I wrote about Louisa Merrifield, the phosphorus murderer.
Tuesday, 7 July 2026
Public Executions
In 1849 Frederick and Maria Manning were hanged in Walworth, London. A big crowd gathered to watch. Public executions were a popular form of entertainment. Best of all, they were free. (Although people who owned houses overlooking the gallows often charged people to stand in a bedroom where they could get a better view). Vendors sold hot food and drink to the crowd. On this occasion, a crowd of thousands turned up to watch.
But among the watchers was Charles Dickens. He was appalled by what he called ‘the wickedness and levity of the immense crowd' Afterward, Dickens campaigned for the end of public executions. He campaigned for their abolition.
In the USA, the last public execution was in 1936. The last one in France was in 1939.
Monday, 6 July 2026
A shocking story
In 1981, Michael Anderson Sloan was found guilty of murder and sentenced to the electric chair, but in 1983 the sentence was changed to life imprisonment. However, on 7 March 1989, while he was sitting on a metal toilet in a cell mending an earphone cable, he was electrocuted.
Sunday, 5 July 2026
Mary Blandy - she poisoned her father
Mary Blandy was convicted of murdering her father and was hanged for the crime. Mary was born in 1720 into a middle-class family. Her father, Francis Blandy, was a well-to-do lawyer and the town clerk of Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire. Mary was, by all accounts, intelligent and well educated.
Keen to see his daughter marry well, Francis offered a dowry of £10,000 (a huge sum at that time). However, Blandy's entire estate was only worth about £4,000, and he could not have honoured the bargain. Still, the offer attracted a man named Captain William Cranstoun in 1746. Cranstoun was the son of a Scottish nobleman. In 1747, he asked to marry Mary. Francis agreed, and even invited him to move into the Blandy home.
However, Cranstoun was already married. When Francis Blandy found out, he was naturally enraged. However, Cranstoun managed to persuade Mary and her mother that his marriage was invalid and would soon be annulled by the Scottish courts.
Cranstoun moved to London to await the court's decision. However, the Scottish court ruled that his marriage was legal.
Cranstoun persuaded Mary that he had a 'love powder' that, if she mixed it with her father's food and drink, it would change his attitude. He would start to like Cranstoun. The 'love powder' was actually arsenic. It's not clear if Mary naively believed Cranstoun or if she realised what the powder actually was. In any case, her father fell ill and gradually worsened. He died on 14 August 1751.
Nevertheless, Mary was not arrested till the following year, 1752. Cranstoun heard of the arrest, and he fled to France. Mary Blandy was convicted of murder, and she was hanged on 6 April 1752.
The New Orleans Axeman
The axeman of New Orleans was an unknown serial killer in the years 1918-1919. As his title suggests, he killed people with an axe. He usually chiseled out a panel of a back door to gain access to people’s homes. His first victims were Joseph Maggio, an Italian grocer and his wife, Catherine. On 23 May 1918, the axeman broke into the couple’s home, cut their throats with a razor and then hit them both with an axe. The motive for the murders was unclear. It was not robbery, as nothing was taken.
The axeman next struck on 27 June 1918. He broke into the home of Louis Bessumer, another Italian grocer and Harriet Lowe. He struck both of them with an axe. Fortunately, both survived although Harriet suffered from partial facial paralysis for the rest of her life. Once again nothing was stolen.
The next attack was on 5 August 1918. The axeman broke into the home of Anna Schneider. He struck her with an object (some accounts say an axe, others say a bedside table lamp) but she survived. Anna was 8 months pregnant at the time of the attack but luckily the baby was not harmed. Anna gave birth shortly afterward.
The next victim was an elderly man named Joseph Romano. Joseph lived with his two nieces. On 10 August they were woken by the sounds of a struggle. On investigating they found their uncle had been hit with an axe. He was still alive but he died two days later.
The axeman did not strike again until 10 March 1919. This time he struck in Gretna, Louisiana. He broke into the home of Italian grocer Charles Cortimiglia. He struck Charles and his wife with an axe. Both survived. Sadly, their two year old daughter Mary was also hit with an axe and she died. Rosie accused Iorlando Jordano and his son Frank of being the attackers. Both men were convicted of murder. Iorlando was sentenced to life imprisonment while his son was sentenced to death.
However, they could not have been guilty. Iorlando was nearly 70 and in poor health. His son, Frank, was a tall and heavily built man. The killer had chiseled out a panel of a door to gain entry. Frank would not have been able to squeeze through. Charles Cortimiglia said his wife was lying and the Jordano’s were innocent.
Eventually, Rosie Cortimiglia admitted she lied and the two men were released. (Her motive for accusing two innocent men is not known).
Steve Boca was attacked by a man with an axe on 10 August 1919. Fortunately, he survived. Sarah Laumann was attacked on 3 September 1919. She too survived.
The last murder by the New Orleans Axeman happened on 27 October 1919. A man named Mike Pepitone was attacked and killed in his bed. The attacks then ceased. The case remains a mystery.
Friday, 3 July 2026
Martha Place - the first woman executed in the electric chair
Martha Place was the first woman to be executed by the electric chair. She murdered her stepmother and attempted to murder her husband.
Martha was born on 8 September 1849 in New Jersey, USA. Her birth name was Martha Garrettson. Martha married Wesley Savacool, and they had a son. But the marriage was short-lived. Wesley left, and Martha could not look after her son. So she agreed to have him adopted.
In 1893, she married William Place. He had a teenage daughter named Ida from a previous marriage, and it seems Martha was very jealous of her. She resented the girl because she was very popular and she was close to her father. She also wanted her son to come and live with them, but Place refused, much to Martha’s annoyance. The couple grew apart.
On 7 February 1899, Martha had a row with 17-year-old Ida. Martha threw carbolic acid in Ida’s face. She then killed the girl by suffocating her. attacked William Place with an axe when he came home from work. Place managed to escape and summon help.
When William Place came back from work, Martha attacked him with an axe. Fortunately, William survived. Martha ran upstairs, perhaps thinking William was dead. He managed to stumble outside, where neighbours saw him and called the police.
The police found Martha unconscious. She had attempted to kill herself by turning on gas taps. The police also found the dead body of Ida Place. Martha was, at first, taken to a hospital, but when she recovered, she was charged with the murder of Ida and the attempted murder of William.
At her trial, Martha claimed to be innocent. However, not surprisingly, the jury did not believe her and she was found guilty. Martha was sentenced to death. The governor of the state of New York, Theodore Roosevelt, refused to commute her sentence to life imprisonment. On 20 March 1899, Martha Place was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison.
Ruth Ellis - the last woman hanged in Britain
Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in Britain. She was born on 9 October 1926 in Rhyl, Wales. She was one of six children. When she was 17, she had a son by a Canadian soldier.
