expertise and were superficial at best. Had the searches been conducted effectively, the investigation would have exposed Christie as the murderer, and the lives of four women as well as Evans would have been saved.
The evidence of builders working at the house was ignored, and their various interviews with Evans suggest that the police concocted a false confession
False confession
A false confession is an admission of guilt in a crime in which the confessor is not responsible for the crime. False confessions can be induced through coercion or by the mental disorder or incompetency of the accused...
. It should have been clear, for example, from the very first statement made in Wales that Evans was totally unaware of the resting place of the body of his wife, or how she had been killed. He claimed that his wife's body was in a drain at the front of the house, but a police search failed to find any remains there. That in itself should have prompted a thorough search of the house, wash-room and garden, but no further action was taken until later, when the two bodies were found in the wash-room outside. He was also totally unaware at his first interview, that his daughter had been killed. The police interrogation in London was mishandled from the start, when they showed him the clothes of his wife and baby and revealed that they had been found in the wash-room. Such information should have been kept from him so as to force him to tell them where the bodies had been concealed. The several "confessions" apparently made by Evans bear no relation to what he probably said, and were inventions made by the police, as Ludovic Kennedy
Ludovic Kennedy
Sir Ludovic Henry Coverley Kennedy was a British journalist, broadcaster, humanist and author best known for re-examining cases such as the Lindbergh kidnapping and the murder convictions of Timothy Evans and Derek Bentley, and for his role in the abolition of the death penalty in the United...
pointed out much later, when the truth about Christie emerged.
The police accepted all of Christie's statements as factual without bothering to probe further, and indeed, he was the crucial witness at the trial of Evans. Unlike Evans, Christie had criminal convictions for theft
Theft
In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...
and malicious wounding, the latter when he struck a woman on the head with a cricket bat.
Nearly three years passed without major incident for Christie after Evans's trial. Christie lost his job at the Post Office Savings Bank because his criminal past had been disclosed in the trial, but he found alternative employment as a clerk with the British Road Services at their Shepherd's Bush depot. At the same time, new tenants arrived to fill the vacant first and second-floor rooms in 10 Rillington Place. The tenants were black immigrants from the West Indies, which horrified the Christies, who regarded their neighbours as inferior and despised living with them. Tensions between the new tenants and the Christies came to a head when Ethel Christie prosecuted one of her neighbours for assault. Christie successfully negotiated with the Poor Man's Lawyer Centre to continue to have exclusive use of the back garden, ostensibly to have space between him and his neighbours, but probably to prevent anyone from stumbling upon the human remains visible there.
Murder of Ethel Christie
On the morning of 14 December 1952, Christie strangled Ethel in bed. She had last been seen in public two days earlier. Christie invented several stories to explain his wife's disappearance, and prevent the possibility of further inquiries being made. In reply to a letter from relatives in Sheffield, he wrote that Ethel had rheumatismRheumatism
Rheumatism or rheumatic disorder is a non-specific term for medical problems affecting the joints and connective tissue. The study of, and therapeutic interventions in, such disorders is called rheumatology.-Terminology:...
and could not write herself; to one neighbour, he explained that she was visiting her relatives in Sheffield; to another, he said that she had gone to Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
. Christie had resigned from his job on 6 December and had been unemployed since then. To support himself, Christie sold Ethel's wedding ring, watch, and furniture. Every week he went to the Labour Exchange to collect his unemployment benefit On 26 January 1953 he forged his wife's signature and emptied her bank account.
