Hey weirdos, Elena here. If you're looking to kick back and relax with Morbid, Wondery Plus is the way to go. it's like having a cozy seat in our haunted mansion no ads just you and early access to new episodes You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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Hey weirdos, I'm Alayna. And I'm John. And this is Morbid.
So you guys might have noticed that that was not Ash.
Not Ash at all. Not even a little bit. We have John on the podcast today.
Hi, everybody. And yeah, it's that John.
Husband John. So, Ash is out this week, very unexpectedly, very quickly.
It all happened in like an instant because she has COVID.
She's doing fine. She's doing okay. But I did not think it was really cool of me to be like, all right, sit down and listen to this story and react to me now.
So she's getting the rest that she needs.
And, you know, I happen to have this guy just hanging around my house.
And... I've been asked a couple of hundred times to come on the podcast and I said if I come on the podcast.
That will ruin the podcast. So I'm not going to come on the podcast.
But Ash had to go and get the Get the COVID.
Get the Rona. Get the Rona. She had to do it.
And he was a hero in that moment. Because he's not lying when he's been asked a million times because I'm like, come on, just come on with me.
Just one, just one. He's like, no. It's not that I didn't want to come on.
I just figured I probably wouldn't be very good at it.
And I don't think I'll be very good at it.
So just. Everyone lower your standards a little bit for the next hour or so.
It's going to be great. I know it is. And you don't have to worry because this...
You know, it kind of worked out because this is my case today.
So you didn't have to really worked out.
I'm not researched since college. I feel like I'm in a fourth grade class about to give a geography presentation.
I'm very nervous. You're going to do great.
And here we go. Just picture the entire class in their underwear.
Right. Because it's just me. No, that works.
Just picture me in my underwear and it'll be fine.
Okay. Is it helping? A little bit. Okay, cool.
All right. So we're going to jump right into it today because I don't want to make John have to speak too much.
I mean, 75% of the people are now gone. No way.
High to the other 25%. Everybody is here.
Everybody's psyched for this. And this is a gnarly one today.
Oh, lucky me. Yeah, you really hit a good one.
Yay. We really had a good one because we have a serial killer today, which we haven't had like a full blown serial killer in a while.
Do I know this serial killer? Probably not.
It's weird because I think a lot of people don't know this serial killer.
Are you Kay? listeners might know the serial killer better than anyone else will.
His name is John Christie. Don't know him.
So not only do we have a serial killer, we have a serial killer named John.
You're going to have blind reactions because I have no idea what is coming right now.
And that's kind of great for this whole thing.
That's what we do here. Let's do it. Let's go.
So we're going to talk about John Reginald Halliday Christie.
Again, you don't know them. Don't know them.
A lot of names there. A lot of names. A lot of serial killers have a lot of names.
It seems to be kind of the trend. But he was born in Yorkshire, England.
And I always forget whether the UK listeners want me to say Yorkshire or Yorkshire.
I think it's Yorkshire. Okay. I feel it.
I feel good about it, so I'm going to go with it.
Across the pond. Yeah, hopefully I didn't disappoint you.
He was born on April 8th, 1898 to Ernest John Christie.
And Mary Hannah Halliday. So there's where all those names came from.
Okay. We got the John. We got the Christy.
We got the Halliday. Don't know where the Reginald came from.
All right. I already forgot most of those names, so we're off to a great start.
Don't worry about it. We can just call him, like, Jackass from now on, and that's an easy one.
Well, I remember John. It's the other ones I don't remember.
Well, he was the sixth of seven children and he was the only boy.
That's rough and also familiar with a household of women.
Yeah, John can relate to that part of John, but that's probably where it ends, I would say.
I hope. Well, we'll see what other similarities there are.
Well, his father was very cold, very unavailable and a harsh disciplinarian.
Yikes. Okay. His mother was a very overprotective. mother who it was like her only boy, but she was overprotective to like a fault.
Okay. Like borderlining on like an Oedipus-y kind of thing.
My mom also only had one boy. That's true.
But I love your mom. It stops there though, I guess.
Yeah, I don't think so. She did good. So I'm going to give that to her.
But his sisters, on the other hand, like kind of ate him alive.
Half. Okay. Is this an intervention? It's not an intervention, I promise.
So here's where we're going to deviate pretty harshly.
Please do. A hairpin turn. Before people I know start coming through the door.
Don't worry. This is this hairpin turn coming.
Ready? Even worse... he started to become sexually frustrated and confused around his many sisters.
Okay, well. So there's where we see that hairpin turn I was talking about.
That is beyond a hairpin. So officially you can sit tight now.
You're good. It's not about you. I feel way more relaxed.
Here we are. So he hated them because of this.
He hated them because they dominated him.
And they pushed him around, but at the same time, he was like... weirdly sexually attracted to them, but couldn't act on it, obviously.
Yeah. So this began a long— I'm going to readjust myself in the chair right now.
This is uncomfortable already. I gotta go.
I feel like it's that like SpongeBob meme where he's like, all right, I'm a head out.
I'm a head out. Yeah, so he was having a time.
This began a long life of him being sexually sadistic and absolutely hating women.
And of course, everyone would blame it on his overprotective mother. and his quote unquote domineering sisters.
But in reality, it's just him being a shithead.
Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. He was unfortunately very smart.
He had an IQ of 128. He was a very good student.
Wow. So he was really doing that damn thing at least. but he didn't have many friends and was considered kind of weird.
He was at the very least bullied slightly.
He was bullied at least. He had a really large forehead, which comes back later.
That's the only reason I'm laughing right now.
School kids are just the worst, no matter what.
It's rough. It's mean. Trust me, I was bullied.
I know how it is. But this guy at the end of it, you're like, all right.
Yeah. And the big forehead thing comes back.
That's the reason. Okay. It was exceedingly large, and normally that's not something to bully someone over, of course, but this guy sucks, obviously.
Sure. Now according to this book that I was using to research this, one of the books, It's John Christie, The True Story About the Rillington Strangler by Jack Rosewood.
At eight years old, John's grandfather passed away.
This was a strange thing because his grandfather was reportedly like a giant dick.
He was mean. He was not grandfatherly at all.
In fact, John was very afraid of him. But his parents allowed young John at eight years old to view his grandfather's body at the wake.
This normally this would just be like a moment of like accepting death, understanding what's going on.
But for John, it made him realize that this man couldn't hurt him anymore.
And he was not to be feared anymore. That was the first thing that came to mind.
He was like, wow, he's dead. He can't hurt me anymore.
Wow. So this started his obsession with viewing corpses.
Yeah. Yeah, he started to hang out around graveyards and actually- which that's the thing it's like if it stopped there if it was just because we all went on rotten.com we've talked about it so many times on the podcast podcast, I'm like, where's my rotten.com friends?
Like we all did that. We were all morbidly curious, like no pun intended.
Of course. But this started a whole thing where you'd hang around graveyards, and actually tried to peek into broken crypts, which like again, We got to just like type something into our computer and look at it and then click it and be gone.
Exactly. Which it's like, wow, how desensitized.
That's a lot of effort for him to go and find some corpses.
And hanging around a graveyard and being interested in it, I get.
Because I love graveyards. I find them weirdly calming.
But he's still like eight years old at this point.
So that's like a different thing. It's a red flag.
I would say so. It's like a very, very deep maroon flag.
And according to the book, he was especially drawn to the crypts that contained children.
Oh my goodness. Yeah. All of this made him happy.
It made him calm. This is a bad connection to make to death and corpses, I would say, at a very young age.
I don't think that corpses and death should make you go screaming and running.
That's probably an unhealthy way to look at it, but they shouldn't really make you happy at eight years old.
I mean, I'd rather have my eight-year-old scream and run.
Yeah, I feel like that's... Than be like, oh, dive into more.
Yeah, like this makes me calm. Yeah. Like, no, I don't know about that.
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The sale ends 831. Don't miss it. guys it's been busy it's been busy with work it's been busy with family The kids are in summer camps.
They're doing sports. We're running here.
We're running there. We got doctor's appointments.
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That's dailyharvest.com slash morbid for up to $40 off your first box. dailyharvest.com slash morbid So he also became, like, he joined the Boy Scouts.
So he was doing, like, you know, very natural, like, normal... things to do as a young child.
He joined the Boy Scouts. He eventually became a Scoutmaster.
And he became a Scoutmaster like really early, I guess, like earlier than you normally do.
Okay. But he really liked the power that came from that and the power of the uniform and all that.
And I was thinking about it, you were a Boy Scout.
I was. Were your Scoutmasters power hungry, to your knowledge?
No. No? Well, Scoutmasters. So there was kids that were Scoutmasters?
Yeah, maybe I'm using the wrong term. They were like the lead.
They were like... I don't know if I made it that far into Boy Scouts.
Yeah. I'm probably using the wrong term.
Or like leaders were just like parents of the kids.
