February 14, 2025 • 38 mins
In this episode we talk about the case behind the 70s film "10 Rillington Place". John Christie had a dark side from early on in life. It manifested as an adult through theft and petty crime, but escalated to murder in a very Edgar Allan Poe way.
To access earlier episodes of Corpus Delicti and to help support the show, please visit patreon.com/corpusdelicti
Our merch store can be found at teepublic.com/stores/corpus-delicti-podcast
Music by:Kai Engel"Daemones"Blooper music by:Art of Escapism"Coal Miners"This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.
Sources:Ethel Christie and the Sheffield connection to the 10 Rillington Place murders (chrishobbs.com)John Christie, The Necrophile Serial Killer Of 1940s London (allthatsinteresting.com)John Reginald Christie | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderersSecrets Of A Serial Killer: Uncovering The Truth About John Reginald Christie - London Dark TouristJohn Christie - The Murders at 10 Rillington Place (watfordobserver.co.uk)John Christie — The Christies — Crime LibraryRillington Place: When did John Christie get caught? When did he kill his victims? The (very very grim) real timeline of the BBC drama | Radio Times10 Rillington Place: a truly horrifying true-crime classic (bbc.com)
To access earlier episodes of Corpus Delicti and to help support the show, please visit patreon.com/corpusdelicti
Our merch store can be found at teepublic.com/stores/corpus-delicti-podcast
Music by:Kai Engel"Daemones"Blooper music by:Art of Escapism"Coal Miners"This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.
Sources:Ethel Christie and the Sheffield connection to the 10 Rillington Place murders (chrishobbs.com)John Christie, The Necrophile Serial Killer Of 1940s London (allthatsinteresting.com)John Reginald Christie | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderersSecrets Of A Serial Killer: Uncovering The Truth About John Reginald Christie - London Dark TouristJohn Christie - The Murders at 10 Rillington Place (watfordobserver.co.uk)John Christie — The Christies — Crime LibraryRillington Place: When did John Christie get caught? When did he kill his victims? The (very very grim) real timeline of the BBC drama | Radio Times10 Rillington Place: a truly horrifying true-crime classic (bbc.com)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hey, everyone is Jen and this is Lindsay and welcome
back to Corpus Delicti the podcast. Yes, indeed, it's been
a minute, but we are back rest assured. If you
are on Discord or Patreon, you probably heard this from
us already, But it may seem like it's been super.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Quiet, but it actually has not been. For us. We've
been working on a lot, which is why we've been
not in your faces. There's a lot going on with
Rocky Myers right now. We're not really at liberty to
give a whole lot of details, but do you us
know that we need your support. If you haven't sent
(01:03):
a letter yet, we ask that you email them to
us at this point, just because time could be of
the essence. He could have a date set at anytime.
And the email address is Corpus Stilicti at yahoo dot com.
So if you want to send one, please do that.
And then the other thing is I think we're ready
to tell you guys, the other big thing we've been
(01:23):
working on. We got the okay from the family, Jen,
you want to tell us what we got?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
We are going to dive really deep into the we
think murder of Peyton Houston. So This is a young
lady who disappeared before Christmas several years ago in Birmingham.
She was with some friends and they found her later
the corodner and the police ruled it as a drug overdose.
(01:51):
We've been digging a little bit deeper. We've been talking
to her family, we've been talking to her friends. That's
not what we believe. So we are doing an in
debt review and getting knee deep into this case. From
the sounds of it, Peyton was this bubbly, wonderful, super
friendly lady.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, and it was really big here in Birmingham when
it happened, which was at the tail end of twenty
nineteen early twenty twenty, and it did go nationwide, so
you may have heard about it. But we were connected
with the family who bless their hearts, they've just been
wonderful and it's such a hard thing for them to
talk about. But it will be similar to how we
(02:30):
did with Rockies, where it's going to be a multi
part deep dive. We're getting stuff straight from the sources,
hopefully talking to at least one, if not to medical examiners. Yes,
there's a little teaser for you. There are two. Why
would that be. We're just going to have to listen
and find out, and I promise it's going to probably
(02:51):
make your jaw drops. So all that to say, we
have been nose deep in that, working on that, getting
all that going, doing interviews. But we are now ready
to come back to our regular broadcasting now that we've
gotten in a rhythm with all that, and here we
are back with true crime theater.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yes, and this episode we're going to be talking about
John Christy and you may have heard of him, and
this one we are going to issue a trigger warning.
There is talk about rape and abortion in this episode.
If you are sensitive for those subjects. We have lots
and lots of other episodes that you can go listen to.
So we are doing a little bit of a throwback.
(03:32):
It's an older serial killer and again his name is
John Christy. John Reginald Christy was born sixth of a
family of seven children. And this was back in April eighth,
eighteen ninety nine, and this is going to be in Yorkshire, England.
The family dynamic was troubling as Christie's father was cold
and he really didn't like to show emotion or affection.
(03:55):
He was strict. Now on the flip side, he was
both boiled and bullied by the women in the house,
so his mother and sisters. It was a kind of
a weird dynamic where he would get spoiled. But then again,
as siblings always do, they torture each other.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
And not just the sisters but the mom too. It
was almost like, we love you so much, so we
can do whatever we want to use vibes. So John
Christie was also very smart. He had a high IQ
and he did very well in school academically. Socially, though,
he was described as quote queer. This is not in
(04:33):
the modern sense of the term, but in the sense
that means he was just a little bit different, a
little bit odd, and he was described as being a
bit of a loner, and he was not popular. Now,
something happened when he was eight years old that really
just changed something in him. His grandfather died and he
(04:54):
recalled seeing his grandfather's dad body as life changing. It's
important to note that his grandfather had also been strict,
and Christie says, honestly, he scared him. He was just
this overbearing guy. But now he's sitting there as an
eight year old child looking at his deceased grandfather's body
(05:16):
and thinking, wow, look now you're completely powerless. And in
that moment he said that dead bodies became a fascination.
So as a teen something else about John became a
parent That certainly did not make being a teenager any easier.
He was impotent, which earned him the nickname Reggie no dick.
(05:39):
Now some called him regg hence Reggie and also can't
do it, Christie.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Now we're going to cut to nineteen sixteen. It's after school,
it's during World War One. John enlisted in the British
Army and served as an infantry man and he was
sent to France in nineteen eighty. He did end up
in a military hospital for a month because he was
involved in a mustard gas attack. We do need to
(06:06):
insert a random fact about Christy here. He was a
normally very soft spoken guy, as in he literally could
not raise his voice or talk loudly. Now he claims
it was the result of the mustard gas attack and
that he was actually mute and blind for three years
due to it. There's no record of this, and they
(06:28):
said this couldn't have possibly happened because he was put
back into duty. Now, later professionals would say it was
probably due to a personality disorder to get sympathy from others,
as in, he hasn't had sympathy in his entire life,
and he got it during this stage, and he was like, Oh,
(06:49):
I'm gonna keep doing this. This is pretty cool. His
time in the military ended in nineteen twenty four, but
by then he had met and married Ethel Simpson in
nineteen Remember, Christy is still battling impotence, except there is
a caveat here. Unless he was with a sex worker,
(07:10):
they're not a problem. So early on in the marriage,
Ethyl did have a miscarriage, so not really clear if
this was one of the times he was able to perform.