After the Second World War, Ruth was living in London. In the 1940s, she worked in factories but she could not earn enough to support herself and her son. Ruth became a nude model and by 1950 she was an escort. In 1950 she married a man named George Ellis. They had a daughter but the couple soon separated. However, by 1953 Ruth had a job as manager of the Little Club in Knightsbridge. It was there that she met David Blakely.
Blakely was a racing driver. He was also a heavy drinker. He moved in with Ruth even though he was engaged to another woman. Ruth met another man, Desmond Cussen, and she moved in with him. Ruth and David Blakely continued their relationship, although they were both seeing other people. Blakely was abusive.
He asked Ruth to marry him, but she had a miscarriage in January 1955 after Blakely punched her in the stomach. Blakely later decided he never wanted to see Ruth again.
On 10 April 1955 Ruth took a taxi to a flat where she knew Blakely was staying. As they arrived, she saw him drive off in his car. She paid the taxi driver and walked to the Magdala Tavern where she thought he would be. Ruth waited till Blakely emerged from the pub. She drew a revolver from her handbag, and as he searched for his car keys, she shot him. Ruth fired six bullets at Blakely. The first shot missed. The second shot hit him and caused him to fall to the ground.
She fired three more bullets into him. Her last shot ricocheted off the ground and hit a bystander in the hand.
Ruth was immediately arrested by an off-duty policeman. Psychiatrists who examined her found she was not insane. Ruth went on trial on 20 June 1955. There was no doubt that she shot David Blakely. The prosecution merely had to prove the intent to kill. The prosecution lawyer asked, 'When you fired the revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely, what did you intend to do?' Ruth answered, 'It's obvious that when I shot him I intended to kill him'.
The jury found her guilty of murder, and she was sentenced to death. However, many people felt that her sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment. A petition was signed by 50,000 people, but the Home Secretary refused to grant a reprieve, and Ruth Ellis was hanged on 13 July 1955.
Guenther Podola - the last man hanged for killing a policeman
Guenther Podola was the last person to be hanged in Britain for the murder of a policeman. He was born in Berlin, Germany, on 8 February 1929. In 1962, he moved to Canada but he was deported for burglary. He then moved to Britain. Podola arrived on 21 May 1959.
Podola burgled Verne Schiffman's flat, stealing jewellery and furs worth £2,000 (a huge sum in those days). Later, bizarrely, he tried to blackmail her. He wrote to her claiming he had photos and tape recordings of her. He did not. Since she had nothing to hide Mrs Schiffman told the police. (Why Podola tried to blackmail her when she had nothing to hide is a mystery. If he had not done something so strange, he might well have got away with the burglary).
On 13 July 1959, Podola phoned her from a public phone box and again he tried to blackmail her. This time her phone was tapped and Mrs Schiffman kept him talking until the police traced the call. Two policemen, John Stanford and William Purdy arrested Podola at the phone box. However, Podola broke free and ran into a nearby block of flats.
The police captured him again and one of them, Stanford, went to fetch the patrol car. Podola then produced a gun and shot William Purdy.
Podola fled the scene, and he hid in a hotel for the next three days. However, in the dead policeman's pocket was an address book. It belonged to Podola. He must have dropped it when he was arrested, and the policeman picked it up. The police soon identified the book's owner and traced him to the hotel where he was hiding. On 16 July 1959, armed police went to the room occupied by Podola, and they forced open the door. Podola, who was standing by the door, was hit on the head as it opened and was knocked unconscious.
When he recovered, Podola said he had no memory of shooting a policeman. Before, he was tried for murder; a court hearing was held to decide if he was fit to stand trial. A jury had to decide if he was genuinely suffering from amnesia. Expert witnesses testified for both the prosecution and the defence, but after retiring for three hours the jury decided he was faking it. Podola then went on trial for murder. He still claimed he could not remember what happened, but he was found guilty and was sentenced to death on 26 September 1959.
Guenther Podola was hanged on 5 November 1959.
Thursday, 2 July 2026
Charlotte Bryant - murder by weed killer
Charlotte Bryant was convicted of poisoning her husband with arsenic. She was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1903. In 1922, she met a British soldier named Frederick Bryant. The two married, and after leaving the army, Frederick worked as a farm labourer. Charlotte had five children, though they may not all have been Frederick's. In 1933, a horse trader named Leonard Parsons began lodging with the Bryants. He also began sleeping with Charlotte.
Frederick Bryant accepted the situation. In May 1935, he fell ill. A doctor was called and he diagnosed gastroenteritis. This time Fredrick recovered. However, he fell ill again in August 1935. Once again, he recovered. Leonard Parsons left their home in November 1935.
On 21 December 1935, Frederick fell ill for the last time. He complained of severe stomach pains. A doctor was called and Frederick was taken to a hospital. He died on 22 December 1935. An autopsy showed he died of arsenic poisoning.
The police naturally suspected his wife, Charlotte. A search of her house revealed a burnt can of weed killer in the garden. It contained traces of arsenic. The police discovered that a chemist in the town of Yeovil had sold the weed killer. The law required anyone who purchased arsenic weed killer to sign a poison register. Whoever bought the weed killer had signed the register with an X. Charlotte Bryant was illiterate. She was made to stand in an identification parade, but the chemist did not pick her out.
On 10 February 1936, Charlotte Bryant was charged with murder. On 27 May 1936, she went on trial in Dorchester. A witness named Lucy Ostler said that on 21 December 1935 she saw Charlotte give Frederick a drink. Later, he vomited and complained of stomach pains. Lucy said she found a burned weed killer can in the ashes of a boiler and she threw it in the garden.
A chemist testified that he found an abnormally large amount of arsenic in the ashes under the boiler, far more than he would normally expect to find. It was evidence that someone had tried to burn something containing arsenic in the boiler. Leonard Parsons was also called as a witness and he claimed he had seen Charlotte with some weed killer.
The court also heard about Charlotte's relationship with Parsons, which did not help her case. (It was, after all, the 1930s, when attitudes were far less liberal than they are today). On 30 June 1936, Charlotte Bryant was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to death.
However, a different chemist said that the expert at the trial had greatly overestimated the amount of arsenic in the ashes in the boiler. That would, of course, undermine the claim that Charlotte had tried to burn a can of weed killer in the boiler. The defence appealed against the guilty verdict but the appeal was dismissed. She was hanged on 15 July 1936.
While awaiting execution, Charlotte began learning to read and write, with help from the prison guards. She wrote a letter in which she named the person who, she believed, poisoned Frederick. However, the prison authorities redacted the name. It remains unknown if she was guilty or not.
Herbert Rowse Armstrong - the only British solicitor to be hanged
Herbert Rowse Armstrong was the only British solicitor to be hanged for murder.
Wednesday, 1 July 2026
A Few Facts About Hanging
On 24 November 1740, William Duell was hanged for murder. He was taken to the surgeons and laid out to be dissected, but he regained consciousness (in those days, hanging killed by strangulation rather than by breaking the neck). Duell had his sentence commuted to transportation.