Okay, that makes sense. And my mom was actually a leader of one of our Boy Scout groups.
She later told me that it just made the house smell like dirt and farts.
Yeah, she told me that too. It was just like...
Piling in 15 boys that are like 10 years old.
Your poor mom. She was a trooper, man. She's a saint.
She truly is. I don't remember kids being leaders.
My memory is also terrible. That might have happened or...
I'm probably just wrong. It's also like 100 years ago in England, so it could just be a different story.
Yeah, it could just be different. So maybe it's like a higher ranking scout.
That has like some kind of authority over the other scouts.
Right. Almost like a camp counselor. Yeah, yeah.
I get it. I think that's essentially what he became.
And I think he got like a newer uniform because of it.
And he was like, check me out. Right. So this need for power probably came from the relentless bullying he was enduring.
Sure. He was teased as he got, like we said, he was teased about like the big forehead situation.
And then as he got older, he got teased about the fact that he was what they said was he was impotent.
Now, he could not complete sexual acts, and apparently word got around, and it was just like a feeding frenzy of people being like, oh my God, you can't like, and it said it was when he was like 15 and 16, which I was like, whoa, can everybody step back for a second?
You're children. I don't know. I feel like that's pretty young to be making fun of people's sexual prowess.
Yeah. I don't know. Maybe that's just me.
No, I'm there. I would not do that either.
I'm with you. Now, this kind of bullying, the inadequacy he was feeling about the impotence and the fact that he was raised by a very overprotective mother, and a cold, neglectful father definitely created some other issues in his life and in his mind.
He was a severe hypochondriac, for one. He was constantly inventing ailments and insisting that he had every little thing that came around.
He was doing it for attention. It was all attention grabbing.
He was looking for people to fawn over him and pay attention to him.
He thought people would pity him if he had things like random diseases.
Um, emotional manipulation made him feel powerful and it allowed him to become the victim on the outside, but but remain the power player on the inside.
Yeah. And kind of take the spotlight off of his other problems that were causing at least rumors or worse in town.
Exactly. Nailed it. Now, John left school to join the military when World War I began.
And by all accounts, he was not a problem in the military.
He didn't have any black spots on his record.
He was not dishonorably discharged or anything, no disciplinary actions.
But when he came home, And it seemed like it was a pretty uneventful, like he just went through it, he came back.
But when he came home, he had this harrowing tale that surprised everyone.
He told his friends and family that he had been involved in a traumatizing mustard gas attack. which was a thing, obviously, that happened.
Yeah, of course. Many soldiers came back with PTSD from it and tons of issues.
But he said he had been blinded from it.
Okay. but like he could see, like later he can see.
Yeah, just an odd thing that even if it did happen, because why would you believe otherwise?
Yeah. To have that as the side effects that could pretty easily be disproven.
That's the thing. And he also said he could only, he had what they called, they actually documented it as hysterical muteness. because he could only speak to a whisper.
Yeah. And it lasted, this hysterical muteness that they documented this as, it lasted three fucking years.
Man. I mean, war is crazy, man. I would not doubt that. that could happen to somebody coming back from that type of experience.
And who knows, like you're saying, maybe physically, this was not like he wasn't physically blinded in a clinical term.
But there is like a thing called hysterical blindness, that when you go through trauma, it can happen.
Maybe it happened, who knows? The blindness was never confirmed to be or documented to be like clinically true, but I wouldn't say that it's something that couldn't have happened.
Absolutely. But people around him at the time believed this was all for attention because they said it very much lined up with who he was but again world war one Yeah, like I know that this story is going to turn and I'm not going to want to like defend this person.
No, you're definitely not. But right now, he's just coming back from war, defending the country. or helping ally, like, it's just, why are we not giving him the benefit of the doubt right now?
Yeah. And you know what? Later, you'll find out why.
No, I know. But right now, he's only guilty of... being excited around corpses.
Exactly. Exactly. And that's, see, this is why it's good that you don't know the story because you are... you're gonna hear it exactly how it needs to be heard, which is like, what is wrong here?
And then you're gonna be like, oh. At this moment in time.
I'm okay with John. You're okay with John.
All right. I can't wait until we get it.
A little further into this. So here we go.
May 10th, 1920. So we're in the 20s, the roaring 20s now.
Here we go. He married a woman named Ethel Simpson Waddington.
Of course he did. Yeah, Ethel, you know.
So this marriage went sour from the start.
Okay. For one, he was impotent. Which is not like, you know, people get through that.
But he hadn't been forthcoming with this information before marrying Ethel.
Also, he was a liar, he was known to be possibly a cheater, and he was just a shitty husband.
I mean, right when I said that I was like kind of back in this dude.
Yeah. And then the marriage happened. I knew that was going to come back to bite me.
So he's a really, he's a bad husband. And remember, he has not been in trouble thus far with the law.
Correct. He has not been like a petty thief, which we see in a lot of these things.
Usually we see when they turn into something like he turned into, you see in his youth, he would steal shit. he would get in trouble in school.
Like there's all these little things that sometimes don't add up.
Yeah, exactly. He didn't really have any of that in his background.
Yeah. So he marries Ethel. He's kind of a shitty husband.
I didn't find anything that was documented that he like physically abused. abused her or anything, but who knows when you find out who he is, you're like, that probably happened.
So he just wasn't good at being a husband?
No. He was just shitty and he was a liar.
He was just like not nice. He was just not a good husband.
He wasn't loving. He spent a lot of time cheating on her with, like, other women.
He... Yeah, it just, he just wasn't great.
And when you find out later what he does, it's not hard to believe that he was probably physically abusing her too.
And it probably just isn't documented. because why would it be in the twenties?
So during the marriage, he got a job as a postman.
But he couldn't just hold down a job without doing some shit to gain negative attention because he is an attention person.
So he began stealing out of nowhere, just began stealing packages and and began stealing the money from the postage.
He was caught really quickly. And as a result, he went to prison for three months because of this.
Yeah. During this time, Ethel had a miscarriage, too.
So this was not a great time in their marriage.
Yeah, this is... And again, we don't know what happened there.
It's going downhill very quickly. It's going to go really downhill really quickly.
I don't know why I was expecting this to go anywhere else.
Sorry I didn't fill you in on what the podcast is about.
Yeah, what is this about again? Yeah, this is called Morbid.
Oh, okay. It's not going to be a happy ending.
Two years later, he also got probation for something violent that we don't have the details about, but it involved money and theft, and there was some kind of violence involved.
Okay. So he got probation for that. He served 12 months probation... and he followed this up with two more larceny charges and nine more months of prison time.
So suddenly, he is like, just stacking up that prison time.
Yeah. This is around the time when he left his wife Ethel, just up and left her.
And then he moved to London by himself. At this point, he's 29 years old and he is back in prison for theft. for nine months.
Then he moves in with a woman named Maude, and he goes back to prison for six months.
And this time he got hard labor. He was sentenced to hard labor for assaulting her.
Oh man. This is why I believe that even though we don't have, I couldn't find actual documented things that said that he hurt Ethel.
Right. I'm sure he heard of them. Yeah, what are the chances that this was the first time he did that?
Exactly. And also, he didn't just assault her.
He beat her in the head with a cricket bat.
And then he was charged with grievous bodily harm, and he claimed he was only testing out the bat.
Why test it playing cricket? Yeah, of course.
That's wild. What kind of... You... Like, you just come out and you're like, officers.
I was testing out the bat. I don't see what the problem is.
What? You think they're going to be like, oh, good sir.
I'm sorry. Yes. Like, how's the bat? Yeah.
Would you recommend I get one? Exactly. It's like you beat your wife over the head with it, you evil fuck.
My God. So in 1933, he stole a priest's car. which is very odd.
Apparently they were like kind of friends and he stole his car and he got three more months in prison.
So now This guy is just not afraid of prison.
Yeah. He's just like, he's spending summers in prison at this point.
Especially after the hard labor stint. That's what I'm saying too.
I figured they were like, dude, all right.
Give them hard labor. Seems like you like prison.
Yeah. Let's turn it up a notch. Let's make it not a great place for you to go.
And he's like, ah, just bring it on. Yeah, he's just loving it.
No one's seeing a pattern here or thinking maybe they should tack on some fucking years to these sentences.
Like, they're just like, yeah, it seems like he's...
He's on a great path, I guess. No one's looking at these past charges back to back to back to back and being like...
I think we need to keep him in here longer.
Right. Just to see. So in the same year, 1933, he suddenly asked Ethel to move to London and take him back.
Now she agreed and she moved back in with him.
Oh, Ethel. I know, poor Ethel. Now, John and Ethel lived at 10 Rillington Place and in 1937, They were still married, but he was now visiting sex workers.
He was still cheating on her. And after all, you know, he was having these violent sexual urges too, which no one knew about.
And Ethel was not... complying with what he needed.
And he was abusing these poor sex workers and then he would just come home to his wife.