We'll just say that she did end up getting pregnant,
but she did lose the baby. The marriage was already
off to a really rocky start, though they were only
(07:30):
together four years Before they separated, John moved to London
and Ethel went to go live with relatives. They didn't divorce,
and they actually got back together in nineteen thirty four.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
So if you're keeping track of that, they got married
in nineteen twenty they separated four years later, so in
nineteen twenty four is when they separated. They got back
together in nineteen thirty four. That's a big, big gap.
So there's a lot of stuff that we need to
dive into during that time. So what caused the separation,
What caused the issues? Well, it might have been in
(08:05):
part to John's criminal activities. So in nineteen twenty one,
he worked as a postman and he saw some postal
orders that he just couldn't resist, so he took them
and he went to prison for three months. After that,
he was found guilty of obtaining money on false pretenses
and violent conduct, for which he received twelve months probation,
(08:28):
and then in nineteen twenty four came to larceny charges
with three and six months in prison. So that's a
lot to digest there, especially for a woman who is
relying on him at this point for income as she was,
and it was just a lot. So that was one
of the reasons, among others. So in nineteen twenty nine
(08:49):
they're separated. For several years. Now he's working as a
lorry driver when he assaulted a woman named maud Cole
by hitting her over the head with a cricket bat. So,
who is mad? Where did this come from? Where did
this new crime come from Well. Maud is the woman
that he is living with at this time, so he
has not divorced his wife. They are separated, but now
(09:13):
he is with maud Well. This attack earned him six
months of hard labor. Then in nineteen thirty three he
was in prison for three months for auto theft, so
he's just racking up the charges here. When he was released,
this was when he and Ethel rekindled their relationship. He
was going to turn over a new leaf. This was
(09:34):
the last straw for him. I've got to make a change,
and he did. He gave up petty crime, theft all that.
But notice that we just said petty crime. So they
moved to an apartment at ten Rillington Place, which is
actually the name of our movie because we are in
true crime theater. So we'll get to that in a minute.
(09:55):
So just put a pin in that the.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Apartment was not great. They weren't maintained at all. Now,
these apartments did not have private bathrooms, and there was
one that was shared by all residents, So imagine sharing
a bathroom with all of your neighbors. It was right
above a train, so when that train came through, things
(10:19):
got very very loud. Now he's working some jobs on
and all for several years, and he even joined the
War Reserve Police during World War Two and worked as
a constable. According to an article titled number ten Rillington
Place by Catherine Ramsland quote, he enjoyed the authority and
(10:40):
he loved wearing his uniform. He also used the position
to follow women, the notes of which he kept for
many years, to watch his neighbors. He bored a peephole
into his kitchen door, and he ran down every transgressor,
no matter how petty the crime. In effect, he took
himself seriously. Christy kept this position for four years. So
(11:03):
this is a position of authority. He got essentially the
license to spy on people. So he is enjoying tracking
this down and being the peeping tom if you will. Now,
about three years later, John meets a woman named Gladys Jones,
and their affair starts. In nineteen forty three, her husband
(11:25):
came home for more and found them and beat John up.
He was not happy that he came home to see
his wife with another man.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
It's still interesting to me because he struggles with impotence,
so I'm not really clear on if it's just something
that's all the time, or if there are occasions where
he can perform. I'm not really clear on that aspect
of it, because he does seem to be pulling a
lot of women. Well.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I think the thing is it may have a moral
aspect to it. If it's immoral or shady or sneaky,
he's able to. But when it's doesn't have that air
of excitement, he can't. That is like, if it's boring,
he doesn't want it.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
That very well could be, which is something that we
do see with serial killers often is that it's it's
the and it's gross, but it's the wrongness of it. Yeah,
it's the thrill that they literally get off on. So
keep in mind though he does still visit sex workers often,
(12:28):
and so he does after this affair with Gladys Jones ends.
So on August twenty fourth, nineteen forty three, Ethel was
visiting family he's still with Ethel. So John brought twenty
one year old Ruth First home and they engaged in sex.
But this time something changed and an impulse hit And
(12:49):
it might go into what you said just now, that
something came over him and after they engaged in sexual relations,
he grabbed and strangled her to death. Now he's committed
lots of crimes, but this is his first murder, so
he's kind of in a new league here and he
has to decide what to do. He panics. He actually
(13:13):
buries her in his living room beneath the floorboards Edgar
Allen Poe's style.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
So all I could do at this point, do you
remember have you ever you've read that? Oh?
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I think most American kids read it in high school
or some middle school. But it's a story. If you
haven't heard it or I haven't seen it, read it
about a guy who kills someone and puts him out
of the floorboards, and all they hear for days is.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
At heart, it's haunting him. Yeah, yeah, I just the
smell well exactly. But speaking of he realized that being
in the apartment that was risky because you have the
smells and all that, so he moved her to the
back garden the next night. So nineteen forty four, he
(14:07):
meets Muriel Amelia Edie at his job at the radio factory.
Muriel has been sick with bronchitis, and John's like, look,
I know something that will help you. There's this special mixture.
Come by my apartment and I will mix it up
for you. So she does, and John does have this mixture.
It is in a jar with a tube in the
(14:29):
top of the jar, and you inhale it. So think
of it kind of like an old tiny vix inhaler thing,
you know, one of the things that you put over
your face. It was Friar's balsam, which was used to
cover the smell of gas, which by itself wasn't a
big problem. But when Ethel turned her back, he put
(14:50):
another tube in the jar, but this one was connected
to gas, which at the time was very, very high
in carbon monoxide. So he did the Friar's bosom to
cover the smell, then added the gas to it. She
passes out, John raped her and then strangled her to death.
(15:11):
Muriel was then put in the back garden next to Ruth.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Then comes nineteen forty eight. The young couple named Timothy
and Beryl Evans moved into the top floor flat what
we call apartments, and eventually had a baby girl. This
one is just a little bit complicated, so just stay
with us here. In nineteen forty nine, Tim Evans tells
the police that Beryl is dead and the police find
(15:36):
her body in an outdoor washhouse. But it wasn't just her,
It was also Geraldine, who is young. Now sources very
but some say six months and some say fifteen months,
and a sixteen week old fetus. Both Beryl and Geraldine
had been strangled, and Beryl seemed to have been beaten
(15:59):
because her face was bruised. She was wrapped in a blanket.
Now this is where it gets complicated. Christy says Tim
did it. Tim is saying Christy did it and it
was a botched abortion. The police think this just doesn't
add up, and eventually they get Tim to confess. But
it seems that a confession was coerced and totally fabricated,
(16:22):
although this wasn't discovered until after Timothy Evans was charged.
Once charged, Tim Evans goes, I was coerced and withdrawal
my confession. Again, I think Christy did it. He did it,
and that's where I'm going to stand of Note, Tim
Evans was a very sickly child and he missed a
lot of school, so we could not read or write
(16:45):
very well. And we know the correlation between that and
false confessions. We've talked about it in several episodes about
how sometimes someone with a low IQ or a mental disability,
their false confession rate is higher. In his confession, he
says that his wife's body was either in a manhole
(17:05):
or a drain and he had given her a concoction
to end the pregnancy. The police looked, that's not where
she was found. We know where she was found.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Well, and that's what's one of the things that started
to not add up is he was like, oh, yeah, I,
you know, gave my wife this concoction to induce an abortion,
but I put her in a manhole. And then they're like, wait,
she wasn't in a manhole. She was out in basically
(17:37):
like an outhouse shed thing. So then he says, Christy's
the one who offered to do it. So when he
came home, Christy told him Beryl died and since abortion
was illegal, he meaning Evans should leave town and let
him being Christie, find someone to look after Geraldine. Now
(17:59):
Evans did this first time, but when he came home
to check on his child, Christy would not let him
see his daughter. That's when things got suspicious and he
called police. So there were four different statements that he
ends up giving they're all different, they all change, but
(18:20):
basically this one that we just talked about, he's saying.