In 1803, a man named George Foster was hanged for the murder of his wife and child. An Italian named Galvani had recently made a dead frog's legs move by touching them with a wire carrying an electric current. Surgeons experimented with the dead body of Foster. When his arms and legs were touched with electrified wires, they moved. When his head was touched, an eye opened.
On 20 March 1809, Mary Bateman was hanged in York for murder. Afterwards, people paid 3 pence (a significant amount of money at that time) to see her dead body. It was very popular and about 2,700 people paid to see it. Later, her body was dissected by surgeons.
Crime During the Second World War
In Britain, the Second World War created new opportunities for crime. The crime rate rose by 57% between 1939 and 1945. The blackout meant all indoor lights had to be hidden by dark curtains or other means. Street lights were switched off or dimmed, so German planes could not spot British cities from the air. But the dark streets also encouraged burglary. German bombing meant looting became widespread.
In 1940, the death penalty was introduced for looting, although nobody was actually executed. Bombed buildings were often looted, especially shops. People also stole rings and other valuables from dead bodies. They also stole from the living. In London, people used the Underground stations as bomb shelters. Thieves would wait till people fell asleep, then steal their bags. There were also pickpockets operating among the crowds.
Another crime was fraud. People were given some compensation if they owned a house and it was bombed. Some people falsely claimed their house had been bombed. Because so many houses were being damaged or destroyed, it was initially difficult to process claims. However, the government began checking more carefully in 1941. A man named Walter Handy had claimed to have been bombed 19 times. He was given a 3-year prison sentence. The murder rate also increased by 22% in Britain during the Second World War.
Monday, 29 June 2026
The Charing Cross Trunk Murder
An infamous trunk murder took place in 1927. On Friday, 6 May 1927, a man deposited a trunk at Charing Cross Railway Station. By Monday, 10 May, the trunk was beginning to stink. Staff alerted the police and when the trunk was opened, it was found to contain several paper parcels. They contained parts of a body. The murderer had cut off a woman’s head, arms and legs and then wrapped them and the torso in parcels and placed them in the trunk. The woman had suffered blows to her head and chest but she died of asphyxiation.
However, the murderer was inept. Some items of clothing were also found in the trunk. They were traced to a Mrs Holt, who suggested they had been stolen some time before by a Mrs Rolls, who she had once employed as a cook.
It turned out that Mrs Rolls was actually Minnie Bonati, aged 36. She was separated from her Italian husband and she was a sex worker.
The police appealed for information. A taxi driver remembered collecting a man with a heavy trunk from outside a block of offices in Rochester Road in London. He drove the man to Charing Cross Railway Station.
Two vital clues were found in the trunk. A tea towel had a label with the name ‘Greyhound’ stitched onto it. It was traced to the Greyhound Hotel in Hammersmith, London. A woman named Mrs Robinson worked there and police found her husband, John, had an office in Rochester Road.
Unfortunately, neither the taxi driver nor the railway employee could identify John Robinson. However, the police found a tiny but vital clue.
In a wastepaper basket in Robinson’s office, they found a bloodstained match. It was found to be the same blood type as Minnie Bonati. At first Robinson denied all knowledge of the murder but he could not explain how the bloody match got there.
Eventually, Robinson admitted to killing Bonati but he claimed it was an accident.
According to him, she visited his office and she became abusive and demanded money. He pushed her over, and she banged her head and died. He said he panicked and he dismembered the body. Not surprisingly, the police did not believe him.
Nor did the jury. His trial began on 11 July 1927. A pathologist said the injuries to her head were not sufficient to kill her. Bruises on the victim’s chest suggested that Robinson knelt on her and he may have suffocated her. On 13 July, Robinson was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. He was hanged on 12 August 1927.
Saturday, 27 June 2026
Mary Ann Cotton - a prolific poisoner
I wrote about Mary Ann Cotton, one of Britain's worst poisoners.
Wednesday, 24 June 2026
Fanny Adams - murder in Alton, Hampshire
Fanny Adams was an 8-year-old girl who was murdered in Alton, Hampshire, in 1867. Fanny was born on 30 April 1859. Her father was a bricklayer named George. Her mother was named Harriett. Fanny was the fourth of six children. She had three sisters and two brothers.
Fanny was tall for her age. She looked, it was said, older than her age. She was also a bright girl. People who knew Fanny described her as a happy and talkative child.
In the mid-19th century, Alton was a small town with a population of about 4,000. There was a brewing industry in the town and fields of hops. Fanny lived in Tanhouse Lane. Near her house was an open place named Flood Meadow, through which the River Wey flowed. The river sometimes flooded, giving the meadow its name. Next to it was a hop garden.
On 24 August 1867, Fanny asked her mother for permission to go and play in Flood Meadow with her 5-year-old sister Lizzie and her best friend, Minnie Warner, aged 8. Her mother agreed. There was little crime in Alton, and Mrs Adams was not worried.
Between 1 pm and 2 pm, the girls had the misfortune to meet a 29-year-old solicitor’s clerk named Frederick Baker. He was from Guildford but had recently moved to Alton, where he worked for a solicitor named William Clements in the High Street. The girls had seen the man before.
Frederick Baker gave Minnie and Lizzie three half pennies to buy some sweets. He also gave Fanny a half penny.
For a time, the girls played while Baker watched the girls playing while he smoked his pipe. He also picked some blackberries for them.
Minnie and Lizzie eventually decided to go home. Baker then asked Fanny to come with him on her own along the Hollow, a road that led to the nearby village of Shalden. Fanny refused.
Baker then grabbed the child and carried her off. Minnie and Lizzie ran and told Mrs Warner, Minnie’s mother. But she was unconcerned, and the girls went off to play again.
It may seem incredible that Mrs Warner did not immediately raise the alarm, but attitudes were very different then. Mrs Warner may have thought it was some sort of game.
About 5 pm, the two girls, Minnie and Lizzie, went home again. A neighbour, Mrs Gardener, saw them and asked where Fanny was. The two girls told her what had happened. Mrs Gardener was worried, and she told Fanny’s mother, Mrs Adams. The two women went off in search of the missing child.
Within a short time, they met Baker near a gate separating the hop garden from the Meadow. Mrs Gardener asked him, ‘What have you done with the child?’. Baker replied ‘nothing’. Mrs Gardener then asked if he had given Minnie Warner money. Baker admitted he had given her money. But he claimed that he often gave money to children. Not surprisingly, Mrs Gardener was suspicious. She told Baker ‘I have a great mind to give you in charge of the police’. Baker replied, ‘You may do as you like’.
The two women went home, no doubt hoping Fanny would turn up. But, of course, she didn’t. By 7 pm, her mother was growing very worried, and she and a group of neighbours went in search of her.
A man named Thomas Gates found the head of a child stuck on two hop poles. The eyes had been cut out, and the right ear was missing. It was the head of Fanny Adams.