So like he's a literal monster. And at this point, his sexual proclivities were getting darker.
Yeah. He was becoming interested in necrophilia and would force sex workers to play dead.
Sure. Yeah. So he's at this point, he's having this, he's probably, he's still being a shitty husband and, He's doing all this shit to get in trouble with the law.
And he also has this totally other separate life where he is like, violently abusing sex workers behind his wife's back.
Now in 1939, he enlisted in World War II.
Okay. Now, he was given the job of a war reserve police officer.
Okay. And that's wild, considering he had been in prison every other month for the past few years before that.
I'm not really sure what happened here. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess.
I guess so. For four years, he worked as constable.
And this is when shit gets really dark. He started using his power as a police officer to stalk women, basically.
Oh. He would follow them, take diligent and really creepy notes about their every move, their appearances. document what they were doing where they were when he could find them when they were alone later they found a ton of these in his home and it was horrific.
He was basically in trolling mode, which is what BTK used to call it.
Now, he also had an affair with a married woman at this point while he was married to Ethel.
This was when he was working at the police station and her husband eventually caught them and beat the shit out of him.
Good. Yeah. It's like, that's a yay. That is fabulous. have a positive here.
He abruptly resigned from this job in 1943 and took another job as a clerk at the radio factory which is like a very different kind of situation i'm not there's nothing that says why he resigned but maybe it was the getting the shit beat out of him by a random husband.
And he was like, maybe I should take this down a notch.
I don't know. Now, this is when he had more time on his hands and he started experimenting a little.
Oh boy. He began playing with gas and how it could incapacitate someone.
This is when he began telling people that his time in the military had given him the medical knowledge to perform abortions.
Oh, my God. Which was illegal in the UK at this time.
So this is when we bring his first victim into play.
This was 1943. Her name was Ruth Fuerst.
She was 21 years old. She was Austrian. She was working on the side as a sex worker at the time. but was also working at a munitions factory, which is like military weapons.
Okay. Um, John Christie claimed they met at a pub and he said he brought her home to the house he shared with Ethel, by the way, she was out at the time.
Jesus. And he said he strangled her during sex.
He said he first put her body under the fucking floorboards in their home, but later he moved her and buried her body in the garden in the back Now, this one he claimed was not planned, very impulsive.
Now... Of course, with John, this excited him.
And so he planned his next one immediately.
Because although this was impulsive, he's now excited by it.
He liked the way it felt. Yeah. So his second victim occurred on November 8th, 1944.
Her name was Muriel Amelia Eadie. She was his coworker at the radio factory, actually.
She was 32 years old, and she was constantly suffering from chest infections and bronchitis.
So he used this because he liked to prey on people.
Like he would find anybody's weakness and prey on it.
And he told her he could help her feel better.
He was like, oh my God, I happen to have this homemade cure for bronchitis and chest infections.
So he brought her back to his empty home because Ethel was out again.
And he gave her what he was referring to as his special inhaler. or his nebulizer treatment, essentially.
He had a tube that was connected to a jar and it was connected to her mouth, and then there was another tube that was behind her.
This tube behind her was hooked up to a gas line.
I knew that was coming. So she unknowingly inhaled carbon monoxide.
So she passed out because he just poisoned her.
And when she was out, he strangled her and raped her at the same time.
Okay. Yeah. She died while this was happening.
I would like to just officially get off the seesaw. and get off of the John train.
I had a feeling that you were going to get out of there really quick.
It's not a great place to be. That is just very difficult to hear.
Yeah. He's a really bad one. So he buried her in the same garden as Ruth.
Now, 1948, this is when he met Beryl Evans.
Now, she and her husband found out that she was pregnant with their second child, and they were unable to care for another baby.
They already had one daughter, a baby named Geraldine, and they weren't really even able to care for Geraldine. their finances were very strained.
They had a very tumultuous relationship.
They were not in any position to have one child.
They fought constantly. There had been infidelity.
The entire situation was a mess. So Beryl was panicked about another child, and she was looking to terminate the pregnancy.
They happened to live in the flat above John Christie and Ethel.
So she told them about her issue one day.
She just happened to be talking to them and she was like, I don't know what to do.
And John told her. Well, I can help you.
I can help you procure this abortion if you need it.
So November 8th, 1948, Timothy, her husband, came home to find his wife and child not at home.
So he asked his neighbors if they had seen them.
And John told him that he was like, you know what?
Beryl had come to me. She came to terminate the pregnancy, but because She had tried several at home methods before this because she had, she had tried to terminate the pregnancy herself at home.
Okay. He said because she had done that, she went septic and she died during the procedure I tried to do.
Timothy had a very low IQ of only 70. He accepted this as fact.
He prayed on them mainly because of that.
He knew that. he was going to take whatever he told him and he was just going to go with it.
Oh, man. And he convinced him to not press charges because he told them it wasn't his fault.
It was an accident. I was trying to help her.
She was the one who did this. It wasn't me.
So and he told him, you know what? Well, you go.
Why don't you go to your parents house, go live with your parents for a little while. grieve, figure out what's going to happen.
I have this loving couple who's going to take care of baby Geraldine for you.
Oh, no. Yeah. But Timothy's family, when he went back to them, were very confused by all of this.
And rightfully so. Of course. This is a strange story to tell. his mother especially was not buying this casual medical malpractice that he was selling.
So she was like, wait, What happened now?
Like, tell me the story again. He went over it again with her in more detail, explaining exactly what how John had told him Beryl died.
And she was like, no. Yeah, can we just request maybe some police presence here?
Yeah, like, even if this is how... Get a detective involved.
Yeah, because it's like, even if this is how that happened...
Why are we just going with it? Yeah. Why are we just taking your word for it?
We need a third party here. Exactly. So she convinced him to report it and they did report what happened on November 30th.
Good. Now, Timothy thought that John had honestly tried to help them.
Like he fully convinced him like he was just trying to help us.
He had our best interest in mind. So he felt like a weird loyalty to him.
So he told the police that it was him, that he had given Beryl abortion pills and accidentally killed her himself.
Oh, no. He told them he hid her body in a sewer drain because he was scared.
Whoa, wait, what? Yes. But when they went to look they didn't find her because he didn't do that.
Why would he do that? He still has a daughter.
I know. So I think it's like him just panicking, I guess, and not knowing and...
And if he thought this guy was doing him a favor, he's trying to take it off him a little bit.
He has a weird loyalty. There's a lot here to unpack, for sure.
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And of course they asked us, so they go, they look, they don't find her body where he says it's going to be.
So they come back and they're like. we're not really convinced that this is the real story.
So like, can you tell us the truth? And he broke down and told them about John Christie.
So he was like, that wasn't the real story.
Actually, this was the real story. Okay.
So they were like, okay. So December 2nd, 1949, they searched Rillington Place because they were like, if it was John Christie, we have to go search this apartment.
And after using a piece of metal, so like ethyl came out It was like, hello, officers.
She gave them a piece of metal to use to pry open the shed in the back garden because they couldn't get it open.
So she was like offering them like, sure.
Yeah, I mean, she doesn't know there's...
Two women buried in the garden. Exactly.
So she's like, sure. Well, when they did this, the smell was unbelievable.
I could only imagine. And this isn't even what you're thinking.
So they're smelling decomposition immediately.
And there they found in the shed the bodies of Beryl and baby Geraldine.
Oh, no. When they found them, Beryl was wrapped in a tablecloth.
What did you get me into? I know. I'm sorry.
I should have warned you for that one. I could just be like... watching Stranger Things and just in my own world right now I know I brought you into this.
You dragged me up here. I apologize. I love you.
I thought you and Ash did like fun podcasts or something.
I'm not a listener, so I don't really know what you guys do.
Well, you're wearing a weirdo shirt right now.
I know. Isn't it weird that I'm actually wearing a weirdo shirt?
I put this on not knowing I was going to be doing this. on the podcast tonight.
But yeah, here I am. Here we are. This is a rough one.
I know, and we're doing this right before bed, too.
I know, it's like... Great timing. I actually don't listen to the podcast after a certain time for that reason.
And some people listen to it to fall asleep.
I know. I know. And congratulations to them.
But if it hits about six o'clock, I'm out.
Yeah, I get that. No offense. It just messes up my dreams.
Honestly, we don't like to record it at night because of that too.
So this is an experience for both of us.
This will be the one night that our youngest sleeps She's been up all night for multiple nights in a row, but she'll just sleep like a baby tonight and I'll just be staring at the ceiling with my eyes wide open.
Just thinking about John Christie. wondering why you couldn't do like a fun little podcast about like, fried dough or something.
Fried dough. What a great podcast. I like fried dough.
I haven't had it in a long time. Fried dough.
This is our podcast about fried dough. I mean, there's podcasts about everything.
Now, I don't know if you know that. I bet if we looked.
Although probably not a fried dough podcast.
I don't know. If we looked hard enough, we might be able to find one.