More murders
Between 19 January and 6 March 1953, Christie murdered three more women whom he had invited back to 10 Rillington Place: Kathleen Maloney, Rita Nelson, and Hectorina Maclennan. Maloney was a prostitute from the Ladbroke GroveLadbroke Grove
Ladbroke Grove is a road in west London, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is also sometimes the name given informally to the immediate area surrounding the road. Running from Notting Hill in the south to Kensal Green in the north, it is located in North Kensington and straddles...
area. Nelson was from Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
and was visiting her sister in Ladbroke Grove when she met Christie. Christie first met Maclennan, who was living in London with her boyfriend, Alex Baker, in a café. All three met on several occasions after this, and Christie let Maclennan and Baker stay at Rillington Place while they were looking for accommodation. On another occasion, Christie met Maclennan on her own and persuaded her to come back to his flat where he murdered her. Later, he convinced Baker, who came to Rillington Place looking for her, that he had not seen Maclennan. Christie kept up the pretence for several days, meeting Baker regularly to see if he had news of her whereabouts and to help him search for her.
For the murders of his final three victims, Christie modified the gassing technique he had first used on Muriel Eady; he simply used a rubber tube connected to the gas pipe in the kitchen which he kept closed off with a bulldog clip
Bulldog clip
A bulldog clip is a device for temporarily binding sheets of paper together. It consists of a rectangular sheet of springy steel curved into a cylinder, with two flat steel strips inserted to form combined handles and jaws. The user presses the two handles together, causing the jaws to open against...
. He seated his victims in the kitchen, released the clip on the tube, and let gas leak into the room. The Brabin Report pointed out that Christie's explanation of his gassing technique was not satisfactory because he would have been overpowered by the gas as well. Nevertheless, it was established that all three victims had been exposed to carbon monoxide. The gas made his victims drowsy, after which Christie strangled them with a length of rope.
As with Eady, Christie raped his last three victims while they were unconscious and continued to do so as they died. When this aspect of his crimes was publicly revealed, Christie quickly gained a reputation for being a necrophilia
Necrophilia
Necrophilia, also called thanatophilia or necrolagnia, is the sexual attraction to corpses,It is classified as a paraphilia by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The word is artificially derived from the ancient Greek words: νεκρός and φιλία...
c. One commentator, however, has cautioned against categorising Christie as such; according to the accounts Christie gave to the police, he did not engage sexually with any of his victims exclusively after death. After he murdered each of his final victims, he hid their bodies in a small alcove behind the back kitchen wall, which was covered over with wallpaper. Christie wrapped his semi-naked victims' bodies in blankets, similar to the way in which Beryl Evans's body had been wrapped.
Arrest
Christie moved out of 10 Rillington Place on 20 March 1953, after fraudulently sub-letting his flat to a couple from whom he took £7.13s.0d (£7.65p or about £ as of ). The landlord visited that same evening and, finding the couple there instead of Christie, demanded that they leave first thing next morning. The landlord then allowed the tenant of the top floor flat, Beresford Brown, to use Christie's kitchen. On 24 March, Brown discovered the kitchen alcove when he attempted to insert brackets into the wall to hold a wireless set. Peeling back the wallpaper, Brown saw the bodies of Maloney, Nelson, and Maclennan. After getting confirmation from another tenant in 10 Rillington Place that they were dead bodies, Brown informed the police and a citywide search for Christie began.After he left Rillington Place, Christie went to a Rowton House
Rowton Houses
Rowton Houses were a chain of hostels built in London, England by the Victorian philanthropist Lord Rowton to provide decent accommodation for working men in place of the squalid lodging houses of the time....
in King's Cross
Kings Cross, London
King's Cross is an area of London partly in the London Borough of Camden and partly in the London Borough of Islington. It is an inner-city district located 2.5 miles north of Charing Cross. The area formerly had a reputation for being a red light district and run-down. However, rapid regeneration...
, where he booked a room for seven nights under his real name and address. He stayed for only four nights, leaving on 24 March when news of the discovery at his flat broke, after which he wandered around London, spending much of his time in cafés. On the morning of 31 March Christie was arrested on the embankment by Putney Bridge
Putney Bridge
Putney Bridge is a bridge crossing of the River Thames in west London, linking Putney on the south side with Fulham to the north. Putney Bridge tube station is located near the north side of the bridge.-History:...
after being challenged about his identity by a police officer; all he had in his possession were some coins and an old newspaper clipping about the remand
Detention of suspects
The detention of suspects is the process of keeping a person who has been arrested in a police-cell, remand prison or other detention centre before trial or sentencing. One criticism of pretrial detention is that eventual acquittal can be a somewhat hollow victory, in that there is no way to...
of Timothy Evans.