More of the remains of Fanny Adams were found that evening. But as it was growing dark, the search had to be called off until the next morning. The next day, searchers found one of Fanny’s arms, a foot, and her intestines. Her eyes were eventually found in the river.
At the trial of Frederick Baker, Dr Leslie said: The remains were that of a female child, the head, arms, and legs were separated from the trunk’. The doctor also said: ‘A deep incision divided the chest between the ribs. The right leg was torn from the trunk, and the whole contents of the pelvis and chest were completely removed. Five incisions had been made on the liver, the heart cut out and missing’.
A man named William Henry Walker found a stone with flesh and hair sticking to it. He thought it might be the murder weapon. At the murder trial, Dr Leslie said that in his opinion it was.
Meanwhile, Fanny’s mother, Harriet Adams, was naturally very distraught. She went to tell her husband, George, who had been playing cricket. He got his shotgun and was going to shoot the murderer but was persuaded not to.
At 9 pm on Sunday, 25 August 1867, the police went to the office of Clements, the solicitor. Superintendent Cheney asked Baker if he had heard of the murder. Baker replied, ‘Yes, they say it’s me’. The Superintendent told him, ‘Well, you are suspected’. Baker replied, ‘I am innocent’.
Despite his denials, Baker was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Fanny Adams. An angry crowd had gathered outside the office, so the police had to smuggle him out the back door.
Baker was found to be carrying two small knives (they were too small to have carried out the mutilation. It was believed a larger knife was used, but it was never found). Baker’s trousers were wet, presumably from an attempt to wash off blood stains. The police also found bloodstains on Baker’s shirt cuffs. Baker could not account for them. He said ‘Well, I don’t see a scratch or cut on my hands to account for the blood’.
The next day, the police searched the solicitor’s office. They found Baker’s diary in his desk. An entry read: ‘Killed a young girl. It was fine and hot’. Baker admitted it was his handwriting but claimed he was intoxicated at the time.
Baker made another very incriminating remark on the day of the murder. At 7 p.m., he went to a pub with a colleague. An employee of the pub said he was moving and claimed he could turn his hand to anything. Baker said he might join him, but admitted there were only a very limited number of jobs he could do. But he then added, ‘I could turn butcher’.
An inquest into the death of Fanny Adams was held at the Duke’s Head Inn in Alton on 27 August 1867. Minnie Warner gave evidence. So did Mrs Gardner. In 1867, the jury at an inquest could not only find that a person was a victim of murder, but they could also name the person who they believed had committed the murder, even though that person had not been tried. The jury found that Frederick Baker murdered Fanny Adams. The law was changed in 1977.
The trial of Frederick Baker for murder began on 5 December 1867. The defence claimed that it could not be proved that Baker killed Fanny. But at the same time, they tried to argue that if he did do it, he was insane.
Minnie Warner and Mrs Gardener gave evidence. Other witnesses said Baker had left the solicitor’s office after 1 p.m. (Shortly before the murder was committed). He returned at 3.25 p.m. Baker left the office again at 4.30 p.m. (At which time he met Mrs Adams and Mrs Gardener near the murder scene).
More witnesses described seeing Baker in the vicinity of the murder on the afternoon of 26 August. A woman named Eliza White said she saw a man with three children at about 2 p.m. She identified Baker as the man. Mrs White said that afterwards, she heard ‘a girl cry out, not a cry of pain, as in play, trying to get away from someone’. A witness named William Alder was walking back from the nearby village of Lasham at about 2 p.m. He also saw Baker, who he knew. He also saw three children.
Both Mrs Gardener and Mrs Adams saw Baker after 5 p.m. A woman named Mary Ann Porter also said she saw Baker in the area between 5 and 6 p.m.
There was also the fact that Baker wrote in his diary, ‘Killed a young girl. It was fine and hot”. The defence claimed that what he meant was ‘a young girl was killed’ not ‘I killed a young girl’. They also tried to cast doubt on Minnie Warner’s identification of Baker, and they said the two knives found on Baker were too small to have carried out the mutilations. (They may very well be true, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that Baker had a larger knife that was never found).
The defence also tried to argue that even if Baker did do it then he was insane. They claimed that Baker’s father was violent and had once tried to kill his son and daughter with a poker. They also claimed that Baker had tried to commit suicide after his fiancée broke off their engagement in 1865. Baker’s sister had died of a ‘brain fever’. Also, Baker’s cousin was in a lunatic asylum and was violent. But none of this impressed the jury.
The judge advised the jury that three verdicts were possible – guilty, not guilty or not guilty on the grounds of insanity. The jury took only 15 minutes to find Baker guilty of murder. The judge then sentenced him to death. While awaiting execution, Baker confessed to killing Fanny.
At that time, executions were carried out in public. Frederick Baker was hanged outside Winchester prison, in front of a crowd of about 5,000 people at 8 a.m. on 24 December 1867. His body was buried within the precincts of the prison.
Meanwhile, Fanny Adams was laid to rest in Alton Cemetery on 28 August 1867. In 1868, a gravestone was erected, paid for by public subscription. An inscription on the gravestone reads ‘Sacred to the memory of Fanny Adams, aged eight years and four months, who was cruelly murdered on Saturday, August 24, 1867’ and ‘Fear not them which kill the body are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell Matthew 10 v28’.
Tuesday, 23 June 2026
Monday, 22 June 2026
Blossom Alley - an unsolved murder in Portsmouth
A gruesome murder happened in Portsea, Portsmouth in 1923. The victim was Mary Frances Pelham, aged 37. According to newspaper reports, she was born in ‘the north of England’. During the First World War, she moved to Brighton and later to Portsmouth. She was separated from her husband. Mary was a kind woman, especially to local children. She was a sex worker, although she also sold flowers. She was known as Brighton Mary.
On 27 January 1923, a neighbour found her dead in bed in her hovel. The unfortunate woman had been strangled with a scarf or handkerchief. She was also stabbed or slashed with a broken bottle. A neighbour had seen Mary with a sailor the previous night. The navy held an identity parade and a woman did pick out one sailor but he had an alibi and was never arrested. The killer was never found.
The public was shocked, not just by the murder but by her living conditions. She lived in Blossom Alley, an alley 300 yards long and only 4 feet wide. Her home was a ‘one-up-one down’. Built in the 18th century it was one room over another joined by a ladder.
The floors were sagging so the ceiling of the bottom room was 6 feet high at one end and 10 feet high at the other. Five houses shared three outside toilets and one water tap. Following the horrific murder, a great deal of slum clearance took place in Portsea.
Thursday, 18 June 2026
Mary Wilson - the last woman sentenced to death in Britain
Although Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in Britain the last woman to be sentenced to death was Mary Wilson in 1958.
Mary was born on 11 June 1889. She married a chimney sweep named John Knowles in 1912 He died in August 1955. Early in 1956 she married a painter and decorator named John Russell but he died early in 1957. At first, the two men were believed to have died from natural causes but later they were found to have been poisoned.