Would you listen? Email in. Do you want to hear John's fried dough podcast?
Hey, if you want to hear it, let's do it.
If we can eat fried dough while doing it, I'm down. uh so but you know back to this let's get back on track let's go back to this terrible terrible thing So when they found Beryl, she was wrapped in a tablecloth She was bound, the tablecloth was bound with cording and she was initially hidden under the sink.
Oh my goodness. And there was wood planks that were like leaned up against the sink, kind of hiding her.
When they found baby Geraldine on the other side of the room, she still had a man's necktie wrapped around her neck.
Oh, God. Yeah. I know. I'm sorry for that.
They didn't know it yet. But on November 8th, 1948, John Christie had knocked Beryl out using his famous gas, and he had raped her and strangled her at the same time, which would become his MO, and she had died during this process.
But police were honing in on Timothy at this point.
For obvious reasons, he's the spouse. He had already lied.
It doesn't sound good. Making the impossible decision.
Yeah. And then it led to all of this just heartbreaking.
And it gets more heartbreaking with the Timothy story.
It really does. And he had changed his story a few times at this point.
So they were really honing in on him because they were like, Remind me again, they already have a daughter, right?
That's Geraldine. Oh, Geraldine. Okay. I wasn't sure if that was like the unborn baby that they gave a name to.
Oh, this poor guy. It's even worse. So he doesn't have a daughter anymore.
No. Now, after the first story he told, he said he killed... So this is after that first story he told.
He then went back and said he killed Barrel because of financial issues. they were strained and they got in a fight and that's the way it happened.
This confession happened, but what we don't know is what led to this confession.
We don't know how he got here. Because he went from, I did it, It was an accident.
I gave her these abortion pills and they killed her.
I hid her in the sewer drain and they were like, no, you didn't.
And then he went and said, you know what?
John Christie did it. He admitted it to me.
Then when they found the bodies, suddenly it turned into I killed her because... because of financial reasons.
No, we don't know what led to this confession.
A lot of people have a lot of feelings. What might have led to this confession?
Remember, he had an IQ of 70 and he had told the police John Christie was the one who did it.
Why now is he suddenly claiming responsibility?
Coerced? Maybe. Sure. Possibly. Now, there's also a lot of police misconduct that we find out later in this case that might make you think about it a little more.
Shocking. Now, Christie was questioned and he denied everything. which is wild to me because I'm like, it's in the shed, but okay.
Right. Now this was, I will say this garden area was a communal area.
So I think it was, it allowed them to be like, well, maybe this is Timothy's shed too.
Maybe he can use it. Now, he also made Ethel lie for him.
So Ethel kind of gave him an alibi. That wasn't.
Okay. But she told police, and she also told police, she was like, I went into that laundry shed every day, multiple times a day, but somehow I didn't.
I never smelled anything, which they were like, hmm.
I don't know about that. We opened it once.
And how big is this laundry shed? It's just like a little shed.
Like a little garden shed. Do you think this was like a holding place?
He was eventually going to bury them in the garden?
Possibly. Possibly, because he's really messy with this stuff.
Yeah. Yeah. It just doesn't make sense that Ethel would have been in and out of that garden shed.
Maybe that's just part of the alibi. Well, and I wonder, that's the thing, I wonder if she was lying for him because she was like, well, if he did this to them, he could do it to me and I'm not.
And it's not like at this time she was going to get a lot of help if she told anybody.
I mean, if she's already willing to lie about... where he was, why not just take it a step further and say, I go in there all the time.
Like, And the bodies weren't there. Yeah.
So I think she was really trying to save herself here, which I. it's a hard decision to have to make.
Now, The police believed this. They were like, okay, sure.
Yeah, you didn't smell it. So they put Timothy on trial.
So Timothy's trial was at Old Bailey, which I have had a lot of cases that have had trials at Old Bailey locations.
I don't know what it is. Maybe it's like Bailey who's like telling me like cases to do.
I don't know. She just wants her name on the podcast.
She does. She's like, bring me up. She's like, I'm a legend.
Bring me up. So Timothy was charged with murder only for barrel at the time.
Because that was the only one who he had confessed to had killed.
So initially he was, that was what they were gonna charge him with.
It's very strange. Yeah. I mean, they're found together.
What are we doing? But trials at Old Bailey could take, like, hours.
Like literally, it's a very different kind of situation there.
But yeah, so as soon as the charges went through, he suddenly recanted the entire thing.
His confession that he gave, that he killed her for financial reasons, he recanted it as soon as those charges went through.
Didn't see that coming. And suddenly I figured he just was like, what else do I have to live for?
Like, might as well just throw me away. Yeah.
Which I couldn't say I would blame him at that point.
You're right. I mean, you just lost everything.
But no, he recanted it and he said it was a coerced confession that it wasn't given, you know, by any wholesome means.
And he said, no, John Christie did it. He admitted that was that's the story that really happened.
No one believed him. So the trial continued and he went to trial January 11th, 1950, and they changed it.
And they only put him on trial for the murder of Geraldine now.
Now, I know you're like, wait, what? Like he confessed to Beryl, what's going on?
But they said the baby's murder was so specifically horrendous because it's a baby. that they wanted to put him behind bars for it.
They were like, this is the one we want to put him away for.
Like, who cares about Beryl? Right. Like, let's only worry about this.
If he had confessed to murdering Beryl, then they believe that he had definitely killed Geraldine as well.
It's not like somebody else killed Geraldine. and he happened to kill Beryl.
I would agree with that. So they also were worried that if they only went after him for Beryl, It could be argued that these two fought a lot and maybe she had provoked him into killing her.
This is an actual thought process. Yeah.
Yeah. But obviously a baby can't knowingly provoke anyone into murdering them.
Just no words. I literally had no idea what to say there.
It's wild, like the thought process back then. especially when it came to women was like a real wild situation.
It was just like, yes, this woman probably just provoked him into murdering her, but Like the baby couldn't have done that.
So that's a surefire one. Now, Christy was a star witness for the prosecution.
John Christie, the man that Timothy had said actually murdered, Beryl.
Like, what? Something tells me he was, like, really good in his testimony, too.
Yeah, he was a great witness. And the prosecution was led by a man named Christmas.
Humphreys. Love it. Yep. They literally had the man who Timothy had said multiple times was the real killer as the fucking star witness.
They had him narrate the entire thing. They were like, Tell us what happened, John.
And he was like, Well, sit down, everybody.
I can tell you. Now, Ethel was also put on the stand, and even though she had told police...
That she had gone into that laundry shed a few times, a few million times, and never noticed that smell?
Now on the stand, under oaths, she testified she never went into that laundry shed.
Not even once. Not even once. This was never brought up.
So this happened? She was like, no, I never went in there.
The fact that on record, she said she went in there a million times and never smelled it, It was never brought up that those are two very conflicting statements.
Yeah, so they just... They knew what they wanted and they were just plowing straight ahead.
Yep. That's exactly what it was. And it's like, that's a perfect example of it because it's like, Like it is well documented what she said in that police report.
She gave an interview. She said something completely different than what she said on the stand.
And not that's not Ethel's fault. It's just she I think it's she was abused.
I think she was scared when she gave that initial statement.
And then she probably realized I'm sitting under oath.
I have to be truthful. Yeah, no, that all makes sense.
I can't imagine John is sitting there... very politely asking for an alibi and this is how we're going to do things.
Exactly. I'm sure he was very threatening and scary in that moment.
Yeah. And she felt like she didn't have another choice.
I can't blame her at all. But the fact that they just gloss over it is inexcusable.
Yeah, and I do wonder too, like, because when you read about and you're like, I feel like she wanted to get out of there.
She wanted to help, but she just didn't know how.
And I wonder if she did that under oath to make it. something that they should have latched on to.
Like she was kind of being like, hey. And there's witnesses and there's... people of the law there.
Maybe she just felt a little more confident to say something.
It sounds like she might've been in abused.
Yeah, I think she was. Individual. Yeah.
So. So I think she was trying. I think it was kind of a call for help on the stand.
Yeah, absolutely. No one helped her. So Timothy was represented by Freeboro Stack, or excuse me, Freeboro Slack and Company.
That was the name of the law firm. Sweet.
And they sucked, in case you were wondering.
They slacked. How Slack did on this whole thing.
Slack was very right. They didn't look into John Christie at all.
Didn't look at his background, didn't look at anything.
They just assumed Timothy was guilty, his own representation.
And they just like went about it like he was.
They were like, let's just like go through the motions.
This guy's guilty. I don't know what to tell you.
I mean... You know, it's less work. Now, apparently another witness that was brought onto the stand was a carpenter or like. a contractor that did work at the flats, the Rillington place.
He was the one who had actually pulled certain, he'd pulled like wood out of the floor and like replaced it.
And he had actually pulled the wood that was used to hide Beryl.
Oh yeah. He had pulled that wood up. So they brought him on the stand to talk about the kind of wood, when he was there.
