The Infamous 10 Rillington Place: Serial Killer John Christie
May 17, 2021
John Reginald Halliday Christie, known as Reg Christie to friends and family was born on April 8, 1899 in Northowram near Halifax in the West Riding of Yorkshire. John was the 6th child born to a family of 7 and had a very troubled relationship with his father, Ernest John Christie, a carpet designer who showed little emotion towards his children and often punished them for even minor things. It was also said that John Christie was often bullied by his mother and older sisters growing up.
John was often described by his peers as a weird boy who often kept to himself. On March 24, 1911 John’s grandfather died in the house after suffering a long illness. John described seeing his grandfather’s dead body laid out at the age of almost 12, and said of this that he felt powerful looking at his grandfather who he once feared, now being just a corpse.
John Christie was very intelligent and at the age of 11 he won a scholarship to Halifax Secondary School, particularly loving the subject of math and algebra. It found that John had an IQ of 128. He was also very active in Boy Scouts and sang in his church choir.
John left school on April 22, 1913 and was an employed as an assistant projectionist.
Throughout adolescence John was bullied, particularly about sex. Apparently his first attempts at having sex were failures and he was often called “Reggie No Dick” and “Can’t Do It Christie.” John experienced sex difficulties for his entire life, most often only being said to perform with sex workers.
In September 1916, John enlisted in the British Army and he was called on April 12, 1917 to join the 52nd Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment to serve as an infantryman. In April 1918, John was despatched to France and the following June he was injured in a mustard gas attack and had to spend a month in a military hospital in Calais. John claims this attack left him unable to speak out loud, he could barley talk louder than a whisper for the rest of his life and left him blind and mute for 3 and a half years. However, there has been no evidence of John being blind and has been noted if he was mute he would of never been allowed to continue serving in the army.
Many believe this stemmed from an underlying personality disorder and that John Christie would exaggerate or make up illnesses to get attention from others.
In October 1919 John was demobilized from the army. He joined the Royal Air Force in December 1923 but was discharged less than a year later on August 15, 1924.
John married a woman named Ethel Simpson on May 10, 1920. During this time he was still having sex with sex workers. Ethel suffered a miscarriage early on in their marriage and they separated in 1924. John was convicted of several criminal offences, including stealing postal orders while working as a postman, obtaining money on false pretences and violent conduct. He committed larceny in 1924 and on May 13 1929 he was convicted of assaulting a woman named Maud Cole whom he was living with at the time. He had hit Maud over the head with a cricket bat and received a sentence of 6 months of hard labour. John was convicted of stealing a car and served 3 months on November 1, 1933.
Ethel moved to Sheffield in 1928 with her siblings and John moved to London in 1923, spending the next decade in and out of prison. John was released from prison in January 1934 and reunited with Ethel. It was in 1937 that the couple moved to the infamous 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill which was located in a pretty run down area.
At the beginning of World War II John applied to join the War Reserve Police and got accepted because they had failed to do a criminal record check on him. During this time he met a woman named Gladys Jones and began an affair with her. This relationship lasted until mid 1943 when Gladys’ husband returned from the war. The husband found out about the affair and assaulted John Christie.
All of John Christie’s murders were committed over a 10 year period between 1943 and 1953. His first murder was a woman named Ruth Fuerst, who was 21 at the time. Ruth would occasionally engage in being a sex worker and this is where John met her according to him. John claimed that on August 24, 1943 he invited Ruth to his home to have sex and after they were done he strangled her on his bed with some rope. He originally put Ruth’s body beneath the floorboards of his living room, but then ended up burying her in the back garden the next night. Ethel was out visiting relatives at the time of the murder.
On October 7, 1944 John invited Muriel Amelia Eady to his home, telling her that he had a special cure for her bronchitis. This special cure was actually domestic gas and when Muriel began inhaling it she soon became unconscious. John hid the smell of gas with Friar’s Balsam. Domestic gas in the 1940′s was coal gas, which had 15% carbon monoxide in it. John then raped and strangled Muriel and buried her beside Ruth.
During Easter 1948, a man named Timothy Evans and his wife Beryl moved into the top flat at Rillington Place. In October 1948 Beryl gave birth to a daughter, who was named Geraldine. In late 1949 Timothy told police that his wife was dead but then failed to find her body when they searched the flat. The police soon discovered the bodies of not only Beryl, but also Geraldine and a 16 week old male fetus in an outdoor wash house.
The autopsy revealed that Beryl and Geraldine had been strangled to death and Beryl had been physically assaulted as there were bruises on her face. Timothy Evans claimed that John Christie had killed his wife while performing a botched abortion, however Timothy eventually confessed to killing his life, though many believe this confession was fabricated by police. When Timothy was charged he took back his confession, claiming that John Christie had murdered both his wife and daughter, Geraldine.