In June 1957 Mary married Oliver Leonard. He soon fell ill and died on 3 October.
A doctor ascribed his death to heart failure, although the truth is Mary poisoned him. On 28 October 1957 she married a fourth man, Ernest Wilson but he lived for only a short time after the wedding. He too, was poisoned. He died on 12 November 1957. At first his death was ascribed to natural causes.
However, people who knew Mary were suspicious. It was not just that her husbands kept dying; it was also the cheerful way she dealt with the deaths. It’s said that at her last wedding reception, Mary was asked what to do with the leftover sandwiches she said they would still be fresh for his funeral. (Such brazenness is common among multiple murderers. They often seem to think they will never be caught). Police began investigating and they exhumed the bodies of Oliver and Ernest.
She was convicted of poisoning two of her husbands, Oliver Leonard and Ernest Wilson with phosphorus, which was found in rat and beetle poison. She was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment because of her old age (She was 68). The remains of her two other husbands, John Knowles and John Russell were exhumed and found to contain poison but it was felt there was no point in having another trial.
Mary Wilson, the merry widow of Windy Nook died in prison in 1963.
Tuesday, 16 June 2026
Leopold and Loeb - murder in Chicago
Nathan Leopold, aged 19, and Richard Loeb, aged 18, killed a 14-year-old boy in Chicago in 1924. Both were from rich families, and both were very intelligent. They excelled academically. Loeb graduated from the University of Michigan at age 17. Leopold was studying law at the University of Chicago and planned to study at Harvard Law School. Both seemed to believe they were superior beings, above ethics and the law. The two committed petty theft just for thrills before progressing to murder. They planned to commit the perfect murder. They didn’t. In fact, it was an incompetent crime, and they were easily caught.
The unfortunate victim was Bobby Franks, aged 14. On 21 May 1924, Leopold and Loeb hired a car. They chose a victim at random. Driving along, they saw a boy walking home from an after-school baseball game. Bobby didn’t know Leopold, but he knew the Loeb family. The murderers lured him into the car. They gagged him then hit him, repeatedly over the head with a chisel. Bobby suffocated on the gag.
They threw the chisel out of the car. It was found and handed in to the police. Leopold and Loeb then stripped the body and hid it in a culvert by a railroad. They poured acid over his face to make identification harder.
They sent a letter to the family of Bobby Franks saying he had been kidnapped and demanding a ransom of $10,000. In fact, Bobby was already dead.
The body of Bobby Franks was discovered the next day, 22 May. Nearby, the police found a pair of glasses. They had an unusual hinge which allowed them to be traced to a certain optometrist. He had only made three prescriptions for that type of glasses. One of them was Nathan Leopold. He claimed he must have dropped them from his jacket pocket in the area when he was bird watching some days before. But it had been raining for days before the body was found and the glasses were dry. The police asked Leopold to demonstrate how the glasses could have fallen from his jacket pocket, but no matter how he bent over the glasses did not fall out.
At first Leopold claimed he had driven with his friend Loeb to Lincoln Park, Chicago. Loeb confirmed his alibi. However, Leopold had typed notes for students at his law school. One still had the notes and the typeface was found to match the type on the ransom note sent to Bobby Franks’ family. Also, the Leopold family chauffeur made a statement that the car the murderers claimed they had driven around all day on 21 May had not left the garage that day.
Faced with the evidence, Loeb broke down and confessed. When he was told that Loeb had confessed, Leopold confessed too. They both blamed each other for the actual killing. Both denied any sexual assault took place.
The two were interviewed by ‘alienists’ as psychiatrists were then called. Neither showed any remorse for the crime.
The trial began on 21 July 1924. The killers were defended by the famous lawyer Clarence Darrow. They pleaded guilty, but Darrow pleaded with the judge not to impose the death penalty.
He made a speech lasting two days. In the end, the judge did not sentence the two to death on the grounds of their youth. Instead, he sentenced them to life imprisonment plus 99 years for the kidnapping.
Richard Loeb was killed by another inmate in 1936. Leopold was paroled in 1958. He died of a heart attack in 1971, aged 66.
Monday, 15 June 2026
Styllou Christofi - the mother in law from Hell
Styllou Christofi was the second-to-last woman to be hanged in Britain. She was born in Cyprus about 1900. In 1925 she was accused of murdering her mother-in-law by shoving a burning piece of wood down her throat. However, she was acquitted.
Her son Stavros moved to Britain. He worked as a wine waiter. He married a German girl called Hella and they lived in Hampstead, London. The couple had three children. In 1953 her Styllou went to live with her son and daughter-in-law.
However, the two women did not get on at all. They argued constantly. Matters came to a head in 1954. Hella announced that she was going to take her three children on a holiday in Germany. She made it clear to Styllou that she wanted her gone by the time she returned to Britain.
But Styllou had other plans. In the evening of 29 July 1954 she walked up to Hella and hit her over the head with a heavy ash pan from a boiler. She then strangled Hella with a scarf. Christofi removed Hella’s wedding ring. She then dragged the dead body into the back garden. In a futile attempt to destroy the evidence, she poured paraffin over it and set it on fire.
A neighbour saw Christofi standing by the fire but he thought it must be a mannequin. Later, Christofi ran into the street and approached a couple in a parked car. She said ‘Please come. Fire burning. Children sleeping’. The couple found the fire. The fire brigade were called and when they saw the burning body they called the police.
Christofi claimed she was woken by male voices and had seen a man in the garden by the fire. She claimed she attempted to douse the fire with water. Not surprisingly, police did not believe her and they arrested her for murder.
While she was awaiting trial a doctor examined her and stated that in his opinion, she was insane. The defence team urged Christofi to plead not guilty because of insanity but she refused. Perhaps she was too proud.
Christofi went on trial on 25 October 1954. She was found guilty and she was sentenced to death. Styllou Christofi was hanged on 15 December 1954.
Saturday, 13 June 2026
Belle Gunness
Belle Gunness was a Norwegian-American murderer of the early 20th century. It’s not certain how many people she killed but the motive for murder was financial gain.
She was born in Norway on 11 November 1859. She was one of 8 siblings. Her father was a stonemason.
Belle migrated to the USA in 1881. Her birth name was Brynhild but she began calling herself Belle. In 1884, she married a man named Sorenson. The two ran a candy store, which was not successful. It burned down and they claimed insurance money. The couple had four children. Sadly, two of them died, supposedly of acute colitis, although they may have been poisoned. Both children had life insurance. As well as her two surviving children, Belle had an adopted daughter called Jennie Olsen.
Sorenson died in 1900 and Belle collected a large amount of insurance money. His death was ascribed to natural causes but he may have been poisoned.
Belle moved to La Porte, Indiana. In April 1902 she married a man named Peter Gunness. The two had a son. Unfortunately, Peter died in December 1902, supposedly, when a meat grinder fell off a shelf onto his head. At the time, it was decided that his death was an accident. However, Belle gained a large amount of insurance money after his death.