You know, we need dates. We just want to know when this wood was pulled up so we can tell whether she was there at this certain time or not.
Sure. He couldn't get dates right and just went with whatever the police told him to say. on the sand.
He was like, oh, that date matches? Okay, sure, that one.
Then he said he had not taken the wood out of the floors on the 11th. but literally receipts showed that he had not done it until after the 14th. which was long after the murders.
So that means John went into that shed after the murders before the bodies were found.
Oh, boy. So it all just pointed to John still, even when they were trying to fuck it up.
Weirdly, that one piece of evidence, the timesheet that showed this work and what it was done was lost from evidence.
Oh, man. What are the chances? They just couldn't find it.
So weird. It's so weird when very vital and like...
Case changing evidence just disappears. Evidence that would just make you start your investigation from scratch.
Yeah, it's so weird. It happens. It happens sometimes.
And it's a very strange phenomenon. It's just a coincidence.
Yeah, it's very weird. Now, John Christie's appearance on the stand just charmed the jury.
He charmed the pants off of him. He was a great actor up there. judge literally presented this to the jury when he was like, okay, now go deliberate.
He presented it like Timothy was guilty. before they were even sent to prison.
He was like, go deliberate this guilty man's fate.
Don't take too long, man. Yeah, they were literally like, This man, this murderous man, go tell us whether he's guilty or not.
Your choices are murder or murder. Or murder.
Guilty or guilty. Now, they only took 40 minutes to deliberate.
Timothy Evans was found guilty. And he maintained his innocence to the very end.
He appealed, but he lost... Oh no. He was hanged on March 9th, 1950.
And when was the trial again? The trial was January 11th, 1950.
Oh, so it was a quick process. Very quick.
And that happened back then, especially at Old Bailey and just in that time period in Yeah, it's not like nowadays.
It was a very quick turnaround to like when you were sentenced to when you were hanged was like boom, boom.
It was weeks. Oh, man. Yeah. We'll get back to that because his family did get some kind of like a little bit of justice for him, I would say.
Okay. So December 6, 1952, John resigned from the radio factory.
December 14th, 1952, Essel disappeared. Oh.
Yep. Can't say I'm shocked, unfortunately.
No, unfortunately. Now, what we find out is that John had strangled her while she was in bed sleeping.
Sky. Just strangling. He's a strangler.
What is going on? He really is. Then he hid her under the floorboards at their house.
He literally buried her under the floorboards in the living room of their house.
Jesus. He sold her wedding ring for money immediately after.
Yeah. Now neighbors began complaining about strong bad odors coming from the property.
So he started using really strong cleaning fluids and just being like, yeah, I don't know.
So weird. Better be pretty strong. Yeah.
So everybody was like, all you would smell is like... decomp and bleach like coming from that house.
But nobody. No red flag there. None. Now, January 26, 1953, he forged Ethel's signature on documents to completely empty the money out of her bank account.
Yeah. Yeah. You're like, I just... Just thinking about the beginning of this podcast.
So I'm like, you know, so far so good with John.
Like, I don't know. John doesn't seem like he's a bad guy.
Yeah, he's a bad guy, but you wouldn't have been the only person.
So many people thought he wasn't a bad guy.
And then... And... It seemed like for most of his like youth life, he wasn't a bad guy.
Or he wasn't showing it at least. It really all of a sudden just like happened.
He just went wild. So... No one's looking for Ethel.
Well, that's a perfect little segue. Because people were looking for Ethel.
They were like, where is she? Ethel must have some friends here.
She does. A lot of the neighbors like Ethel. maybe yeah like people loved Ethel so people were asking where she was and I
John would just tell people that she either moved.
He would tell varying stories. She either moved back home. or she was visiting relatives, which she did often.
So that was an easy one. for him to say, because that's why he was able to get women back to his home, because she was gone a lot, visiting relatives.
So he told relatives of hers. He couldn't tell them that she was visiting relatives.
He told them that she was very sick. and she couldn't even gather the strength to speak or write to them.
Yep. Now we come to his sixth victim at this point.
This was Rita Nelson, who was a 25-year-old from Ireland.
She was blonde. She was gorgeous. She was very sweet.
She was an artist. She just seemed like a cool lady.
She was pregnant, and the Oh, come on, Elena, what are you doing?
Yeah, I'm sorry, I know. She was really... This is heavy.
I know it is. I told you. I told you this is a very heavy one.
I told you this. I don't know if you said it was this heavy.
I mean, I don't know how to accurately convey the heavy level of it.
When we're down with... unborn children it's it's bad yeah it's a bad one it is he's a bad guy but She was depressed and she was wanting to terminate the pregnancy because she couldn't care for this child by herself, but she didn't know what to do.
Now January 19th, 1953, she had come to London to visit her sister.
And they were out at a pub. They're talking about, you know, like what's going on in her life when she met John Christie.
He was sitting at the bar and he heard her talking about her pregnancy and the issues surrounding it. and he told her he could help her terminate the pregnancy safely.
So he brought her back to his home. The gas knocked her out.
And he raped her while strangling her to death with a cord.
My God, this is just... It gets worse. Is there maybe like a child is waking up I need to attend to?
You're just going to leave the room? Is the doorbell ringing?
It's not. It's very late. Did you order food?
I did not order food at like midnight. No, I did not.
Now, he left her dead body on the floor with the cord still around her neck and went to bed.
What is going on? I feel so uncomfortable.
I know. I apologize. I get it now. Yeah.
I wasn't going to make my Uber's hair joke, but I get it now.
Yeah, see, you get why. I need to leave.
Yeah. The vicinity immediately. See, you feel so uncomfortable.
You have you have the ash vibes right now.
Usually this is where Ash is like, oh man, I'm out.
I just can't... I can't handle... Yeah. The... The pregnant...
I can't handle the pregnant. I can't handle the sexual violence.
Yeah. It's just too much. It is. This is a really bad guy.
God damn it. I just want to... This is a really bad guy.
He's a really, really awful person. Yeah, he's a dick.
You can say it. He's a fucking asshole. You can say anything you want about him.
Trust me. Part of it is that we roast these motherfuckers.
No, he actually slept while her body was laying on the kitchen floor. like went to bed.
When he woke up in the morning, he figured he couldn't use the garden anymore because people were probably going to wonder why he kept digging holes in the garden.
And the floorboards were taken up by Ethel because he had put Ethel in the floorboards.
So he hid her body behind a cupboard in the kitchen where there was a pantry.
Wow. He had put a cloth around her head and tied the cord around it and placed her upside down in a pantry behind a cupboard.
I mean, at this point, I can only imagine the only people coming into his home are potential victims.
He's not like... having a poker night with his friends or something.
No, I don't see that at all. February 1953, he meets Kathleen Maloney.
She's 26 years old. She's a mother of five with a troubled childhood.
They knew each other because she was a sex worker and he had actually been involved with a friend of hers at one point.
She had been around him several times and she had not been harmed.
So she was probably trusting him, at least slightly.
She had seen him around her friend. She wasn't worried.
Her friend wasn't worried. He met her in a Notting Hill pub and told her he had a flat to rent and she was looking for somewhere to rent.
So he was like, oh, do you want to come see it?
She was psyched. Don't go see it. And she went back with him.
Now, she had been drinking a little, so he used the gas on her immediately because he was able to take control pretty quickly.
Then he put a rope around her neck and he raped her while strangling her to death.
Like Rita before her, he left her in the kitchen overnight while he slept, but he propped her up in a kitchen chair.
Ugh, this coward. Yeah, he truly is. Next morning, she was hidden in the pantry behind the cupboard with a pillowcase around her head.
Apparently, according to the book, he had also thrown dirt and ash on her, which he hadn't done to any of the other ones, I'm not sure what the symbolism was there or why he did that. but he was not done.
So his next- Where is the family members of these people?
Are these people being reported missing?
Some of them are. A lot of them are. And then some of them were kind of like distance from their family because they were...
You know, they were doing sex work and especially at that time, It was something that I'm sure a lot of family members were pulling away from them because of.
He prayed on people who he knew he wouldn't have a lot of trouble hiding them.
Yeah. At this point, I'm just hoping his house isn't very big and he runs out of real estate.
Honestly, because... Because it doesn't seem like anyone else is going to stop him at this point.
No. No, the next victim was 26-year-old Hectorina McLennan.
She was homeless. So see, we're seeing like, this is what he's preying on people who are in like bad states here.
She and her boyfriend, Alex, were desperate just for somewhere to stay or even just even for a night.
And John prayed on this. They had run into John at a pub and it took a few times of like seeing him at a pub. talking to him.
Finally, he asked, you know, do you want to stay with me while you're looking for a place?
And they were so thankful and they agreed.
Agreed. Don't mind that smell. Yeah. Like, well, that's the thing.
So but they get there and they were like, what the fuck?
Because John's place was also disgusting.