Christy said, look, I will give her the concoction. You
just leave. You don't need to be here for this.
When he came back, he said, sorry, your wife died.
We were doing something illegal, so you need to leave town.
I will take care of your daughter and find her
somewhere to go. So also, during the initial questioning of Tim,
(18:41):
he seemed to have no clue that his daughter was
also dead. This is Geraldine. He did not mention this
on the police call or anything, so he doesn't even
know that his daughter's dead. That was another thing where
they were like what because when they mentioned Geraldine's body,
He's like, my daughter's dead. So at first he says
(19:02):
it's a botched abortion. Now keep in mind they saw
that she had been beaten in what looked like strangled,
So then why was Geraldine also dead? Then it doesn't
add up. Now, John Christy did claim to be a
quote abortionist. He had told several people around town that
(19:23):
that was something that he did. So police asked Evans
at one point, are you responsible for the murders, and
he allegedly said yes, yes, and went on to say
that they were arguing over debts and he killed her.
Then he killed Geraldine a few days later. If he
did indeed say yes, it's possible that he could have
(19:44):
felt responsible for their deaths, for leaving them in Christie's hands.
So if he said yes, yes, But the whole part
about going on to say they were arguing over debts,
I mean, the story just keeps changing. So is it
changing because Evans did it? Is it changing because he
doesn't know what really happened because he left him with
Christy don't know? Now, according to the law, Evans was
(20:09):
because he went on trial, but only for the murder
of Geraldine. Now, interestingly, here they brought Christy as one
of their main witnesses, and he's up there talking about
all the arguments the couple had and oh it was bad,
Oh they fought all the time. Well that's a little convenient.
So Evans is up there with if he didn't do it,
(20:32):
and it's Christy the perfect way to get away with it. Basically,
so Evans says that he did confess because he was
scared of the police were going to beat him up
or hurt him, and they led info to him to
get the confession accurate. He was found guilty and hanged
in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Now, after all of this, Christy, he got a really
close call there, so he decides to lay low for
a while. But this changes. Iscember fourteenth, nineteen fifty two,
John strangled ethel Remember his wife to death in their
bed with a stocking. Originally he just held on to her,
(21:12):
but after three days, yes, three days, he put her
under the floorboards in the front room, wrapped in the blanket.
After a while, people are going to start to notice,
well they did, her family does. John responds to their letters,
saying that she has really bad rmiture urritis and she
can't respond to herself, so he's conveniently doing all the
(21:33):
writing for her. He tells others that she's just off
visiting other family, so nobody can really pin him down
about where she went. He randomly quits his job, He
sells most of his belongings and started to draw unemployment.
Then a bit of an escalation happens because up until
(21:55):
now there has been more time between his murders, and
there's a huge time las, especially when he almost got caught.
But starting January nineteenth to March sixth, nineteen sixty three,
so just a few months, three more women were murdered
by him. One victim was Kathleen Maloney. She was a
(22:17):
sex worker Rita Nelson who was pregnant and visiting family
in town. Hectorina maclennon met John in a cafe. These
are not one time meetings. He had met all of them.
He befriended them and would call on them socially multiple times,
eventually being lured back, he would take them to their
(22:40):
place him and Ethel lived. He also went back to
old techniques. He brought back the inhaling jar, but he
changed it up a little bit. This time. He would
situate the women in the kitchen, released the clip on
the tube that he had attached to the gas pipe,
and pour gas into the room and they were incapacitated,
(23:01):
passed out. Christy would come in and strangle them with
a rope. Also while they were passed out, and while
they were dying. The women were repeatedly right. He gets
so sloppy here. He puts them in a small nook
behind the kitchen wall. Not not a cupboard, it's just
an open space. And he covers that open space with wallpaper,
(23:26):
so it's almost like a curtain type of thing. The
wallpaper's not attached to anything. And we're gonna get back
into the store and how he gets caught right after
the break.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
All right, welcome back. So when we left off, he
was starting to put his victims behind this little wallpaper
nook in the kitchen. But there's one thing about Christy though.
He has swindled and stolen and cheated and lied a
lot and a night. Eighteen fifty three, he does it
(24:01):
again when he sublets his apartment to another couple, except
it was a fake sublet because he wasn't allowed to
do that. But Christy moves out, so he says, I'm
going to get a new apartment. You guys have this one.
I'm still under lease, but I will rent it to you.
So the landlord comes around to visit and he found
someone else there. Christy's the tenant. Who are these people
(24:23):
living there? And he kicked them out And in the meantime,
there's another man living upstairs on that level of the apartment,
and he says, you can use Christy's empty kitchen, because
remember there's a lot of shared areas in this building.
This guy doesn't have a lot of space. So this neighbor,
his name is Beresford Brown. He goes in and he's
(24:44):
going to put some sort of fixture on the wall. Whoah,
He's going to put it right over that spot that
he that Christy covered with wallpaper. Well, of course it
goes right through. So Brown is like, what the heck?
He pulls the wallpaper down, thinking, oh, well, that's weird
(25:05):
that somebody put this up where there's no wall, and
he sees three bodies just sitting there. Obviously, he called
the police and a hunt starts for John Christie.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Can we just pause for a moment.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
When a body decomposed, there's a lot of gases, a
lot of was a smell. Was the apartment so bad
that that smell was thought to.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Be don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Poor mister Brown, he's hanging like a picture or yeah,
and it just and hammer goes straight through.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yep. Going back to Ramslin's article that we referenced earlier,
here's what they said about the bodies that they found
at first. Brunette around age twenty later determined to be
twenty six. She had been dead around four weeks. She
had died from strangulation and carbon monoxide poisoning. It was
surmised that she had been under the effects of the
poisoning when she was strangled with a smooth surface type
(26:05):
of cord. She had been sexually assaulted at the time
of death or shortly after. Scratch Marks on her back
indicated that she had been dragged across the floor after
she died. Next one around twenty five years old, with
light brown hair, poorly manicured, hands and feet healthy. She
was pinkish in color, a sign of gas poisoning, and
(26:26):
had been asphyxiated by strangulation. She also had had sexual
intercourse near the time of death and had been drinking
heavily that day. She wore a cotton cardigan and vest,
and another white vest had been placed between her legs
in a diaper like fashion. She had died eight to
twelve weeks earlier. This goes back to what you said.
(26:47):
How did no one notice that? The third one was blonde?
Around twenty five years old, poorly manicured. She wore a dress, petticoat,
bra cardigan, two vests with a piece of material please
between her legs. Again, that's so weird. She was pinkish
in color and had been gassed and asphyxiated. She had
been drinking shortly before Dove, which had taken place eight
(27:09):
to twelve weeks earlier. She was also six months pregnant.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
So meanwhile, Christy is staying in a hotel, but news
gets out about what is found in his house and
he bolts through London. He is hiding in movie theaters
March thirty first, nineteen fifty three. He's arrested when police
officers saw him and stopped him, asking about his identity. Now,
when he is arrested, he had a newspaper on him
(27:36):
that had an article about Tim Evans's fate, which is
interesting because it had been years ago, right, I mean,
this is a very very old newspaper, cliff Well.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And not only that Tim was found guilty, which if true,
would mean Christy really why would he be whole holding
on to that. It's almost like it's very trophy.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Ish it is. When he's first brought in, Christy admits
to the three women in the wall, as well as
his wife, but the police say, while we've been looking
for you, we've also been at your apartment and your garden.