Belle began advertising in newspapers. She described herself as a ‘rich, good-looking widow’. She claimed she owned a large farm and she was looking for a man to marry.
The advert was soon answered. A number of men travelled to Belle’s farm, where they disappeared. Belle persuaded them to hand over their savings to her. It’s not known how Belle killed her victims. She probably poisoned them. The bodies were buried on the farm.
In 1906, Belle murdered her adopted daughter, Jennie Olsen, aged 16, and buried her body on the farm. Jennie was probably killed because she suspected the truth. Belle told her neighbours that the girl had gone away to school.
In 1907, Belle employed a farmhand named Ray Lamphere. She later fired him. Belle claimed that Lamphere threatened her life.
Then, on 28 April 1908 Belle’s farmhouse burned down, killing her three children. The body of a woman was found in the burned ruins, but it was missing its skull. It’s not certain if the dead woman was Belle Gunness.
The farmhand, Ray Lamphere, was arrested for the murder of Belle Gunness and the three children. He was acquitted of murder but convicted of arson. Lamphere was sentenced to 21 years in prison. He died in December 1909.
The relatives of missing people told the sheriff of their suspicions that Belle had killed them. Digging began and the searchers found the body of Belle’s adopted daughter, Jennie Olsen. The bodies of 11 people were found buried on the Gunness farm. Unfortunately, most were too badly decomposed to be identified.
What happened to Belle Gunness is not known. Did she perish in the fire or did she fake her own death?
Wednesday, 10 June 2026
John Reginald Christie - 10 Rillington Place
Christie was a notorious serial killer of the 1940s and 1950s. He was born near the town of Halifax in Yorkshire on 8 April 1899. He was one of seven children. His father was a carpet designer.
According to Christie, his father was a severe disciplinarian. At the same time, his mother was overprotective. John was a rather effeminate boy, and he was not very popular.
Christie had four older sisters who, he said, were always bossing him around. Christie appears to have developed a resentment towards women.
In 1916, he attempted to have sex with a local girl but was unable to manage it. (Christie suffered from impotence all his life).
The girl and her friends called him ‘Reggie-no-dick’ or ‘Can’t-do-it-Christie’. It was, of course, a deeply humiliating experience and seems to have worsened his resentment of women.
Christie later claimed that a defining moment in his life happened when he was 8 years old. He hated and feared his grandfather. However, the old man died. As was common in those days, the body was laid out for the family to see.
Christie said that on seeing his dead grandfather, he experienced pleasurable feelings. He later described it as ‘a strange peaceful thrill’. He realised his grandfather could never hurt him again. In his mind, dead bodies became intertwined with feelings of pleasure. Afterward, he developed an unhealthy interest in dead bodies. It’s very likely that, as an adult, Christie was a necrophiliac.
Christie was intelligent. He left school at the age of 15 and got a job as a cinema projectionist assistant. In 1917, Christie was conscripted into the army. In 1918, he was wounded in a gas attack. He later claimed that the gas made him blind for 5 months and unable to speak for three and a half years. His voice never fully returned, and he spoke very softly for the rest of his life.
However, although Christie certainly was gassed, there is no record of him being blinded for months or unable to speak for years. He was, no doubt, greatly exaggerating the effects of the gas attack.
There was nothing physically wrong with his larynx, and speaking in a quiet voice was almost certainly psychological. His voice sometimes returned during times of stress. Christie was a hypochondriac, and all his life, he exaggerated symptoms of illness.
Christie returned to civilian life in 1919, and in 1920, he married Ethel Simpson. However, Christie suffered from impotence. However, both before and after his marriage to Ethel, he visited sex workers. In 1921, Christie became a postman, but he was dismissed for stealing postal orders. For this crime, he served a 3-month prison sentence. Like many murderers, Christie had a record of petty crime.
In 1924, he separated from his wife and moved to London. For years, Christie drifted from job to job.
In 1929, he was living with a woman, and during an argument, he hit her with a cricket bat. He was sentenced to 6 months in prison. Ominously, the judge called it ‘a murderous attack’. In 1933, he was sentenced to 3 months for stealing a car. On his release, he persuaded his wife to return to live with him.
For her, it was, literally, a fatal mistake. In 1938, the couple moved into a flat at 10 Rillington Place, an address that was to become infamous.
When the Second World War began in 1939, he applied to become a war reserve constable. Notably, they did not verify his criminal record before offering him a position.
Christie appears to have enjoyed wearing a uniform and having authority over others. He became known as the Himmler of Rillington Place.
Christie committed his first murder in August 1943. Why he turned to murder is not known. However, in the summer of 1943, he was having an affair with a married woman. When the woman’s husband was home on leave, he beat up Christie and threw him out of the house. The writer Ludovic Kennedy suggested this might have been the trigger for murder. Christie was humiliated, and he sought to ‘take it out’ on someone weaker than himself. Sometimes serial killers begin murdering people when something causes them to lose self-esteem, and they decide to ‘take it out’ on someone.
At any rate, Christie killed a 21-year-old girl named Ruth Fuerst. Ruth came from Austria. She was a part-time sex worker. Unfortunately, she met Christie, and he paid for her services.
While his wife was away visiting relatives, Ruth went to Christie’s home. She undressed, and Christie strangled her with a rope. Christie said he strangled her while he was having sex with her, although it’s possible he had sex with her after she was dead. Christie said later that he felt pleasurable feelings when he saw the dead body, which he later described as a ‘strange peaceful thrill’. It was similar to the pleasurable feelings he had when he saw the dead body of his grandfather.
At first, he hid Ruth under the floorboards of his living room. Later, when his wife was out, he buried her in the garden.
Ruth Fuerst was reported missing, but her disappearance did not cause alarm because she came from a ‘twilight world’, where people often disappeared. Christie said that after murdering Ruth, he ‘never gave it a thought’. Christie could simply avoid thinking about unpleasant subjects when it suited him.
Sooner or later, Christie was bound to kill again. In December 1943, he left his job as a war reserve constable and took a position at Ultra Radio Works in Acton. There, he met a 31-year-old woman named Muriel Eady. Muriel was not married, but she had a boyfriend.
She became friendly with Christie. The two used to chat in the works canteen during their lunch breaks. Muriel also visited Mr and Mrs Christie at their home.
Unfortunately, she suffered from catarrh. Christie persuaded her that he could treat the illness. He had, he told her, a glass jar into which he poured a special mixture. The lid had a hole in it through which a rubber tube was threaded. It ended in a rectangular mask that could be held over the face, and the patient inhaled fumes. Muriel agreed to try the treatment, and she went to Christie’s flat while his wife was away.
What Christie did not tell Muriel was that another rubber tube was threaded through the lid. This one led to a gas tap. The rubber tube was pinched shut with a bulldog clip. When Christie removed the clip, carbon monoxide gas flowed through, rendering Muriel unconscious. Christie then strangled her with a rope.