It was dirty. The smell was unable to be ignored.
I could only imagine it wasn't this... Yeah, that he's not a clean man.
Wonderful home to go into. No, it was putrid. like putrid.
So they only they actually stayed a couple of days, which I believe was probably only to be polite.
Because they left after a couple of days.
They were like, no. Now you would think, okay, good.
They got out of there. Yes. Well, March 6, 1953, he ran into Hectorina again, and he offered her money for sex.
She was desperate. She went back to his home.
He offered her a drink, trying to loosen her up, and while she was drinking it, he put the gas near her because he was just gonna try to do it like sneakily in the vicinity but she noticed and she freaked out.
So she ran out of the kitchen and he chased her.
When he caught her, he choked her into unconsciousness with his hands, and then he gassed her all the way about.
Ugh. He then tied a cord around her throat and raped her. that he ended up killing her through this process, he put her into the pantry behind the cupboard with Rita and Kathleen.
He left her sitting up with her back facing the door in there.
Now, Alex came looking for her, her boyfriend.
Sure. But John denied this. He was like, she never even came to the house.
I don't know what you're talking about. So Alex just probably thought she was gone.
Yeah, I mean, what is he gonna do? Yeah.
Now, he tried to kill another woman through the same methods named Margaret Forrest, because he told her he could cure her horrible migraines, which is... terrifying terrifying she didn't show up though when he told her to He had met her out and he was like, meet me at my house.
Here's the address. Meet me at this time.
I have something that's going to cure it.
She didn't show up. And apparently it happened twice that he got back in contact with her.
And she was like, sorry, I just like something came up.
And he was like, cool, that's fine. Come back this day. she didn't show up that day either, saved her life.
So she got out. Man, just by having cold feet.
Exactly. I mean, I don't get migraines, but I see you go through the migraines and...
I could see how you would be very desperate to get rid of those.
Absolutely. That's why it's so scary when you hear the methods he was using.
You're like, all right, I get it. I get it.
I get why people were like, all right, I'll give it a try.
Especially at this time. It's like things were just different.
He preyed on... and people who are really down on their luck. people who weren't going to be able to get, because normally like now we're thinking about it, we're like, no, I would not go with this man to go have my migraines cured.
But these were people who also weren't having access to proper medical care.
Yeah, exactly. So they were having to go to these back alley treatments.
That's the only thing they had. Oh, God. to do.
And it's like, so they were desperate. You can understand why they were like, OK, this nice gentleman.
He was always dressed nicely. Like everyone said he always dressed like a gentleman.
He came off like a gentleman. He was good at getting them to believe he was legit.
Yeah, and he seemed to be willing to work at it, too.
Talk to people for multiple nights. Exactly.
Like, he would put in the work. And then he was also a military guy.
I'm sure he could showcase that in some way.
You know, I served my country. I learned this in the military.
I was a police officer in the military. That's going to put a lot of people at ease.
Now, the smell of decomposition in his home was becoming overwhelming, even for him.
So he moved out of that flat on March 20, 1953.
He did not take any of these bodies with him.
He just left the flat. Just abandoned it.
Well, he left and then he decided he was just going to scam some renters that came in after him.
So he actually brought people into there and was like, yeah, I don't know.
I think mouse, like some mice died in the walls.
And you just assume that no one's going to open a floorboard or look behind a cabinet. no one's going to look in the pantry behind the cupboard.
So he collected rent from some renters that he brought in there, but he wasn't a landlord.
He couldn't do that. So he just scammed them.
And then the landlord found out and was like, why are you guys living here?
I didn't have you come here. I'm not taking your rent.
And he made them move out within 24 hours.
So he scammed these people into coming in, took their money, and then had them kicked out of the house within 24
Now, the upstairs neighbor that moved in after Timothy and Beryl moved out, Um, he was a man named Beresford Brown and And he was allowed by the landlord to use some of John's rooms because it was now an empty flat at this point.
They hadn't rented anybody. Right, right.
And he, I think some work was being done to the flat upstairs, so they you know, while that's being done, you can use some of those things down there, like the kitchen, you know, whatever.
And one day he was trying to hang something and he said he heard a hollow noise when he walked, when he knocked on the wall.
And he's like, this is weird. So when he investigates, he's like pulling back the like the wallpaper.
He's like making a hole in the wall. And he said, I suddenly found this like pantry or crawl space.
Oh, no. And he came across the body. Ah.
Now he called police right away and they were like, well, fuck.
Because remember, he had been really involved in the Beryl and Geraldine Evans trial and murders.
I was going to say they're like, oh, that's the guy who gave the great testimony.
I can't wait to hear his story about this one.
I'm sure it's great. What happened here?
So they search the place and they find Essel in the floorboards, all the bodies in the pantry slash crawl space.
I have literally lost count as to how many we were at at this point.
Well, and then they find two bodies in the gardens out back because remember those were the first victims.
I believe at this point, three, four, five, we're at six.
We're at six victims that they found, and then we have eight altogether with Beryl and Geraldine.
Now they walked, so this is wild. So they find the two more bodies in the gardens out back.
Want to know what tipped them off about the bodies in the gardens?
Because why would they think to just look in the garden?
Sure. They walked outside and they noticed a femur leaning against the fence.
Sure. Just a femur. Yeah. It was being used to hold up a rickety part of the fence.
Oh my goodness. I shit you not. Oh my goodness.
You just used a human femur. Oh wow. They found a tobacco tin full of hair in his house.
It was determined to be pubic hair. Oh. And it was from four different women, none of which were in the pantry or crawl space.
So who the fuck does this belong to? goodnight everybody.
That was the episode. Yep. Now the coroner determined the women in the crawlspace had all been victims of carbon monoxide poisoning and had been raped.
They all had the pink skin, which was a telltale sign of the CO2 poisoning.
He said they all died at the hands of a sexual sadist.
Ethel was the only one not gassed and the coroner determined she had been manually strangled with his hands.
God, it's just so personal. And another horrific fact about this discovery was that he had placed cloth between all of their legs after they had died.
Now, this was because death causes incontinence.
And since he was raping these women as they died, it would have been a problem.
He was a necrophiliac, even though he vehemently hated anyone referring to him as that.
He would say, no, I am not. Oh, please do not put that on me.
I have many things, sir. but I am not a necrophiliac.
It's like that, really, really? And you are.
You have crossed the line. You killed women and raped them as they died.
That's being a necrophiliac. And made sure they were unconscious too.
Exactly. You needed them to at least look down.
At least act the part. Yeah. Now Scotland Yard's biggest manhunt to date began now, because now...
John Christie is nowhere to be found after they searched this place.
John was on the run and hiding. He was watching the coverage about the murders.
I was going to say, I wonder if he saw the... Oh, yeah. flat being flooded with officers and investigators and bolted.
Oh, he definitely saw it. He was trying to stay like one step ahead of the law.
Then 10 days after the manhunt began on March 31st, 1953, He was wandering around the River Thames, and a police officer noticed him and asked for ID.
Because he had made a great effort to change his clothing that they were saying he was wearing, that he tried to disguise himself, basically.
Yeah. So he gave a fake name, but the police had been told that the real identifier of John Christie... was a massive forehead and it comes back so the police officer asked him to remove his hat And when he did, the police officer said, sir, you are John Christie.
I know it. And he was arrested and his identification showed he was indeed John Christie.
He also had on him a newspaper clipping about the murders of Beryl and Geraldine.
Oh. Yep. That's smart. Yep. Now newspapers at the time I was looking through newspapers.com because you guys know that's like my favorite thing to do.
And I could have gone for like days more on this thing because there's so many insane articles about this.
One of the newspapers called him Mr. Murder.
And so many of them that I found called him, this is the exact phrase they used to describe him, is quote, the balding 54-year-old. that's like all of them just start out right off the bat being like, let's fuck with you.
Yeah, let's just... It's one headline was Scotland Yard men quiz balding clerk about murder cases.
Which I'm like, wow, we are really going at him for that hair situation.
He was also referred to as the sex-mad sadist of Notting Hill.
Another paper also referred to him as an amateur photographer specializing in nudes.
I looked into this. I could not find anything else about this.
So I was like, newspaper, are you okay? Right.
Like what was that about? Like he was not that.
I guess John Christie could be like a pretty common name.
I guess, and this person writing this article just like really messed up in this situation.
Either way, when they brought John in, he denied everything, of course, until they were like...
So we found the bodies in your flat. And then he was like, OK, so maybe I did that.
And he made statements about four of the murders, but he had excuses.
He was like, listen, they were justified.
He also, well, at this point, he also didn't realize they had found the two bodies in the garden either.
So he thought he got away with those. So he said that's going to make a big difference.
That's that's going to be fine. Well, he's thinking I can explain away these four and maybe I'll get out of it.
Right, right. So he said he strangled Ethel with a stocking while in bed.