That's when he admits to all of those as well.
Then he finally admits that he killed Beryl Evans. So
(28:26):
finally he's admitting to killing Tim's wife. Now Tim Evans
has already died, he's already being hung, and it sounds
like for absolutely nothing. He says he didn't kill Geraldine.
Now Geraldine was the baby. She was still really, really young,
so you can kind of see why he's not wanting
(28:48):
to admit to this, but least to the police, he doesn't,
but he hinted to other people he had. Now why
would he do this, Well, because he was aiming for
a not guilty plea by guess what, our favorite reason, insanity,
And he did not want to upset the jury because
if you're being presented as a murderer of a baby,
(29:12):
you're gonna have a very hard time convincing that jury
you didn't do it. He's also concerned about his safety
in prison. Convicted felons do not like people who hurt kids.
This is also why Evan's conviction was upheld. Now people
chalked Christy's confession up, saying he is absolutely crazy and
(29:33):
didn't know what he was saying. This is really him
just building up his insanity case. But let's go back
to his wife Ethel for a second, because that's where
they start.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Before we read this, just know it's flat out racist,
so we should put a trigger warning out there for it.
But this just gives you an idea of what he
is trying to get away with, and he's throwing out
everything he can, all.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Right, So to begin with this quote, Christie says, I'll
tell you as much as I can remember. I have
not been well for a long while, about eighteen months.
My wife has been suffering a great deal from persecution
and insults from the black people in the house ten
Rillington Place, and had to undergo treatment at the doctor
for nerves. In December. She was becoming very frightened from
(30:23):
these blacks and was afraid to go about the house
where they were about, and she got very depressed. On
December fourteenth, I was awakened by my wife moving about
in bed. I sat up and saw that she appeared
to be convulsive. Her face was blue and she was choking.
I did what I could to try to restore breathing,
but it was hopeless. It appeared too late to call
(30:44):
for assistance. That's when I couldn't bear to see her
so I got a stalking and tied it around her
neck to put her to sleep. When I got out
of bed, I saw a small bottle and a cup
half full of water on the small table near the bed.
I noticed that the bottle contained two penal barbeitol tablets
and originally contained twenty five. I then knew that she
(31:08):
must have taken the remainer. I got them from the
hospital because I couldn't sleep. I left her in bed
for two or three days and didn't know what to do.
Then I remembered some loose floorboards in the front room
as one day I had to move the table like
one does. I had to move a table and some
cherish to rolled back the line. Note about halfway those
(31:29):
boards have been privolessly pulled up because of the drainage system.
Aka you've already put bodies under there, And there were
several of these depressions under the floorboards. Then I went
back and put her in a blanket or a sheet
or something and tried to carry her, but she was
too heavy, so I had to sort of halfway carry
halfway dragger and put her in the depression and cover
her up with earth. I thought that it was the
(31:53):
best way to lay her to run.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
So dude is saying that she tried to take her
life by overdosing on pills because she was scared of
black people, and he caught her in the middle of
the night, didn't try to revive her. Instead, he got
a stocking to go ahead and finish it. Oh, okay,
(32:17):
seems legit. It was too late to call nine one one,
seems legit. And he just thought, oh, I put her
on the floor. What's on earth? So they're like, okay,
whether she died naturally or accidentally, Okay, well we'll look
into that, but the floorboards really And they asked him
about it, and he said, quote, I think that in
(32:39):
my mind I did not want to lose her. But
of course the autopsy did not line up with anything
he mentioned. Not to mention when they go and talk
to family and friends, they'd all been given different reasons
for why she wasn't around. Remember he was writing letters saying, oh,
it's her rheumatoid arthritis, or no, she's off visiting cousins.
(33:01):
So that didn't look good either. Now we know they
found the bodies in the garden, but that was not
all that was interesting. They also found four clumps of quote,
female body hair that he had kept. They found the
hair and also where it had been removed on the
bodies that were still intact. So he like he cut
(33:26):
off their hair, cut off their pubic hair, and kept saying,
I missed that. Yeah, it's yeah, female body hair. Now
what's weird here is is he said that it was
from Ethyl and the three women in the wall, but
only Ethel matched the other ones. They couldn't match to
the three women in the wall. So they're like, well,
(33:47):
maybe it's his first two victims. Maybe, but then that's
still left one. So he's got four clumps. There's five victims.
Barrel Evans didn't have any hair removed that match this,
so that begs the question who did it come from?
More victims. A lot think that it's possible that as
(34:08):
he jumped from job to job when he was in
the military, that there were more victims. Others think no,
because he's stuck to a theme and they were all
on his property. What a weird trophy, very very weird trophy.
Here's what else is interesting. He only went to trial
for Ethel's murder, but there were three extra ones in
(34:30):
this Kitchention and the two in the garden as well.
So he went with you guessed it the insanity defense,
claiming that he didn't even have a clear recollection of
what happened.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
It didn't work, though it took that jury eighty five
minutes to come back and say guilty, and you are
getting the death sentence. John Christy surprisingly did not appeal,
so on July fifteenth, nineteen fifty three, he was hanged.
Now nineteen sixty six, Timothy Evans did finally receive a
(35:04):
royal pardon after two inquiries, but unfortunately a little too late,
he had already been hung. The author of the article
would go on to say that there can be little
doubt that a dying woman excited him, and perhaps it
goes back to his desire to punish the girl who
ridiculed him after a failed adolescent encounter. So going back
(35:26):
to this Freud theory stuff here, Kennedy makes the case
that Christy was dominating and killing his mother and sisters
as well to get them back for all the times
they dominated him. In any event, killing women made him
feel peaceful and powerful. The presence of the pubic hair
collection indicated another type of perversion, but Christie had to
(35:51):
be caught before anyone else could make sense of it.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
So that's the story. But there's more to talk about
because we are in true crime theater. So let's get
to the movie. Portion ten. Rillington Plates came out in
nineteen seventy one and starred Richard Attenborough, which, if you
don't know, he's the guy from Jurassic Park, the guy
with the hat and the glasses and the cane, and
John Hurt, so some big actors there. It was actually
(36:17):
based on a book by the same name by Ludovic Kennedy,
and John Hurt actually received a BAFTA Award nomination for
Best Supporting Actor. He played Evans, so Evans was the
one whose wife and daughter were killed. This movie takes
the approach that Evans was indeed innocent and was framed,
And some of the outside shots were filmed at the address,
(36:40):
but at number seven and not number ten because the
residents didn't want to move out for the filming.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
After the movie was complete, the house was destroyed. On IMDb,
it has a seven point five out of ten.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Writing.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Now, for all of our millennials out there, this was
nineteen seventy one. We're not great. The letting's probably not great.
Take it for what it's worth now, BBC said, fifty
years to the week since it was first released, it
is arguably still the most accomplished British true crime film
ever made. People said it was so authentic and it
(37:16):
was such a bad story that it didn't have to
be gratuitous. It's on Prime So if you if you
have nothing to do for this three day weekend, there
you go.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
There you go. What a Valentine's Day treat. I don't
know to sit down and watch that. So there you
have it. That is the very disturbing story of John
Christy and the movie ten Rillington Place. So check that out.
