By Tim Lambert
His Early Life
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 names. 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. Afterwards, 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.
The First Murder
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.
The Murders of Beryl and Geraldine Evans
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 there was a one-in-ten chance 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 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 baulked 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 that 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 War 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.
Trial and Execution
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 posthumously granted a free pardon. In 2003, the Home Office awarded his family compensation.