On January 11, 1950 Timothy was put on trial for the murder of his daughter, but the prosecution decided not to charge him for his wife. John Christie was actually a witness for the Crown saying that Timothy and his wife often fought. Timothy was found guilty and was sentenced to be hanged on January 31, but this was appealed.
However, an appeal made on February 20th had failed and Timothy Evans was hanged at the HM Prison Pentonville on March 9, 1950. John Christie then began working at the Post Office Savings Bank on May 21, 1946 but was fired on April 4, 1950 when his past criminal record came to light.
The police did a pretty poor job with their investigations, they even searched the garden where John was disposing his victims bodies but they never excavated it. John even admitted later that his dog had found Muriel’s skull in the garden after the police had searched and John threw her skull into an abandoned bombed out house nearby.
It was obvious that Timothy’s confession was fake, he was clearly unaware of the resting place of his wife’s body or even how she had been killed. Timothy claimed that his wife was either in a manhole or a drain at the front of the house. Timothy wasn’t even aware that his daughter had also been murdered during his first interview.
On December 14, 1952 John Christie murdered his wife Ethel by strangling her in bed. John came up with multiple excuses as to why no one had heard or seen Ethel in a couple of days, telling people she had rheumatism or that she was visiting relatives in Sheffield. At this time John was unemployed so to make money he sold Ethel’s wedding ring on December 17th.
On January 26, 1953 John emptied Ethel’s bank account, and was selling furniture and her clothing and living off of unemployment checks.
Between January 19 and March 6, 1953 John Christie murdered three more women, Kathleen Maloney, Rita Nelson and Hectorina MacLennan. Kathleen was a sex worker who was 6 months pregnant at the time she met John and was murdered. Hectorina was living with her boyfriend in London and her, her boyfriend and John would meet up multiple times, with John even letting both of them stay at 10 Rillington Place at one point. Once he had murdered Hectorina John would keep in contact with her boyfriend, pretending that he had no idea what had happened to her.
For John’s last three victims he had made them inhale carbon monoxide until they passed out, where he would then strangle them with a rope just like he did with Muriel. John raped these victims as they were unconscious and continued to rape them as he was murdering them. He placed their bodies in a clove behind his kitchen wall.
John Christie moved out of 10 Rillington Place on March 20, 1953 after subletting the flat to a couple. When the landlord discovered the couple was living there instead of John they were kicked out. The landlord told one of the other flat tenants they could use John’s kitchen (not sure the reasoning behind this.)
This tenant, named Beresford Brown discovered the kitchen aclove on March 24, finding the bodies of Kathleen, Rita and Hectorina. The police were called and they were looking for none other than John Christie.
John was arrested on March 31 when his identity was questioned by a police officer. In his possession was his marriage certificate and an old newspaper clipping about the remand of Timothy Evans. John confessed to all the murders eventually and on April 27, confessed to killing Beryl Evans but mostly denied killing her daughter, Geraldine. It is believed John was hesitant to admit to the killing of Geraldine because she was a child and he may have been afraid of his fate in prison. Convicts who have abused children are often beaten and raped by other inmates.
Despite confessing to all these murders John was only tried for the murder of his wife, Ethel. His trial began on June 22, 1953 and he pleaded insanity. John also said he had a poor memory of the events. A doctor assessed John and said he was not insane, though he did have a hysterical personality. The jury found John Christie guilty after deliberating for 85 minutes. He was sentenced to death.
On July 15, 1953 at 9am John Christie was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint, the same executioner who had hung Timothy Evans. Upon being executed John complained that his nose was itchy to which Albert responded, “It won’t bother you for long.”
There has been a lot of controversy over the hanging of Timothy Evans and if an innocent man was hanged for murders he did not commit. A first inquiry was held and concluded that Timothy was responsible. Many believe that Timothy actually was guilty and did murder his wife and daughter and that John Christie only admitted to it to further portray himself as insane. However, a lot of other people believe that John had to have been responsible because what would the chances be that there was two men strangling women both living in the same building?
A second inquiry was looked into the evidence and it was concluded that Timothy murdered his wife but had not murdered his daughter, John was concluded to be responsible for Geraldine’s death. These led to Timothy receiving a posthumous pardon, because he had been tried and executed for the murder of his daughter. Because of this, Timothy was pardoned on October 18, 1966, 16 years after his hanging. This pardon allowed Timothy’s remains to be sent back to his family.
Because of Timothy’s hanging and other cases that were controversial revolving the death penalty, there was a suspension and subsequent abolition of capital punishment in the UK for murder in 1965.
In January 2003, the Home Office awarded Timothy’s half sister and his sister payments as compensation for the miscarriage of justice in his 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.”