Conviction and execution
While in custodyArrest
An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...
, Christie confessed to seven murders: the three women found in the kitchen alcove, his wife, and the two women buried in the back garden. He also admitted being responsible for the murder of Beryl Evans, which Timothy Evans had originally been charged with during the police investigation in 1949, although he denied killing Geraldine Evans.
Christie was tried only for the murder of his wife Ethel. His trial began on 22 June 1953, in the same court in which Evans had been tried three years earlier. Christie pleaded insanity and claimed to have a poor memory of the events. The jury rejected the plea, and after deliberating for 85 minutes found Christie guilty. Christie did not appeal against his conviction, and on 15 July 1953 he was hanged at Pentonville Prison
Pentonville (HM Prison)
HM Prison Pentonville is a Category B/C men's prison, operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service. Pentonville Prison is not actually within Pentonville itself, but is located further north, on the Caledonian Road in the Barnsbury area of the London Borough of Islington, in inner-North London,...
by Albert Pierrepoint
Albert Pierrepoint
Albert Pierrepoint is the most famous member of the family which provided three of the United Kingdom's official hangmen in the first half of the 20th century...
, who had also hanged Evans. After being pinioned for execution, Christie complained that his nose itched. Pierrepoint assured him that "It won't bother you for long".
Innocence of Timothy Evans
After Christie's conviction there was substantial controversy concerning the earlier trial of Evans, who had been convicted mainly on the evidence of a serial killer living in the same property in which Evans had allegedly carried out his crimes. Christie confessed to Beryl Evans's murder and although he neither confessed to, nor was charged with, Geraldine Evans's murder, he was considered guilty of both murders by many at the time. This, in turn, cast doubt on the fairness of Evans's trial and raised the possibility that an innocent person had been hanged.The controversy prompted the then Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
, David Maxwell-Fyfe, to commission an inquiry led by John Scott Henderson, QC
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
, the Recorder
Recorder (judge)
A Recorder is a judicial officer in England and Wales. It now refers to two quite different appointments. The ancient Recorderships of England and Wales now form part of a system of Honorary Recorderships which are filled by the most senior full-time circuit judges...
of Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
, to determine whether Evans had been innocent of his crimes and if a miscarriage of justice
Miscarriage of justice
A miscarriage of justice primarily is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. The term can also apply to errors in the other direction—"errors of impunity", and to civil cases. Most criminal justice systems have some means to overturn, or "quash", a wrongful...
had occurred. Scott Henderson interviewed Christie before his execution as well as another twenty witnesses who had been involved in either of the police investigations. He concluded that Evans was in fact guilty of both murders and that Christie's confessions to the murder of Beryl Evans were unreliable and made in the context of furthering his own defence that he was insane.
Far from ending the matter, questions continued to be raised in Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
concerning Evans's innocence, along with newspaper campaigns and books being published making similar claims. The Scott Henderson Inquiry was criticised for being held over too short a time period (one week) and for being prejudiced against the possibility that Evans was innocent. This controversy, along with the unusual coincidence that two stranglers would have been living in the same property at the same time if Evans and Christie had both been guilty, kept alive the issue that a miscarriage of justice
Miscarriage of justice
A miscarriage of justice primarily is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. The term can also apply to errors in the other direction—"errors of impunity", and to civil cases. Most criminal justice systems have some means to overturn, or "quash", a wrongful...
had taken place in Evans's trial.
