Serial killer John Christie arriving at court in London to face charges of murder in 1953 (Picture: Keystone/Getty Images)
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The shabby, dilapidated facade of 10 Rillington Place looked like every other terrace on the west London street. However, behind its front door was a house of horrors, with bodies concealed in the garden, beneath the floorboards and even in the kitchen cupboards.
Now long-demolished, the Notting Hill address was the home of serial killer and former clerk and special constable John Christie, who sexually assaulted and murdered seven women within its confines over the space of a decade.
He and wife Ethel first moved to a flat at the address in the 1930s, where the couple were believed to have a rocky marriage. Christie had already spent time in prison for petty crimes and assault, and had a penchant for sex workers.
However, his criminal ways turned murderous in 1943, when Ethel went away to visit relatives.
Christie’s first victim was Austrian Ruth Fuerst, a nurse, who also made money as a sex worker. When their paths crossed, Christie invited her back to his flat. Once locked in his home, he strangled Ruth and buried her body in the garden.
According to the Watford Observer, Christie would later write in a confession that he ‘experienced a strange, peaceful thrill’ during the act, because the only way he could attain sexual potency was with victims he rendered helpless.
A year later Christie claimed his second victim. This time, it was a colleague called Muriel Eady. Suffering from bronchitis, she paid him a visit after Christie claimed that he had medical training and knew of a way that could ease her chest complaint.
Christie persuaded Muriel to inhale an infused concoction to help her breathing, but little did she know that in reality it was a lethal mix of carbon monoxide gas and balsam.
As Muriel lay dying, Christie raped her and strangled her with a stocking, then buried her in his garden, close to where Ruth lay.
It would be five years before he would kill again – but this time Christie took two lives: his neighbour Beryl Evans and her baby Geraldine.
Beryl and her husband Timothy had moved from Wales, with their one-year-old daughter, to the flat above Christie and Ethel at 10 Rillington Place. The couple were said to be a volatile pair who were struggling to pay the bills and had loud public fights.
When Beryl became unexpectedly pregnant, Christie offered to give her an abortion, against her husband’s wishes.
Already 16-weeks pregnant, she took him up on the termination offer, but instead of carrying it out, it is believed that Christie administered another deadly dose of carbon monoxide and raped Beryl as she lay unconscious.
Then he killed both her and her baby daughter Geraldine.
When Timothy returned from work to discover their lifeless bodies, he panicked and fled for Wales, before inexplicably confessing to the police that he had accidentally killed his wife and child.
Timothy told officers he’d hidden Beryl’s body in the drain at 10 Rillington Place, but a search found it empty. A later examination of the washhouse in the yard found a large package behind the dark recess of the sink, which was wrapped up in a tablecloth tied with cord.
Inside was the decaying body of Beryl Evans, while tucked away beneath a pile of wood was tiny Geraldine. They had both been strangled, and a man’s tie was still around the baby’s neck.
Timothy went on to confess four more times, each time with different details, while Christie, who gave evidence at the trial, told prosecutors that he’d heard bumps and scrapings from the flat above, as if bodies were being dragged.
It was to be the most controversial and debated case of the 20th century. Despite his conflicting stories, Timothy was found guilty of murder and hanged in March 1950.
Christie sobbed in the dock as the sentencing was read out – although it is unclear whether this was through relief, or an attack of conscience.
But what was driving him to commit such horrific crimes in the first place – let alone letting an innocent man take the blame?
According to Crime expert and former senior detective, David Swindle, some people are simply born inherently bad.
David, who led Operation Anagram, the investigation into Scottish serial killer and sex offender Peter Tobin, tells Metro: ‘There are definitely people that are evil. Their eyes seem to be the thing. Tobin’s eyes were black – there was a void inside.
‘But you can’t stereotype. A lot of killers are living a normal life. A lot of these people – like Ian Brady and Peter Tobin – integrate into society. And that’s how they get away with killing. They are organised, they are cunning and they know what they are doing.