If that's something that you want to watch. We will
go ahead and wrap up. We are trying to get
(37:46):
back on our normal schedule and what that'll look like
we'll see, just with the whole Peyton Houston case and
all that. But yeah, we're here. We're rocking and rolling,
all right, guys.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
We are not skipping Patreon this month, woo. So we
will see you February twenty seventh. That is the date.
It is in stone. What we are doing is not
so I am sure we'll figure it out. Between now and.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
That's comforting, so we will see you guys then. If
you are not a Patreon member, go to patreon dot
com search for Corpus Delicti. You can join our discord
server at three dollars and up. One dollar and up
gets you episodes ad free. Sometimes they're posted early, sometimes
they're not, but they are always ad free. That also
(38:36):
gets you access to the monthly episodes that we do,
like this on Zoom where we can all chat and
hang out. Ten dollars and up gets you a quarterly gift,
which we did Christmas ornaments in December. Those were really cute,
so check that out if you want. We have a
good time. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
But until then, you know what we said to Flea,
Bye bye.
Hey, everyone is Jen and this is Lindsay and welcome
back to Corpus Delicti the podcast. Yes, indeed, it's been
a minute, but we are back rest assured. If you
are on Discord or Patreon, you probably heard this from
us already, But it may seem like it's been super.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Quiet, but it actually has not been. For us. We've
been working on a lot, which is why we've been
not in your faces. There's a lot going on with
Rocky Myers right now. We're not really at liberty to
give a whole lot of details, but do you us
know that we need your support. If you haven't sent
(01:03):
a letter yet, we ask that you email them to
us at this point, just because time could be of
the essence. He could have a date set at anytime.
And the email address is Corpus Stilicti at yahoo dot com.
So if you want to send one, please do that.
And then the other thing is I think we're ready
to tell you guys, the other big thing we've been
(01:23):
working on. We got the okay from the family, Jen,
you want to tell us what we got?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
We are going to dive really deep into the we
think murder of Peyton Houston. So This is a young
lady who disappeared before Christmas several years ago in Birmingham.
She was with some friends and they found her later
the corodner and the police ruled it as a drug overdose.
(01:51):
We've been digging a little bit deeper. We've been talking
to her family, we've been talking to her friends. That's
not what we believe. So we are doing an in
debt review and getting knee deep into this case. From
the sounds of it, Peyton was this bubbly, wonderful, super
friendly lady.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, and it was really big here in Birmingham when
it happened, which was at the tail end of twenty
nineteen early twenty twenty, and it did go nationwide, so
you may have heard about it. But we were connected
with the family who bless their hearts, they've just been
wonderful and it's such a hard thing for them to
talk about. But it will be similar to how we
(02:30):
did with Rockies, where it's going to be a multi
part deep dive. We're getting stuff straight from the sources,
hopefully talking to at least one, if not to medical examiners. Yes,
there's a little teaser for you. There are two. Why
would that be. We're just going to have to listen
and find out, and I promise it's going to probably
(02:51):
make your jaw drops. So all that to say, we
have been nose deep in that, working on that, getting
all that going, doing interviews. But we are now ready
to come back to our regular broadcasting now that we've
gotten in a rhythm with all that, and here we
are back with true crime theater.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yes, and this episode we're going to be talking about
John Christy and you may have heard of him, and
this one we are going to issue a trigger warning.
There is talk about rape and abortion in this episode.
If you are sensitive for those subjects. We have lots
and lots of other episodes that you can go listen to.
So we are doing a little bit of a throwback.
(03:32):
It's an older serial killer and again his name is
John Christy. John Reginald Christy was born sixth of a
family of seven children. And this was back in April eighth,
eighteen ninety nine, and this is going to be in Yorkshire, England.
The family dynamic was troubling as Christie's father was cold
and he really didn't like to show emotion or affection.
(03:55):
He was strict. Now on the flip side, he was
both boiled and bullied by the women in the house,
so his mother and sisters. It was a kind of
a weird dynamic where he would get spoiled. But then again,
as siblings always do, they torture each other.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
And not just the sisters but the mom too. It
was almost like, we love you so much, so we
can do whatever we want to use vibes. So John
Christie was also very smart. He had a high IQ
and he did very well in school academically. Socially, though,
he was described as quote queer. This is not in
(04:33):
the modern sense of the term, but in the sense
that means he was just a little bit different, a
little bit odd, and he was described as being a
bit of a loner, and he was not popular. Now,
something happened when he was eight years old that really
just changed something in him. His grandfather died and he
(04:54):
recalled seeing his grandfather's dad body as life changing. It's
important to note that his grandfather had also been strict,
and Christie says, honestly, he scared him. He was just
this overbearing guy. But now he's sitting there as an
eight year old child looking at his deceased grandfather's body
(05:16):
and thinking, wow, look now you're completely powerless. And in
that moment he said that dead bodies became a fascination.
So as a teen something else about John became a
parent That certainly did not make being a teenager any easier.
He was impotent, which earned him the nickname Reggie no dick.
(05:39):
Now some called him regg hence Reggie and also can't
do it, Christie.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Now we're going to cut to nineteen sixteen. It's after school,
it's during World War One. John enlisted in the British
Army and served as an infantry man and he was
sent to France in nineteen eighty. He did end up
in a military hospital for a month because he was
involved in a mustard gas attack. We do need to
(06:06):
insert a random fact about Christy here. He was a
normally very soft spoken guy, as in he literally could
not raise his voice or talk loudly. Now he claims
it was the result of the mustard gas attack and
that he was actually mute and blind for three years
due to it. There's no record of this, and they
(06:28):
said this couldn't have possibly happened because he was put
back into duty. Now, later professionals would say it was
probably due to a personality disorder to get sympathy from others,
as in, he hasn't had sympathy in his entire life,
and he got it during this stage, and he was like, Oh,
(06:49):
I'm gonna keep doing this. This is pretty cool. His
time in the military ended in nineteen twenty four, but
by then he had met and married Ethel Simpson in
nineteen Remember, Christy is still battling impotence, except there is
a caveat here. Unless he was with a sex worker,
(07:10):
they're not a problem. So early on in the marriage,
Ethyl did have a miscarriage, so not really clear if
this was one of the times he was able to perform.
We'll just say that she did end up getting pregnant,
but she did lose the baby. The marriage was already
off to a really rocky start, though they were only
(07:30):
together four years Before they separated, John moved to London
and Ethel went to go live with relatives. They didn't divorce,
and they actually got back together in nineteen thirty four.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
So if you're keeping track of that, they got married
in nineteen twenty they separated four years later, so in
nineteen twenty four is when they separated. They got back
together in nineteen thirty four. That's a big, big gap.
So there's a lot of stuff that we need to
dive into during that time. So what caused the separation,
What caused the issues? Well, it might have been in
(08:05):
part to John's criminal activities. So in nineteen twenty one,
he worked as a postman and he saw some postal
orders that he just couldn't resist, so he took them
and he went to prison for three months. After that,
he was found guilty of obtaining money on false pretenses
and violent conduct, for which he received twelve months probation,
(08:28):
and then in nineteen twenty four came to larceny charges
with three and six months in prison. So that's a
lot to digest there, especially for a woman who is
relying on him at this point for income as she was,
and it was just a lot. So that was one
of the reasons, among others. So in nineteen twenty nine
(08:49):
they're separated. For several years. Now he's working as a
lorry driver when he assaulted a woman named maud Cole
by hitting her over the head with a cricket bat. So,
who is mad? Where did this come from? Where did
this new crime come from Well. Maud is the woman
that he is living with at this time, so he
has not divorced his wife. They are separated, but now
(09:13):
he is with maud Well. This attack earned him six
months of hard labor. Then in nineteen thirty three he
was in prison for three months for auto theft, so
he's just racking up the charges here. When he was released,
this was when he and Ethel rekindled their relationship. He
was going to turn over a new leaf. This was
(09:34):
the last straw for him. I've got to make a change,
and he did. He gave up petty crime, theft all that.
