John Reginald Halliday Christie (8 April 1899 – 15 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's body was found beneath the floorboards of
the front room. 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 raped 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's conviction. Christie himself subsequently
admitted killing Beryl Evans, but 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.
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)
The trial:
From the archive, 26 June 1953: Death sentence on John Christie
Christie, who has confessed to seven
killings and is suspected of more, was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey
tonight for the murder of his wife Ethel. His plea of insanity was dismissed by
the jury
John Christie, who received
a death sentence for the murder of his wife, in April 1953. Photograph: PA
John
Reginald Halliday Christie was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey tonight for
the murder of his wife. One hour and 26 minutes after the jury had retired from
No. 1 Court to consider its verdict the black cap was being laid on Mr Justice
Finnemore's head and he was uttering the words "... there is only one
sentence known to our law ... and there suffer death by hanging."
Today's
proceedings consisted of the final speeches by Mr Derek Curtis-Bennett, QC for
the defence, and Sir Lionel Heald, QC the Attorney-General, followed by the
Judge's summing-up, which lasted just over two and a half hours.
When
the jury retired the old hands were saying that it might be midnight on a case
like this before a verdict was reached. But far sooner than that a crowd was
pushing round the courtroom door as the signal was given that the jury was returning.
The
court was hushed and still in the interval until the Judge returned to his
place. Then "Have you arrived at your verdict?" — "We
have." And in another second or two the unwavering voice of the foreman -
all eyes upon him - is saying not the three words which were the best Christie
could hope for but stopping short at the one: "Guilty."
Now
the formula of the law. "Have you anything to say before... " but
Christie does not wait for it to be finished. He breaks in mouthing
"No" and shaking his head. No emotion is visible on his face at the
sight of that black symbol on the Judge's wig.
In
the court as the day wore on and the thermometer climbed steadily to the middle
seventies the atmosphere was soporific. Here and there eyelids drooped and
heads nodded.
"Thirty
years ago," Mr Curtis-Bennett told the jury, "you would have heard
distinguished people talking so loudly - with tears running down their faces -
they could be heard next door. Fortunately advocacy of that kind has died
out."
And
suiting his actions to his words he proceeded to speak at times so low that
only a few could hear.
For
just over an hour Mr Curtis-Bennett pursued his theme that the murders were
motiveless, that the verdict should be "guilty but insane."
George
Smith, the "Brides in the Bath" killer, had insured his victims.
"Here as I see it," he went on, "it is absolutely
motiveless." Insanity was the only clue. Christie he called "an
object of pity rather than of horror - he is a man who should be locked up for
the rest of his life."
Sir
Lionel Heald scorned the view that if a man could be shown to have killed
enough people he must be mad and he was sure the jury would not accept it.
When
the time came for his summing up Mr Justice Finnemore went over the accounts
Christie had given of the murders, over the medical evidence and through a
summary of the evidence for the defence. "The mere fact," he told the
jury, "that a man acts like a monster cruelly and wickedly is not of itself
evidence that he is insane."
Perhaps
no jury before in this country had seen a man charged with murder go into the
witness box and say: "Yes, I did kill this victim and I killed six others
over a period of ten years."
Later
he said that if the jury accepted the scientific evidence then Christie's story
was plainly untrue. Mr Ambrose Applebe, Christie's solicitor, said tonight that
the question of an appeal was being considered.
[John
Christie was executed at Pentonville Prison on 15 July 1953.]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2012/jun/26/archive-john-christie-death-sentence?newsfeed=true
I do hope that those 8 victims, including
Timothy Evans rest in peace. I am satisfied that the law took care of this
serial killer. John Christie is dead and he can never hurt anybody again. Had
capital punishment been abolished in the UK at that time, John Christie may be
set free to go and kill again. As for Timothy Evans, I will be writing an
article on how to prevent a wrongful conviction, but if John Christie was never
arrested or paid with his life, there will be another miscarriage of justice.
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