This uncertainty led to a second inquiry, chaired by High Court judge, Sir Daniel Brabin, which was conducted over the winter of 1965–66. Brabin re-examined much of the evidence from both cases and evaluated some of the arguments for Evans's innocence. His conclusions were that it was "more probable than not" that Evans had killed his wife but not his daughter Geraldine, for whose death Christie was responsible. Christie's likely motive was that her continued presence would have drawn attention to Beryl's disappearance. Brabin also noted, however, that the uncertainty involved in the case would have prevented a jury from being satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of Evans's guilt had he been re-tried. These conclusions were used by the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins
Roy Jenkins
Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead OM, PC was a British politician.The son of a Welsh coal miner who later became a union official and Labour MP, Roy Jenkins served with distinction in World War II. Elected to Parliament as a Labour member in 1948, he served in several major posts in...
, to recommend a posthumous pardon
Pardon
Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...
for Timothy Evans, which was granted, as Evans had been tried on and executed for the murder of his daughter. Jenkins announced the granting of Evans's pardon to the House of Commons on 18 October 1966. It allowed authorities to return Evans's remains to his family, who had him reburied in a private grave.
There was already debate in the United Kingdom over the continued use of the death penalty in the legal system. The controversy generated by Evans's case, along with a number of other controversial cases from the same time, contributed to the 1965 suspension, and later abolition, of capital punishment in the United Kingdom
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom was used from the creation of the state in 1707 until the practice was abolished in the 20th century. The last executions in the United Kingdom, by hanging, took place in 1964, prior to capital punishment being abolished for murder...
for murder.
Later developments
In 1954, the year after Christie's execution, Rillington Place was renamed Ruston Close, but number 10 continued in multiple occupation. The three families living there in 1970 refused to move out for the shooting of the 1971 film 10 Rillington Place, which was therefore set in the empty number 7. Richard AttenboroughRichard Attenborough
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough , CBE is a British actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. As director and producer he won two Academy Awards for the 1982 film Gandhi...
, who played Christie in the film, spoke of his reluctance to accept the role: "I do not like playing the part, but I accepted it at once without seeing the script. I have never felt so totally involved in any part as this. It is a most devastating statement on capital punishment."
In January 2003 the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
awarded Timothy Evans's half-sister, Mary Westlake, and his sister, Eileen Ashby, ex-gratia payments as compensation for the miscarriage of justice in Timothy Evans's trial. The independent assessor for the Home Office, Lord Brennan QC, accepted that "the conviction and execution of Timothy Evans for the murder of his child was wrongful and a miscarriage of justice" and that "there is no evidence to implicate Timothy Evans in the murder of his wife. She was most probably murdered by Christie." Lord Brennan believed that the Brabin Report's conclusion that Evans probably murdered his wife should be rejected given Christie's confessions and conviction.
Other murders
Based on the pubic hair that Christie collected from his victims, it has been speculated that he was responsible for more murders than those carried out at 10 Rillington Place. Christie claimed that the four different clumps of hair in his collection came from his wife and the three bodies discovered in the kitchen alcove, but only one matched the hair type on those bodies, Ethel Christie's. Even if two of the others had come from the bodies of Fuerst and Eady, which had by then decomposed into skeletons, there was still one remaining clump of hair unaccounted for—it could not have come from Beryl Evans, as no pubic hair had been removed from her body.Writing in 1978, Professor Keith Simpson, one of the pathologists involved in the forensic examination of Christie's victims, had this to say about the pubic hair collection:
However, no attempts were or have been made to trace any further victims of Christie, such as examining records of missing women in London during his period of activity. Michael Eddowes
Michael Eddowes
Michael Eddowes was a British lawyer, author and investigator.Eddowes came from a family of barristers and built a large law practice specializing in divorce.-Notable cases:...
suggested in his book of 1955 that Christie was in a perfect position as a police constable during the war to have committed many more murders than have been discovered.
External links
- Crime Library article
- List of documents relating to Christie and Evans held in the National Archives
- Murder UK – John Reginald Halliday Christie
- Website examining the location of 10 Rillington Place in modern-day London and providing historical photos of the site, as well as a summary of Christie's murders
- Bartle Road/Rillington Place location in Ladbroke Grove (Google)
- National Archives of Australia - The Sydney Morning Herald Page - 1 - News Headline - Thursday 23 April 1953