But notice that we just said petty crime. So they
moved to an apartment at ten Rillington Place, which is
actually the name of our movie because we are in
true crime theater. So we'll get to that in a minute.
(09:55):
So just put a pin in that the.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Apartment was not great. They weren't maintained at all. Now,
these apartments did not have private bathrooms, and there was
one that was shared by all residents, So imagine sharing
a bathroom with all of your neighbors. It was right
above a train, so when that train came through, things
(10:19):
got very very loud. Now he's working some jobs on
and all for several years, and he even joined the
War Reserve Police during World War Two and worked as
a constable. According to an article titled number ten Rillington
Place by Catherine Ramsland quote, he enjoyed the authority and
(10:40):
he loved wearing his uniform. He also used the position
to follow women, the notes of which he kept for
many years, to watch his neighbors. He bored a peephole
into his kitchen door, and he ran down every transgressor,
no matter how petty the crime. In effect, he took
himself seriously. Christy kept this position for four years. So
(11:03):
this is a position of authority. He got essentially the
license to spy on people. So he is enjoying tracking
this down and being the peeping tom if you will. Now,
about three years later, John meets a woman named Gladys Jones,
and their affair starts. In nineteen forty three, her husband
(11:25):
came home for more and found them and beat John up.
He was not happy that he came home to see
his wife with another man.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
It's still interesting to me because he struggles with impotence,
so I'm not really clear on if it's just something
that's all the time, or if there are occasions where
he can perform. I'm not really clear on that aspect
of it, because he does seem to be pulling a
lot of women. Well.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I think the thing is it may have a moral
aspect to it. If it's immoral or shady or sneaky,
he's able to. But when it's doesn't have that air
of excitement, he can't. That is like, if it's boring,
he doesn't want it.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
That very well could be, which is something that we
do see with serial killers often is that it's it's
the and it's gross, but it's the wrongness of it. Yeah,
it's the thrill that they literally get off on. So
keep in mind though he does still visit sex workers often,
(12:28):
and so he does after this affair with Gladys Jones ends.
So on August twenty fourth, nineteen forty three, Ethel was
visiting family he's still with Ethel. So John brought twenty
one year old Ruth First home and they engaged in sex.
But this time something changed and an impulse hit And
(12:49):
it might go into what you said just now, that
something came over him and after they engaged in sexual relations,
he grabbed and strangled her to death. Now he's committed
lots of crimes, but this is his first murder, so
he's kind of in a new league here and he
has to decide what to do. He panics. He actually
(13:13):
buries her in his living room beneath the floorboards Edgar
Allen Poe's style.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
So all I could do at this point, do you
remember have you ever you've read that? Oh?
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I think most American kids read it in high school
or some middle school. But it's a story. If you
haven't heard it or I haven't seen it, read it
about a guy who kills someone and puts him out
of the floorboards, and all they hear for days is.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
At heart, it's haunting him. Yeah, yeah, I just the
smell well exactly. But speaking of he realized that being
in the apartment that was risky because you have the
smells and all that, so he moved her to the
back garden the next night. So nineteen forty four, he
(14:07):
meets Muriel Amelia Edie at his job at the radio factory.
Muriel has been sick with bronchitis, and John's like, look,
I know something that will help you. There's this special mixture.
Come by my apartment and I will mix it up
for you. So she does, and John does have this mixture.
It is in a jar with a tube in the
(14:29):
top of the jar, and you inhale it. So think
of it kind of like an old tiny vix inhaler thing,
you know, one of the things that you put over
your face. It was Friar's balsam, which was used to
cover the smell of gas, which by itself wasn't a
big problem. But when Ethel turned her back, he put
(14:50):
another tube in the jar, but this one was connected
to gas, which at the time was very, very high
in carbon monoxide. So he did the Friar's bosom to
cover the smell, then added the gas to it. She
passes out, John raped her and then strangled her to death.
(15:11):
Muriel was then put in the back garden next to Ruth.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Then comes nineteen forty eight. The young couple named Timothy
and Beryl Evans moved into the top floor flat what
we call apartments, and eventually had a baby girl. This
one is just a little bit complicated, so just stay
with us here. In nineteen forty nine, Tim Evans tells
the police that Beryl is dead and the police find
(15:36):
her body in an outdoor washhouse. But it wasn't just her,
It was also Geraldine, who is young. Now sources very
but some say six months and some say fifteen months,
and a sixteen week old fetus. Both Beryl and Geraldine
had been strangled, and Beryl seemed to have been beaten
(15:59):
because her face was bruised. She was wrapped in a blanket.
Now this is where it gets complicated. Christy says Tim
did it. Tim is saying Christy did it and it
was a botched abortion. The police think this just doesn't
add up, and eventually they get Tim to confess. But
it seems that a confession was coerced and totally fabricated,
(16:22):
although this wasn't discovered until after Timothy Evans was charged.
Once charged, Tim Evans goes, I was coerced and withdrawal
my confession. Again, I think Christy did it. He did it,
and that's where I'm going to stand of Note, Tim
Evans was a very sickly child and he missed a
lot of school, so we could not read or write
(16:45):
very well. And we know the correlation between that and
false confessions. We've talked about it in several episodes about
how sometimes someone with a low IQ or a mental disability,
their false confession rate is higher. In his confession, he
says that his wife's body was either in a manhole
(17:05):
or a drain and he had given her a concoction
to end the pregnancy. The police looked, that's not where
she was found. We know where she was found.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Well, and that's what's one of the things that started
to not add up is he was like, oh, yeah, I,
you know, gave my wife this concoction to induce an abortion,
but I put her in a manhole. And then they're like, wait,
she wasn't in a manhole. She was out in basically
(17:37):
like an outhouse shed thing. So then he says, Christy's
the one who offered to do it. So when he
came home, Christy told him Beryl died and since abortion
was illegal, he meaning Evans should leave town and let
him being Christie, find someone to look after Geraldine. Now
(17:59):
Evans did this first time, but when he came home
to check on his child, Christy would not let him
see his daughter. That's when things got suspicious and he
called police. So there were four different statements that he
ends up giving they're all different, they all change, but
(18:20):
basically this one that we just talked about, he's saying.
Christy said, look, I will give her the concoction. You
just leave. You don't need to be here for this.
When he came back, he said, sorry, your wife died.
We were doing something illegal, so you need to leave town.
I will take care of your daughter and find her
somewhere to go. So also, during the initial questioning of Tim,
(18:41):
he seemed to have no clue that his daughter was
also dead. This is Geraldine. He did not mention this
on the police call or anything, so he doesn't even
know that his daughter's dead. That was another thing where
they were like what because when they mentioned Geraldine's body,
He's like, my daughter's dead. So at first he says
(19:02):
it's a botched abortion. Now keep in mind they saw
that she had been beaten in what looked like strangled,
So then why was Geraldine also dead? Then it doesn't
add up. Now, John Christy did claim to be a
quote abortionist. He had told several people around town that
(19:23):
that was something that he did. So police asked Evans
at one point, are you responsible for the murders, and
he allegedly said yes, yes, and went on to say
that they were arguing over debts and he killed her.