Because he said she woke up in the middle of the night and she was convulsing and choking. out of nowhere, in the middle of the night.
And he said he couldn't get help. So he just had to finish the job quick?
He would just kill her. Mercy, I guess. Yeah.
And he said he then tried to claim that Ethel had attempted suicide And he thinks that she had choked, you know, he said he had tried, she tried to do it again and had choked on the pills by accident. because he found his sleeping pills were empty the next morning.
Oh, I hate when that happens. Yeah, and he had no proof to do like to show them of this, but like his word, you know, important.
He then admitted that he left her dead body in the bed for days before moving it to the floorboards.
Which I don't know if he thinks that's going to help him here by being like, well, yeah, I left it in the bed for a few days.
Now, Rita, he claimed, tried to extort him for money because now he's just going to blame the women.
And he said, we got into a physical altercation in the kitchen where she accidentally fell on some rope and died.
Yep. So you really thought that. You should have seen it.
She just fell down the rope, just like. flung up, wrapped around her neck, it tightened.
Yeah, it was like a poltergeist. I tried to get to it, but it was just too late.
Yep. And he said, and you know what, like he gave an excuse that's never used.
This is a very uncommon excuse to use. He said he blacked out and doesn't remember it. which never gets used by these assholes.
They never use that blackout and I don't remember it thing.
And by that, I mean, they use it almost every time.
No, he's probably the originator of it. He probably is one of them.
But he said... So they're like, OK, well, you blacked out and you don't remember it, but you just told us that she fell on a rope and died.
And he was like, oh, yeah, well, I remember her falling on the rope and dying.
But like that. And immediately black out.
Oh, yeah. And he had excuses for everyone, and it was always their fault and not his.
And a lot of blackouts happened. He was just blacking out everywhere.
And in fact, he said Hectorina refused to leave his flat... he asked her and her boyfriend to, and they got into a physical fight and she just passed out randomly.
Couldn't tell you why she was passed out randomly.
And as she passed out, her clothing came undone.
Oh, come on. And wrapped around her neck.
This is just a pathetic effort. This is literally what he said.
It's insulting. Like literally the police were like, I'm actually insulted by you. right now of course he claimed that Ruth his first victim was over the house when Ethel was away and and news came that Ethel was coming home early.
So he's playing it like Ruth and him were having an affair and that Ethel was coming home early.
So John was like, you got to go. and she lost it and told him she loved him and she wanted him to leave his wife for her.
Get out of everybody's life right now. Right.
And he said, I told her no. And they had sex and he strangled her. during it.
And he claimed with Muriel, she had come to him and refused to she had come on to him excuse me and had refused to take no for an answer so he killed her too He was like, these women just... They just can't help themselves around him.
They're all throwing themselves at me and I just have to kill them to make them stop. and they were like is this really like what you're going with like they were all like we just want to be sure this is exactly what you want to go with and he was like yes sir So they were like, okay, okay.
So they were like, um... We're going to charge you with murder.
Well, they were also like, what about those two bodies in the garden that we forgot to mention that we found as well?
And he was like, oh, yeah, like, okay, let's talk about those, I guess.
So... They were like, OK, yeah, you did this.
You're the worst. So he was placed into Brixton Prison while awaiting trial.
And he bragged about the murders he committed in there.
He told inmates he was looking to have 12 murders under his belt and And he bragged about being the worst serial killer at the time.
And it was during these confessions to other inmates that he admitted how he had gasped.
That's how they found out what he had done, because he couldn't help himself in prison.
Right. Yeah. And he was saying, I got to eight.
And he's like, oh, I just wanted to get to 12.
Like what? Right. Are you kidding me? Woof.
So he was very adamant about not being labeled a necrophiliac, like we said.
So he told everyone he only had sex with the women as they were dying and not after they were already dead.
And they were like, that is a necrophiliac, my friend.
Right. That's the same thing. Of course.
That's the same thing. And let's face it, chances are he did it again after they died.
Yeah, I do not believe him that he died.
He could not do it after. Now, during these confessions, he also slipped and said that he murdered Beryl.
Oh. He said Beryl had asked him to help her kill herself because she was so upset about being pregnant.
So he said he did just that. He said he did that the next day.
He helped her kill herself. Now, of course, the Crown was trying to hide this confession because they fucked up, if that's true.
So the Crown is like, oh, yeah, we can't let that one out because we just hanged a guy for that.
So Tim is stating that that exact thing happened by the way.
And now this guy is saying, yeah, that's what happened.
Right. Now, they could never find the owners of the hair in that jar.
Oh, really? Yeah. They said they couldn't figure out who it belonged to and he wouldn't tell them.
They even tested the bodies in the house and it did not belong to them.
Really? I think one of them belonged to Ethel, I think, and that was it.
So now they're like, how many jars were there?
There was one jar, but there was at least four women's hair.
And none of them belonged to the victims.
Only Ethel, I think. So three sets of hair, you have no idea who they belong to.
But he said he didn't get to 12. Yeah. So there isn't like three...
No, which is like, maybe you got to 10, maybe you got to 11.
Right. And he's just like, damn it. I wanted to get to 12.
Yeah. And we don't know because he was killing, he was like going to sex workers a lot.
He was abusing them. Sure. Praying on people he thought wouldn't be missed.
Maybe one is missed here. Yeah, people who just didn't want to go back to his house to perform the acts.
And he was like, okay, I guess I'm doing this here.
And then he needed to bring something home with him.
It could have been a trophy. A lot of these guys like a trophy.
I don't normally think like this. You're making me think...
I know. Terrible things. I know that I do this to Ash too.
I don't just sit there being like, I wonder where the pubic hair came from.
No, but here we are. Coming up with theories.
Yeah. Theories about this. It happens here.
Just welcome to Morbid. Now, they spoke to his neighbors during all of this.
This is a one and done, just so you know.
He's coming back. I'm retiring. I'm sorry about it.
He's coming back. They spoke to neighbors during all of this to kind of get information about what kind of man he was.
And wow, were they colorful. They all said he was a nice guy, but they said he was strange.
One neighbor said, this is like my favorite one.
She said, quote, he wore nice light yellow gloves and used to tip his hat.
Broadmoor and hangings is too good for him.
Broadmoor was like a mental health facility.
Yeah. Broadmoor and hanging is too good for him.
The old electric chair from America is what he deserves.
That would send him off with a few stars.
Those crazy Americans. That's exactly what it is.
But then she finished it with... That would send him off with a few sparks.
I'm like, wow. Nice. All right, neighbor.
Nice word association. She got very literary with it.
It was insane. Now, before the trial could be set, he had to be determined fit to stand trial.
Oh, boy. And he definitely tried to go for the insanity defense.
I could see that coming. Yeah, the defense referred to him- Here comes the theatrics.
Exactly. The defense referred to him as madder than a March Hare.
That's what they were going with. But the prosecution ordered a psychiatric evaluation to counter this because they believed he was not insane and they knew that this was going to prove that.
Sure. Now, after all, he had tried very hard to cover up the crimes.
He had evidence that pointed to him and he had run from the law when he was caught.
All the psychiatrists that tested John Christie were repulsed by him as a After they talked to him, they were like, he's disgusting and I hate him.
Literally, a couple of them said he made them nauseous to talk to. and they couldn't find even one thing to like about him they were like i don't know what he does to get these people into his house like that's a different person because we didn't not see it today.
Wow. Now, this is when people really thought the whole mustard gas hysterical muteness thing was bullshit and just for attention. because some psychiatrists got the whisper voice all of a sudden.
He resorted back to it. And then some got a very normal, very level speaking voice, depending on who he was trying to get attention. from and also what questions were being asked.
When it got into the nitty gritty, suddenly it went into a whisper.
I'm the victim here. Yeah. Yeah. things he didn't want to talk about, suddenly he would whisper and you could barely hear him.
Now, he tried to fake personality disorders as well.
He would try to fake multiple personalities or detachment.
You can't really fake that. Psychiatrists always know when you're faking it.
They all knew. They all determined he was 100% sane.
Not one bit of insanity in there. Good. Yeah.
Bailey trial was June 22, 1953. He was going to be tried for murdering Ethel.
That was what they were going with. Because again, it was weird.
They just would pick one thing and like really go for it.
There was very good evidence for this particular murder.
So they just went with that one. I mean, finding bodies in his home to me is pretty good evidence.
But like, who am I? I'm not part of this.
The only thing that stinks is like the justice for the families thing.
That's the thing. I'm assuming even if these people are like down and maybe out of touch with their families once they found out what happened.
And you just want to hear that this person was responsible and are going to get punished for it.
Exactly. But I do get the point of like, at that time, one murder is 10 murders.
Like he's going to be gone either way. He's going to be hanged if he gets.
Yeah. If he gets. It just stinks for the families.
Well, and apparently, which is like very different too, they were able to kind of bring these other victims into it. they could like hold them off to the side and then if they needed to, they could bring those in.