‘They are controlling, conniving, they can be charming and they can be clever,’ adds David. ‘That is a big thing about these individuals. But what does a killer look like? You can’t tell.’
Indeed, Christie manipulated Timothy into the perfect alibi and used a a veil of respectability to protect himself.
The Welshman, already in a highly emotional state, was interrogated over the course of late evening and early morning hours by detectives. Some experts, such as criminology expert Dr Harriet Pierpoint, suggested police pressure and a state of shock led Timothy to provide a false confession.
When compared with Timothy Evans, who had a reputation for drinking and being hot headed, the real killer – with his background as a reserve Constable in the war – looked perfectly innocent.
Meanwhile, Christie and Ethel’s difficult marriage went from bad to worse.
Suffering from hypochondria and having lost his job as a clerk two years after Timothy was hanged, Christie strangled his wife to death at home in the early hours of 14 December 1952.
Ethel lay there for two days before her husband wrapped her body in a blanket and shoved her under the damp and rotting floorboards of their home. The next day, Christie posted a letter she’d written to her sister to cover his tracks.
But he still wasn’t finished with his murderous reign of terror.
In 1953, Christie claimed his final three victims, all within the space of seven weeks: 25-year-old Rita Nelson, who was pregnant at the time; 26-year-old sex worker Kathleen Maloney; and 26-year-old Hectorina Maclennan, who Christie had befriended along with her boyfriend.
All three women were gassed and raped, before the killer hid their bodies in a kitchen cupboard.
But how did he get away with it for so long? As unthinkable as his crimes were, post-war Britain had none of the surveillance or forensic capabilities the service has today, and with Evans hanging, Christie may have felt invisible.
David says: ‘The police didn’t have the technology we have nowadays. You didn’t have CCTV, whereas now, we’re the most surveilled country in the world. You can’t do anything without leaving a trace today. If Christie was operating today, he would be caught pretty quickly.’
By March 1953, the house of death at Rillington Place had become a tomb to seven women and baby Geraldine and Christie was running out of options. Without his job he had no income, and after selling his wife’s jewellery and much of his furniture, he sublet the home and left for good.
It was the new tenant, Beresford Brown, who would make the grisly discovery. Disgusted by the stench and filth at the flat, he started to clean up Christie’s kitchen, only to find Ethel’s decomposed body under the floorboards.
The police were called and Christie became the most wanted man in the country.
He was arrested in London on 31 March 1953 after being spotted by a police officer and tried at the Old Bailey – the same court in which he’d testified against Timothy Evans. Police immediately conducted a search of Rillington Place and alongside the bodies, they found potassium cyanide and a tin of pubic hairs.
Although Christie pleaded insanity, he was found guilty and sentenced to death.
In sentencing, the judge told him: ‘John Reginal Halladay Christie [you will be] taken from this place to a lawful prison and then to a place of execution. And that here you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead. And your body be buried in the precincts of the prison in which you shall be last confined before execution. And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul.’
Christie was hanged on 15 July that same year, while 200 people waited outside the gates.
For David Swindle, capital punishment is never the answer. Not only do the police and the justice system get things wrong, the death penalty can prevent families from getting to the truth.
‘The Christie case is a classic example. Most serial killers don’t admit what they have done. They like to retain power,’ he explains.
Indeed, John Christie’s case became a turning point for the British public. Timothy Evans had already been hanged for his crimes highlighting the inherent flaws in the punishment.
Just over a decade later, in 1965 the death penalty was finally abolished and Evans was given a posthumous pardon the following year.
Rillington Place was renamed Runton Close in a bid to shake off its gruesome past, but in 1978 the entire street was demolished.
Today, Bartle Road and Andrews Square stand on the former burial site, while unassuming red brick terrace houses fill the tree-lined street – leaving no clue of the gruesome crimes committed years before.
