Inside 10 Rillington Place: John Christie and me, the untold truth

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Following Christie's conviction, there was substantial controversy concerning the earlier trial of Timothy Evans, who had been convicted mainly on the evidence of Christie, who lived in the same property in which Evans had allegedly carried out his crimes. [123] Christie confessed to Beryl's murder and although he neither confessed to, nor was charged with, Geraldine's murder, he was widely considered guilty of both murders. [124] This cast doubt on the fairness of Evans' trial and raised the possibility that an innocent person had been hanged. [124] Aged 85 years at the time of publication, it follows that Thorley was but fourteen in 1949 when the fateful events occurred that deprived him of his sister and niece, and the book provides a most credible, moving and compelling account of what really went on at that house, recounted in a way, and in such detail, that only someone who was actually present and deeply involved could ever have brought forth. Based on the pubic hair that Christie collected, it has been speculated that he was responsible for more murders than those carried out at 10 Rillington Place. He claimed that the four different clumps of hair in his collection came from his wife and the three bodies discovered in the kitchen alcove, but only Ethel Christie matched the hair type on those bodies. Even if two of the others had come from the bodies of Fuerst and Eady, which had by then decomposed into skeletons, [119] there was still one remaining clump of hair unaccounted for—it could not have come from Beryl Evans, as no pubic hair had been removed from her body. [120] Writing in 1978, Professor Keith Simpson, one of the pathologists involved in the forensic examination of Christie's victims, had this to say about the pubic hair collection,

Peter: Yes, Christie did claim to have murdered Beryl. His belief was ‘the more the merrier’ on the grounds that he would put forward a plea of insanity. That way, he would escape the death penalty. Needless to say, that wasn’t accepted and he was regarded as fit to stand trial for the murder of Ethel, his wife. He was hanged for that crime.Four years later in August 1943 he committed his first murder, strangling Ruth Fuerst, an Austrian munitions factory worker, in his bed while his wife was away. There are also two well-known books on the subject: The Two Killers of Rillington Placeby John Eddowes and Ten Rillington Placeby Ludovic Kennedy. Two years later on 14 December 1952 he strangled his 54 year-old wife and hid her body, wrapped in a blanket, under the floorboards in the parlour.

Three years later, John Christie was still living in the same apartment complex when the landlord let another tenant use Christie’s kitchen. There, a grisly discovery was made: three bodies hidden in the pantry. Intriguing details about Christie’s early criminal history can be found in this essay by Dr Jonathon Oates, whose biography of Christie was published in 2012. On 11 January 1950, Evans was put on trial for the murder of his daughter, the prosecution having decided not to pursue a second charge of murdering his wife. [49] Christie was a principal witness for the Crown: he denied Evans' accusations and gave detailed evidence about the quarrels between him and his wife. [50] The jury found Evans guilty despite the revelation of Christie's criminal record of theft and violence. Evans was originally due to be hanged on 31 January, but appealed. After his appeal on 20 February had failed, Evans was hanged at HM Prison Pentonville on 9 March 1950. [51] So in 1949, when Beryl Evans got pregnant for the second time, she decided to get an abortion, despite the procedure being illegal. And John Christie offered to do it. The Murder Of Beryl Evans And The Trial That Followed Thorley has now decided to get his side of the story out there, and in doing so delivers another twist in the saga. His new book, Inside 10 Rillington Place, argues that there was no miscarriage of justice at all.Evans met Beryl Thorley in 1946 and the two married a year later. Soon after, they were expecting and, desiring a larger home, moved to a flat at 10 Rillington Place, where they met Ethel and John Christie. a b Eddowes, John The Two Killers of Rillington Place, pp. xiv–xviii details the pervasiveness of the view that Evans was innocent and the subsequent campaign undertaken to overturn his conviction. It’s the character of Evans that is central to all this, and as John Newton Chance also remarked in his book, “none of the previous stories fitted the facts of who the people were.” Daniel Brabin took this factor into account when he concluded it was more likely that Christie was the murderer of little Geraldine, “a killing in cold blood which Christie would be more likely to do.” Evans was sent to the gallows in March 1950. But that wasn’t it: three years later, it was discovered that Christie, their quiet neighbour, was in fact a serial killer who had murdered at least six women, including his wife, at 10 Rillington Place throughout the 40s and early 50s, hiding their bodies on the premises. It seems odd that Christie should have said hair came from the bodies in the alcove if in fact it had come from those now reduced to skeletons; not very likely that in his last four murders the only trophy he took was from the one woman with whom he did not have peri-mortal sexual intercourse; and even more odd that one of his trophies had definitely not come from any of the unfortunate women known to have been involved. [119]

John Reginald Christie was born on April 8, 1899 in Northowram, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, the sixth of seven children. His family and friends called him Reg. After four days of evidence, the jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to death and was hanged at Pentonville Prison on July 15. He was 54 years old. Root, Neil (2011). Frenzy!: Heath, Haigh & Christie: The First Great Tabloid Murderers. Preface Publishing. ISBN 978-1848093171. Benwell, Max (24 November 2016). "Rillington Place: What John Christie's Residential Burial Ground Looks Like Now". The Independent . Retrieved 21 December 2016. The story did not end there. Three years later, John Christie had moved out and was renting his small flat out to a tenant. While decorating the kitchen the tenant uncovered a hidden cupboard. Inside were the bodies of three women. When the police came and searched the house and grounds they found a further two bodies in the garden. Under the floorboards in the front room was Ethel Christie, John Christie’s wife. John Christie was a serial killer.Marston, John Christie, pp. 104–105 lists Michael Eddowes's The Man On Your Conscience, F. Tennyson Jesse's The Trials of Timothy John Evans and John Reginald Halliday Christie and Kennedy's Ten Rillington Place as being particularly instrumental in keeping the issue of the miscarriage of justice alive.