Then he killed Geraldine a few days later. If he
did indeed say yes, it's possible that he could have
(19:44):
felt responsible for their deaths, for leaving them in Christie's hands.
So if he said yes, yes, But the whole part
about going on to say they were arguing over debts,
I mean, the story just keeps changing. So is it
changing because Evans did it? Is it changing because he
doesn't know what really happened because he left him with
Christy don't know? Now, according to the law, Evans was
(20:09):
because he went on trial, but only for the murder
of Geraldine. Now, interestingly, here they brought Christy as one
of their main witnesses, and he's up there talking about
all the arguments the couple had and oh it was bad,
Oh they fought all the time. Well that's a little convenient.
So Evans is up there with if he didn't do it,
(20:32):
and it's Christy the perfect way to get away with it. Basically,
so Evans says that he did confess because he was
scared of the police were going to beat him up
or hurt him, and they led info to him to
get the confession accurate. He was found guilty and hanged
in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Now, after all of this, Christy, he got a really
close call there, so he decides to lay low for
a while. But this changes. Iscember fourteenth, nineteen fifty two,
John strangled ethel Remember his wife to death in their
bed with a stocking. Originally he just held on to her,
(21:12):
but after three days, yes, three days, he put her
under the floorboards in the front room, wrapped in the blanket.
After a while, people are going to start to notice,
well they did, her family does. John responds to their letters,
saying that she has really bad rmiture urritis and she
can't respond to herself, so he's conveniently doing all the
(21:33):
writing for her. He tells others that she's just off
visiting other family, so nobody can really pin him down
about where she went. He randomly quits his job, He
sells most of his belongings and started to draw unemployment.
Then a bit of an escalation happens because up until
(21:55):
now there has been more time between his murders, and
there's a huge time las, especially when he almost got caught.
But starting January nineteenth to March sixth, nineteen sixty three,
so just a few months, three more women were murdered
by him. One victim was Kathleen Maloney. She was a
(22:17):
sex worker Rita Nelson who was pregnant and visiting family
in town. Hectorina maclennon met John in a cafe. These
are not one time meetings. He had met all of them.
He befriended them and would call on them socially multiple times,
eventually being lured back, he would take them to their
(22:40):
place him and Ethel lived. He also went back to
old techniques. He brought back the inhaling jar, but he
changed it up a little bit. This time. He would
situate the women in the kitchen, released the clip on
the tube that he had attached to the gas pipe,
and pour gas into the room and they were incapacitated,
(23:01):
passed out. Christy would come in and strangle them with
a rope. Also while they were passed out, and while
they were dying. The women were repeatedly right. He gets
so sloppy here. He puts them in a small nook
behind the kitchen wall. Not not a cupboard, it's just
an open space. And he covers that open space with wallpaper,
(23:26):
so it's almost like a curtain type of thing. The
wallpaper's not attached to anything. And we're gonna get back
into the store and how he gets caught right after
the break.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
All right, welcome back. So when we left off, he
was starting to put his victims behind this little wallpaper
nook in the kitchen. But there's one thing about Christy though.
He has swindled and stolen and cheated and lied a
lot and a night. Eighteen fifty three, he does it
(24:01):
again when he sublets his apartment to another couple, except
it was a fake sublet because he wasn't allowed to
do that. But Christy moves out, so he says, I'm
going to get a new apartment. You guys have this one.
I'm still under lease, but I will rent it to you.
So the landlord comes around to visit and he found
someone else there. Christy's the tenant. Who are these people
(24:23):
living there? And he kicked them out And in the meantime,
there's another man living upstairs on that level of the apartment,
and he says, you can use Christy's empty kitchen, because
remember there's a lot of shared areas in this building.
This guy doesn't have a lot of space. So this neighbor,
his name is Beresford Brown. He goes in and he's
(24:44):
going to put some sort of fixture on the wall. Whoah,
He's going to put it right over that spot that
he that Christy covered with wallpaper. Well, of course it
goes right through. So Brown is like, what the heck?
He pulls the wallpaper down, thinking, oh, well, that's weird
(25:05):
that somebody put this up where there's no wall, and
he sees three bodies just sitting there. Obviously, he called
the police and a hunt starts for John Christie.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Can we just pause for a moment.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
When a body decomposed, there's a lot of gases, a
lot of was a smell. Was the apartment so bad
that that smell was thought to.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Be don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Poor mister Brown, he's hanging like a picture or yeah,
and it just and hammer goes straight through.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yep. Going back to Ramslin's article that we referenced earlier,
here's what they said about the bodies that they found
at first. Brunette around age twenty later determined to be
twenty six. She had been dead around four weeks. She
had died from strangulation and carbon monoxide poisoning. It was
surmised that she had been under the effects of the
poisoning when she was strangled with a smooth surface type
(26:05):
of cord. She had been sexually assaulted at the time
of death or shortly after. Scratch Marks on her back
indicated that she had been dragged across the floor after
she died. Next one around twenty five years old, with
light brown hair, poorly manicured, hands and feet healthy. She
was pinkish in color, a sign of gas poisoning, and
(26:26):
had been asphyxiated by strangulation. She also had had sexual
intercourse near the time of death and had been drinking
heavily that day. She wore a cotton cardigan and vest,
and another white vest had been placed between her legs
in a diaper like fashion. She had died eight to
twelve weeks earlier. This goes back to what you said.
(26:47):
How did no one notice that? The third one was blonde?
Around twenty five years old, poorly manicured. She wore a dress, petticoat,
bra cardigan, two vests with a piece of material please
between her legs. Again, that's so weird. She was pinkish
in color and had been gassed and asphyxiated. She had
been drinking shortly before Dove, which had taken place eight
(27:09):
to twelve weeks earlier. She was also six months pregnant.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
So meanwhile, Christy is staying in a hotel, but news
gets out about what is found in his house and
he bolts through London. He is hiding in movie theaters
March thirty first, nineteen fifty three. He's arrested when police
officers saw him and stopped him, asking about his identity. Now,
when he is arrested, he had a newspaper on him
(27:36):
that had an article about Tim Evans's fate, which is
interesting because it had been years ago, right, I mean,
this is a very very old newspaper, cliff Well.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And not only that Tim was found guilty, which if true,
would mean Christy really why would he be whole holding
on to that. It's almost like it's very trophy.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Ish it is. When he's first brought in, Christy admits
to the three women in the wall, as well as
his wife, but the police say, while we've been looking
for you, we've also been at your apartment and your garden.
That's when he admits to all of those as well.
Then he finally admits that he killed Beryl Evans. So
(28:26):
finally he's admitting to killing Tim's wife. Now Tim Evans
has already died, he's already being hung, and it sounds
like for absolutely nothing. He says he didn't kill Geraldine.
Now Geraldine was the baby. She was still really, really young,
so you can kind of see why he's not wanting
(28:48):
to admit to this, but least to the police, he doesn't,
but he hinted to other people he had. Now why
would he do this, Well, because he was aiming for
a not guilty plea by guess what, our favorite reason, insanity,
And he did not want to upset the jury because
if you're being presented as a murderer of a baby,
(29:12):
you're gonna have a very hard time convincing that jury
you didn't do it. He's also concerned about his safety
in prison. Convicted felons do not like people who hurt kids.