It is believed that Christie raped Muriel either when she was unconscious or dead. Once again, Christie said he had pleasurable feelings when he looked down at the dead body.
He described it as ‘a strange peaceful thrill’. He added, ‘I had no regrets’. Christie hid the body in a wash house behind the house, and later he buried the unfortunate woman in the back garden.
Muriel’s disappearance was, of course, noticed. However, Christie was lucky. She never told anyone that she was going to his house. If she did, he would have come under suspicion.
Yet, there was no reason, as far as anyone could see, why he should want to kill her. The two had been on friendly terms.
It was also a time when the Germans were firing V2 missiles at London. Some people were blown to pieces and never identified. It was eventually assumed that it must have happened to Muriel.
Years later, Christie accidentally unearthed Muriel’s thigh bone while digging in the garden. He used it to prop up his garden fence.
Christie continued to live an outwardly normal life until 1949. His next victim was Beryl Evans. She was married to Timothy Evans, a van driver. They had a baby girl, Geraldine. The marriage was not happy. They were short of money, and they frequently argued. Timothy Evans was a man of low intelligence (he had an IQ of 68), and he was illiterate. He was also a very impressionable man. And he was a fantasist. He often told ridiculous stories.
The couple lived in a flat above Christie’s. In 1949, Beryl became pregnant for a second time. She did not want the child, as they could not afford it, and she made attempts to abort. (Abortion was illegal at that time).
Unfortunately, she made the mistake of telling Christie. He persuaded her that he knew how to carry out abortions (whether he did or not is uncertain; maybe he just claimed he did to kill her). Beryl Evans was keen to get rid of the child.
Her husband, Timothy, was reluctant, but Christie persuaded him. Christie claimed that he was training to be a doctor before the war, but he had to give it up after an accident. It was a lie that he ever trained to be a doctor, but it was true that he did have an accident. He was hit by a car in 1934.
Christie showed Evans a first-aid book leftover from his days as a policeman. Evans could not read, but he was impressed by the diagrams and became convinced that Christie did have some medical knowledge.
However, Christie did say that there was one chance in ten that the operation would be fatal.
That was plausible, as women did indeed die from abortions. At the time, workmen were working in the house, but when they were on their lunch break, Christie went upstairs.
He may have persuaded Beryl to inhale gas, but she struggled. Christie hit her in the face and strangled her. It’s possible he had sex with her dead body.
When Timothy Evans came home, Christie convinced him that Beryl had died during the abortion. He told Evans that her stomach was ‘septic poisoned’ as a result of the pills she had taken in an attempt to abort herself. Unfortunately, Evans believed Christie’s lies.
Evans wanted to tell the police, but Christie persuaded him not to. Christie said, truthfully, that he had been in the police and knew how they operated. He told Evans the police would ‘knock him about’ until he confessed. Unfortunately, Evans was a man of low intelligence, and he was easily influenced. Christie was able to dominate him.
Christie persuaded him to help him move the body of Beryl Evans to an empty flat between his and the Evans flat. He told Evans he would hide Beryl’s body in a drain where it would decompose. But he told Timothy to sell his wife’s wedding ring, otherwise it could be used to identify the body.
That left the problem of the baby girl, Geraldine. At first, Christie said he would look after the child while Timothy went to work. But he couldn’t do that forever. He told Evans that he knew a childless couple who would adopt the child. Of course, no such people existed. Christie persuaded Evans to go to Wales, where he stayed with relatives.
After he went, Christie strangled the baby girl. Even Christie, horrible as he was, must have balked at the idea of killing a baby.
But for him, it was a matter of survival. He could not go on looking after the child indefinitely, and if he tried sooner or later, someone was certain to find out.
Some workmen had been doing work in the house. Christie asked if he could have some semi-rotten floorboards they had removed. They agreed.
After the workmen left, Christie placed the bodies of Beryl and Geraldine in a wash house behind the house and hid them behind boards of wood.
But Evans was worried about Geraldine, and he returned to London for a short time. He told Christie he wanted to see the baby. Christie said it was too soon. Sadly, the child was already dead.
Naturally, Evan’s family noticed that Beryl and the child were missing, and they grew concerned. His mother wrote to her relatives in Wales, wanting to know what was going on.
Eventually, Evans decided to go to the police. Unfortunately, he did not tell them the truth. He was trying to protect Christie, whom he still thought was his friend. Evans told the police that he met a man in a cafe. He told the man his wife was pregnant and did not want the child.
The man helpfully gave him some tablets, which would cause his wife to abort. Unfortunately, his wife died as a result of taking the tablets, and he hid the body in a drain.
Christie said he was going to hide the body of Beryl Evans in a drain, so Timothy assumed the police would find it there. Of course, they did not. The police found that one man on his own could not lift the drain lid, and it was empty.
It must have been a shock to Timothy to find out that Christie had lied to him, and he made a new statement. This time, he told the police that Christie had offered to perform an abortion, and Beryl had died as a result. But Timothy had lost all credibility by lying to the police. They would naturally think, ‘if he lied once, he might lie again’.
Evans made another statement. This time he told the truth. He told the police how Christie had offered to give his wife an operation, and she had supposedly died during the operation.
The police in London were contacted, and they decided to search 10 Rillington Place. They found the bodies of Beryl Evans and the baby hidden behind wood in the wash house.
Unfortunately, the police did not dig in the garden at that time. If they did, they would have found the bodies of Ruth Fuerst and Muriel Eady. They also did not notice a human femur holding up the garden fence.
The police interviewed Christie, who did everything he could to incriminate Evans. That, of course, was a despicable thing to do, but Christie was an odious man. He knew that if Evans was not blamed for the two murders, then he would be.
He was the only other possible suspect. Christie had been a policeman himself, and he knew how the police operated. He lost no time telling them he had been a War Volunteer Constable and he had been given two commendations.
He also tried to blacken Evan’s reputation. He said that Evans was ‘very well known locally as a liar’. That was true, Evans was always telling tall tales, but so was Christie a liar.
Christie also told the police that he and his wife were both of the opinion that Evans was ‘a bit mental’, which wasn’t true. If anyone was ‘a bit mental,’ it was Christie. Unfortunately, Christie was able to turn the police against Evans.
The police took Evans to London, where he was informed that his wife and his child were dead. Until that moment, Timothy thought his daughter was alive. He was devastated when she found out she was dead and said he no longer cared whether he lived or died. Evans was told the bodies had been found in the wash house.
The police questioned Evans into the early hours of the morning. He eventually broke down and confessed to both murders.
However, the police put words in his mouth. He was an inarticulate man with a low IQ, and the ‘confession’ included words he simply would not have used.
It might seem hard to believe that anyone would confess to a murder they did not commit, but people do.
There have been many cases where an innocent person confessed to murder but was later proven to be innocent by forensic evidence.