So it was one of those like, we got them, we'll use them.
They ended up asking about them actually in the trial.
So they did bring them in. because they thought it would also help.
And it was actually his side that brought them in because they thought it would help the insanity defense by being like, look, He's definitely insane.
Right. Now he pled not guilty by reason of insanity, obviously.
Only a four day trial happened. And when the verdict was returned, It was only after deliberating for an hour and 20 minutes.
Okay. They sentenced him. or excuse me, that he was found guilty and they sentenced him to death by hanging.
All right. The Chattanooga Daily Times said about this, quote, the jury foreman said guilty sharply.
Christy's jaw locked and his long fingers groped the oaken rail before him until the knuckles gleamed white. the judge wearing the little black square cap of death over his 17th century wig peered at him and Christie straightened to an almost guardsman stance.
He went gray white as the judge pronounced sentence in level tone.
Which I was- What a fabulous paragraph. Thank you.
Isn't that like an amazing- I just got put right inside that courtroom.
Me too. I could feel everything. I feel like I could smell the courtroom.
Right? His long fingers gripped the oaken rail.
His knuckles turned white, his jaw tightened.
Like the judge wearing the little black square cap of death over his wig.
Fabulous. And they said they could notice that he visibly got cringed when he saw that black cap, which apparently... which I had no idea.
I was like, wow, the theater that like they would put this cap on when they were going to sentence you to death.
So it's You would see that and be like, oh shit, like that is it.
Good. I had no idea that they did that. No, me neither.
Now, he was hanged within two weeks of this, like very quick, at Pentonville Prison on July 15th, 1990.
Get rid of this dude. He was somewhere between 54 and 55 years old.
He was actually hanged by the same executioner who hanged Timothy Evans.
Oh, wow. Albert Pierpont. Now, apparently he had told... So when...
When John went to the gallows, he was anxious.
And he told Albert, the executioner, that he had an itch on his nose that he couldn't scratch because he was bound.
His hands were bound. And Albert apparently said something to the effect of, it won't be bothering you for long.
Seriously, like that's your biggest concern right now?
What a like... What a burn at the end. Yeah, and also what a like, I'm not giving you any satisfaction.
Do you think I'm not gonna itch your nose or let you itch your nose.
Like you raped and murdered women and kept them in your house.
You think I'm going to itch your nose for you, bro?
No kidding. Like, no. Thank God. Now, after this happened, so he's gone.
The end. But it's not, because an investigation into Timothy Evans' guilt before John Christie was hanged was already in motion.
Good. It only took 11 days for them to go through this investigation and they barely looked into it.
It was a very rushed investigation. investigation that they basically did just shut everybody up and he was found still guilty.
Oh, come on. But then two years later, another investigation was suggested after evidence came forward to suggest the first investigation was botched and evidence against Joan Christie was blatantly ignored.
Do you think? Yeah, because they didn't want to bring to light the methods used to get the confession from Timothy.
They were worried that was what was going to come up.
Now, the inquiry, there was another inquiry in 1965, and it concluded that Timothy So basically this one, when I say you got justice, it's not full.
They concluded that Timothy strangled Beryl, but not Geraldine, and that John Christie murdered the little baby Geraldine.
So... What are we doing? Again, John Christie admitted to murdering Beryl several times.
So I don't understand what we're doing here.
But he was pardoned posthumously October 18th, 1966.
Okay. Now, a look into the police investigation was interesting.
Like I said, like you're going to see it and be like, I don't know about that.
They discovered that the police destroyed evidence in the Beryl and Geraldine case, destroyed it.
Yeah. They destroyed the necktie found around Geraldine's neck, and they had no reason for this.
There was no reason to destroy it. They didn't blame it on like a fire or something like that.
It's just... this particular evidence from this particular case is gone.
Yeah. Also, a lot of the interviews and reports from the case were terribly written and seemed like fucked with, basically.
Then there was the fact that they went to John Christie's home to search a couple of times. and somehow missed a human femoral bone leaning up against a fence in the garden.
Right. How did they miss that? This inquiry was led by High Court Judge Sir Daniel Braben.
And after reading through all of this, he didn't find anything wrong with it.
Didn't think they needed to look into it.
It's like it happens, man. It's a dog bone.
Yeah. With no dogs in the area. Like no one questioned that.
The femoral bone is the largest bone in the human body.
That's you're not going to look at that and be like, oh, that's just a bone.
You're going to be like, that's a human femoral bone.
Like, it's very easy to fucking point out.
He couldn't find like, and there was no extra pieces of lumber to hold up.
What was it? He was holding up his fence or whatever.
But I think he liked it. Like, I think that was his like.
He just wanted to be able to look out and see it.
Exactly. And it was him like further shaming them and further like just... messing with their legacy on earth.
Like he was just like, I can use your bones to hold up my fucking fence.
Like he was so gross. Yeah, this dude thought he was just untouchable.
Oh, he did. Because he kind of was. And he was for a long time.
That's the thing. He was given the power to believe that he was untouchable.
That police investigation caused how many deaths?
Yep. And a lot of people do believe that they're more than the stated victims because of the whole like hair thing.
That's just really, I just don't understand.
Yeah. And there was also a lot. I was like, there's no other way to get that here other than killing the person. exactly and there was there was a few large gaps between killings too at times Like at one point, there was like 12 months between.
At another point, there was like years between.
It happens. We have BTK to look at for that happening.
Like we have like 30 year gap in that one.
But more than likely with this guy, it feels like he needed that.
Yeah. The BTK case is used a lot of times to be like, see, like they don't always like have this cooling off period that like is that. you know, when it happens, it can be long.
But I feel like he's the exception to the rule more than the rule.
So like, we can't really point to that to be like, Yeah, that happens.
Like, sure it does, but like very rarely.
And this guy seemed to be like, John Christie does not seem like the type of guy that's like, you know, all of a sudden, Oh, it's been two years since I've done this.
Let me do it again. It feels like he needs to do it pretty often.
Yeah, like he doesn't seem like he's settling back into like family life for a little while.
Like he's just seemed like a shitty guy that just was nonstop.
And he seemed like insatiable, to be honest.
Right. I would be very interested to see if more came out of it, but so far nobody else has been tied.
But that is the horrendous story of John Christie.
Wow. the horrific serial killer who got another guy hanged for some of his crimes.
Amazing. We couldn't just like do a Listener Tales or something, huh?
We just had to, we had to go deep, go big or go home.
Yeah, I feel like it's like you got to be broken in, like, in a big way.
Yeah, you did that. You like to just jump into the pool.
You don't like to just walk slowly into the pool.
I hate walking slowly into the pool. Exactly.
I know this about you. I need to jump in.
I don't want to know what the temperature is of the pool.
I just... Let's find out. Did you not just describe what happened here?
Yeah. You did not know the temperature of the school.
I definitely did not know the temperature.
Probably wouldn't have agreed to it. Probably wouldn't have agreed to a late night recording of it.
No, definitely not. You could have helped me out with that.
I mean, thanks for doing it. I appreciate it.
I think I'm gonna eat some ice cream now.
I'm gonna go retire. And I'm going to watch The Office.
We can watch The Office to get ourselves right again.
We'll need about 16 hours of that, but sure.
It'll be fine. We don't need sleep tonight.
It's cool. Our youngest usually doesn't let us sleep anyways, so we're used to it. ash get better yeah ash get better if you try to make me record another one of these I'm going to Ash's house and like forcing her to cough in my face and I'm just going to get COVID.
And then I'll just have to stay over there and you'll just have to go to the...
Next person in line. I mean, you had to dig deep to bring me on.
No way. I just had to look to my left on the couch or actually my right.
I had to look to my right. Excuse me. I don't want to lie.
I had to look to my right on the couch. But I appreciate you.
I'm here for you. You are. Anytime. You're a ride or die.
Yeah. I didn't know I was this ride or die.
I'll be honest. You're stupid. It's also ride or die that you don't ask where we're going or why we have to die.
Yeah. It's like, where are we going for the next 90 minutes?
Oh, okay. We're going down one of the worst stories ever.
So there's that. Cool. Well, I apologize to everybody.
I was extremely nervous going into this.
You did great. Never did a podcast before really.
You did great. And hopefully Ash will be back and you'll have your regular scheduled programming in no time.
You will, don't worry. But this was a fun little detour.
It was fun to hang out with you for an hour and a half.
Aw, it was fun to hang out with you for an hour and a half.
Busy lives. Yeah. I don't know if we get many hour and a halves together.
To just sit and talk. You know, would I prefer some other things?
Maybe get a dinner or something? Sure. Yeah.
We'll work on that. We'll go with it. I do what I gotta do.
You do. And I appreciate you. But guys, I hope you keep listening and I hope you...
Keep it weird. You did it. And I don't have ash, so not so weird that you do any of this because John Chrissy is disgusting.
Yeah, not a great guy, guys. No, to say the least.
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