This is also why Evan's conviction was upheld. Now people
chalked Christy's confession up, saying he is absolutely crazy and
(29:33):
didn't know what he was saying. This is really him
just building up his insanity case. But let's go back
to his wife Ethel for a second, because that's where
they start.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Before we read this, just know it's flat out racist,
so we should put a trigger warning out there for it.
But this just gives you an idea of what he
is trying to get away with, and he's throwing out
everything he can, all.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Right, So to begin with this quote, Christie says, I'll
tell you as much as I can remember. I have
not been well for a long while, about eighteen months.
My wife has been suffering a great deal from persecution
and insults from the black people in the house ten
Rillington Place, and had to undergo treatment at the doctor
for nerves. In December. She was becoming very frightened from
(30:23):
these blacks and was afraid to go about the house
where they were about, and she got very depressed. On
December fourteenth, I was awakened by my wife moving about
in bed. I sat up and saw that she appeared
to be convulsive. Her face was blue and she was choking.
I did what I could to try to restore breathing,
but it was hopeless. It appeared too late to call
(30:44):
for assistance. That's when I couldn't bear to see her
so I got a stalking and tied it around her
neck to put her to sleep. When I got out
of bed, I saw a small bottle and a cup
half full of water on the small table near the bed.
I noticed that the bottle contained two penal barbeitol tablets
and originally contained twenty five. I then knew that she
(31:08):
must have taken the remainer. I got them from the
hospital because I couldn't sleep. I left her in bed
for two or three days and didn't know what to do.
Then I remembered some loose floorboards in the front room
as one day I had to move the table like
one does. I had to move a table and some
cherish to rolled back the line. Note about halfway those
(31:29):
boards have been privolessly pulled up because of the drainage system.
Aka you've already put bodies under there, And there were
several of these depressions under the floorboards. Then I went
back and put her in a blanket or a sheet
or something and tried to carry her, but she was
too heavy, so I had to sort of halfway carry
halfway dragger and put her in the depression and cover
her up with earth. I thought that it was the
(31:53):
best way to lay her to run.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
So dude is saying that she tried to take her
life by overdosing on pills because she was scared of
black people, and he caught her in the middle of
the night, didn't try to revive her. Instead, he got
a stocking to go ahead and finish it. Oh, okay,
(32:17):
seems legit. It was too late to call nine one one,
seems legit. And he just thought, oh, I put her
on the floor. What's on earth? So they're like, okay,
whether she died naturally or accidentally, Okay, well we'll look
into that, but the floorboards really And they asked him
about it, and he said, quote, I think that in
(32:39):
my mind I did not want to lose her. But
of course the autopsy did not line up with anything
he mentioned. Not to mention when they go and talk
to family and friends, they'd all been given different reasons
for why she wasn't around. Remember he was writing letters saying, oh,
it's her rheumatoid arthritis, or no, she's off visiting cousins.
(33:01):
So that didn't look good either. Now we know they
found the bodies in the garden, but that was not
all that was interesting. They also found four clumps of quote,
female body hair that he had kept. They found the
hair and also where it had been removed on the
bodies that were still intact. So he like he cut
(33:26):
off their hair, cut off their pubic hair, and kept saying,
I missed that. Yeah, it's yeah, female body hair. Now
what's weird here is is he said that it was
from Ethyl and the three women in the wall, but
only Ethel matched the other ones. They couldn't match to
the three women in the wall. So they're like, well,
(33:47):
maybe it's his first two victims. Maybe, but then that's
still left one. So he's got four clumps. There's five victims.
Barrel Evans didn't have any hair removed that match this,
so that begs the question who did it come from?
More victims. A lot think that it's possible that as
(34:08):
he jumped from job to job when he was in
the military, that there were more victims. Others think no,
because he's stuck to a theme and they were all
on his property. What a weird trophy, very very weird trophy.
Here's what else is interesting. He only went to trial
for Ethel's murder, but there were three extra ones in
(34:30):
this Kitchention and the two in the garden as well.
So he went with you guessed it the insanity defense,
claiming that he didn't even have a clear recollection of
what happened.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
It didn't work, though it took that jury eighty five
minutes to come back and say guilty, and you are
getting the death sentence. John Christy surprisingly did not appeal,
so on July fifteenth, nineteen fifty three, he was hanged.
Now nineteen sixty six, Timothy Evans did finally receive a
(35:04):
royal pardon after two inquiries, but unfortunately a little too late,
he had already been hung. The author of the article
would go on to say that there can be little
doubt that a dying woman excited him, and perhaps it
goes back to his desire to punish the girl who
ridiculed him after a failed adolescent encounter. So going back
(35:26):
to this Freud theory stuff here, Kennedy makes the case
that Christy was dominating and killing his mother and sisters
as well to get them back for all the times
they dominated him. In any event, killing women made him
feel peaceful and powerful. The presence of the pubic hair
collection indicated another type of perversion, but Christie had to
(35:51):
be caught before anyone else could make sense of it.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
So that's the story. But there's more to talk about
because we are in true crime theater. So let's get
to the movie. Portion ten. Rillington Plates came out in
nineteen seventy one and starred Richard Attenborough, which, if you
don't know, he's the guy from Jurassic Park, the guy
with the hat and the glasses and the cane, and
John Hurt, so some big actors there. It was actually
(36:17):
based on a book by the same name by Ludovic Kennedy,
and John Hurt actually received a BAFTA Award nomination for
Best Supporting Actor. He played Evans, so Evans was the
one whose wife and daughter were killed. This movie takes
the approach that Evans was indeed innocent and was framed,
And some of the outside shots were filmed at the address,
(36:40):
but at number seven and not number ten because the
residents didn't want to move out for the filming.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
After the movie was complete, the house was destroyed. On IMDb,
it has a seven point five out of ten.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Writing.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Now, for all of our millennials out there, this was
nineteen seventy one. We're not great. The letting's probably not great.
Take it for what it's worth now, BBC said, fifty
years to the week since it was first released, it
is arguably still the most accomplished British true crime film
ever made. People said it was so authentic and it
(37:16):
was such a bad story that it didn't have to
be gratuitous. It's on Prime So if you if you
have nothing to do for this three day weekend, there
you go.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
There you go. What a Valentine's Day treat. I don't
know to sit down and watch that. So there you
have it. That is the very disturbing story of John
Christy and the movie ten Rillington Place. So check that out.
If that's something that you want to watch. We will
go ahead and wrap up. We are trying to get
(37:46):
back on our normal schedule and what that'll look like
we'll see, just with the whole Peyton Houston case and
all that. But yeah, we're here. We're rocking and rolling,
all right, guys.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
We are not skipping Patreon this month, woo. So we
will see you February twenty seventh. That is the date.
It is in stone. What we are doing is not
so I am sure we'll figure it out. Between now and.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
That's comforting, so we will see you guys then. If
you are not a Patreon member, go to patreon dot
com search for Corpus Delicti. You can join our discord
server at three dollars and up. One dollar and up
gets you episodes ad free. Sometimes they're posted early, sometimes
they're not, but they are always ad free. That also
(38:36):
gets you access to the monthly episodes that we do,
like this on Zoom where we can all chat and
hang out. Ten dollars and up gets you a quarterly gift,
which we did Christmas ornaments in December. Those were really cute,
so check that out if you want. We have a
good time. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
But until then, you know what we said to Flea,
Bye bye.
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