Today, we have a much better understanding of false confessions. In the 1950s, people were much less likely to believe that an innocent person would confess to murder.
But there was a problem with the confession. Evans confessed that he put the bodies in the wash house before he went to stay with relatives in Wales. However, there were workmen in the house at the time.
Two of them, a plasterer and a plasterer’s mate, made statements to the police that they finished working in the wash house and cleaned it out on the day after Timothy Evans arrived in Wales. That meant his confession could not be true.
But the police had made up their minds that the confession was genuine. So they interviewed the two men again and persuaded them to change their statements. This time, they said they left the wash house empty before Evans went to Wales. (One of them was shown a picture of a dead baby, which had nothing to do with the case).
So, instead of changing their theory to fit the evidence, the police changed the evidence to fit their theory. A chance to save an innocent man was missed, and so was a chance to stop a serial killer.
Timothy Evans went on trial for murder on 11 January 1950. Christie was a cautious but convincing prosecution witness. He told the court he had been blinded for five months after a gas attack during the First World War. (He was indeed injured in a gas attack, but his claim that he was blinded for months was a gross exaggeration. He claimed that he was unable to speak for three and a half years, which was also a lie. Unfortunately, he gained sympathy from the court by telling that story.
He also told the court he had been a War Reserve policeman during the Second World two and he had been given two commendations. That was true, but no doubt it impressed the court.
Christie claimed that he had been ill with fibrositis (musculoskeletal pain) at the time of the murders.
(The truth is, he was ill after they were committed). Christie also told the court all about the rows Mr and Mrs Evans had.
The defence lawyer brought to light the fact that Christie had several convictions.
But the prosecution lawyer pointed out that Christie had not been in trouble with the law for 17 years. He persuaded the jury that Christie was a changed man.
In contrast, Timothy Evans made a poor showing. He was unintelligent and inarticulate.
He also seems to have become confused during the trial. He was no match for the prosecution lawyer. Worse, Evans had confessed to killing his wife. Inevitably, the jury found him guilty.
Timothy Evans was hanged on 9 March 1950.
Christie’s life then returned to normal for nearly three years. His next victim was his wife, Ethel. The motive for this murder is not certain.
Christie hid his wife’s body under the floorboards of his home, but not before he removed her wedding ring. He sold it. He told the neighbours that his wife was away visiting relatives in Sheffield. When she was killed, Ethel was in the middle of writing a letter to relatives.
Christie cunningly finished it, claiming Ethel had rheumatism and could not do so herself.
With his wife out of the way, Christie was free to kill more women. Christie killed two women in January 1953. One of them was 25-year-old Kathleen Maloney from Plymouth. Kathleen was the mother of five children. She was a sex worker.
Kathleen lived in Southampton for several years, but in 1952 she moved to London. She met Christie in a pub. Witnesses saw them leaving together.
It’s not certain how Christie killed her. He later claimed that he had a rubber tube attached to a gas tap. The end of the tube was hung over a chair that he asked the woman to sit in. A bulldog clipped onto the tube stopped the flow of gas. When he removed it, the woman would inhale the gas and become unconscious. He then strangled her with a rope. Christie likely had sex with the dead bodies. He never admitted to necrophilia, but that is not saying much. He was a habitual liar.
Christie also murdered 25-year-old Rita Nelson from Northern Ireland. Rita was a former sex worker who had obtained a job working in a Lyons Tea room. At the time of her death, she was 6 months pregnant.
It’s not certain how Christie killed her. It’s thought Christie may have met her in a cafe.
He may have offered to give her an abortion and persuaded her to inhale gas, then strangled her when she was unconscious. At any rate, she was certainly gassed and strangled.
His last victim was Hectorina MacLellan, aged 26. Hectorina was aged 26. She was originally from the Hebrides, and she was the mother of two children. Christie claimed that he persuaded her to sit in a chair.
Hung over it was a rubber tube connected to a gas tap. A bulldog clip stopped the flow of gas. Christie said he removed the bulldog clip, but Hectorina saw him and attempted to leave. Christie claimed he grabbed her by the neck and squeezed until she went limp. He then placed her in the chair and waited until she had inhaled some gas and become completely unconscious. He then strangled her with a rope.
On 24 March 1953, a man named Beresford Brown, who lived in a flat above Christie’s. Peeling back wallpaper, he saw a woman’s back. The police were called, and they found three dead women inside a kitchen alcove.
Post mortems showed that all three had been gassed, but not fatally, and then strangled with a ligature.
The police also discovered the decomposing body of Ethel Christie under the floorboards. Later, they found the bodies of Ruth Fuerst and Muriel Eady.
The police also found a tobacco tin in the garden. Inside were four pieces of pubic hair, but none came from the victims. It seems Christie had a pubic hair fetish, and he liked collecting samples from women.
On 31 March 1953, a policeman saw a man standing by the embankment of the River Thames. He asked the man his name. Christie replied he was John Waddington.
The policeman asked the man to remove his hat. When he did so, the policeman recognised him as John Reginald Christie.
Christie was taken to a police station where he was informed that the body of his wife, Ethel, had been found under the floorboards of his home. Christie admitted to killing her, but he claimed it was a mercy killing.
He said that on the morning of 14 December 1942, he woke up and his wife was having a fit. There was a bottle of phenobarbital tablets on the bedside furniture, and it was empty, suggesting Ethel had tried to commit suicide by taking an overdose. As usual, Christie was lying; an autopsy found no trace of phenobarbital in Ethel’s body. Christie claimed he could not bear to see his wife suffering like that, so he ‘put her to sleep’ by strangling her with a stocking.
Christie eventually confessed to the murders of Ruth Fuerst, Muriel Eady, Rita Nelson, Kathleen Maloney, and Hectorina McLellan. Christie later also confessed to the murder of Beryl Evans.
The psychiatrists who examined Christie found him to be obnoxious. He was a habitual liar who claimed he could not remember what happened whenever it suited him. One psychiatrist described him as ‘a crashing bore’. Another said Christie was ‘full of snivelling hypocrisy’.
Christie went on trial on 22 June 1953. He pleaded not guilty because of insanity. One psychiatrist testified that he was insane, but two others testified that he was not.
Christie had a personality disorder, but that did not mean he was insane. The prosecution pointed out his calculated behaviour after he murdered his wife, such as selling her wedding ring and his attempts to deceive people into thinking she was still alive. The prosecution lawyer also asked Christie if he would have strangled his wife if there had been a policeman standing in the room at that time. Christie admitted he would not. He effectively admitted that he knew he was doing wrong.
In 1953, English law said that to be found insane, the defence had to show that an accused person was not aware of the nature and quality of their acts. Christie did not meet that criterion.
Christie was found guilty and sentenced to death. John Reginald Christie was hanged on 15 July 1953.
In 1966, Timothy Evans was given a posthumous free pardon. In 2003, the Home Office awarded his family compensation.
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