10 Rillington place with a police guard outside

By the start of the Second World War Christie had enrolled as a special policeman at the Harrow Road police station. As a policeman he took delight in apprehending prostitutes, killing them and making love to their dead bodies.

Twice while his wife was away he took a couple of women to his home, gassed them with Friars Balsam from a jam jar with a rubber tube going into a small cardboard box which he placed around their mouths, with a jubilee clip to release the gas. After the ladies would pass out he would strangle them with a piece of cord, and make love to the dead bodies. The women on these two occasions were Ruth Fuerst and Murial Eady, who’s bodies were buried in the back garden of Rillington Place.

Ruth’s skull had surfaced a while after, Christie took it to a bombed out house at number 133 St Mark’s Road and threw it over the wall. When later discovered it was assumed to be that of a war victim, and a police inquiry was deemed unnecessary. Her thigh bone was also re-surfacing so Christie put it to use as a support for his week garden fence.

With the end of the war the top flat of number ten was let to a Welsh van driver named Timothy John Evans, along with his wife Beryl and baby Geraldine. Evans was an illiterate as well as a liar, and became useful to the cunning Christie.

Christie heard a fight upstairs one morning in 1949, and discovered it was over Beryl being pregnant again, with little money from van driving, Evans was looking for a way out. Christie suggested an abortion that he said he was competent to perform. Evans meanwhile returned to his native Wales and looked up some relatives, whom became suspicious and called in the police, they in turn contacted Scotland Yard with a story the Evans had killed his wife, and put her body down a manhole cover just outside number 10 Rillington place. A search was made without finding anything, although the police did discover that Beryl and the baby were missing, so was all the furniture too. A second statement was made by Evans who said that Christie had done an abortion on his wife that had gone wrong, that she had died as a result, and that Christie had said he put her down the manhole and that he gave their daughter to a friend in Acton to look after. Evans was returned to the metropolitan police at Ladbroke Grove for questioning, and soon after his arrival, his wife and babies bodies were both discovered in a tiny wash house in the garden of number ten.

Police detectives doing a bit of digging!

It looked to everyone that Evans had killed his wife and baby, and because of his compulsive lying he took any suspicion away from Christie. He made a third statement and in it he claimed to have murdered them both. At his trial he reverted back to accusing Christie, and by this time even his own council did not believe him. He was found guilty of both murders and was hung at Pentonville Prison. During Christmas 1953 Christie was sending cards to his wife Ethel's friends saying she could not write herself as she had hurt her hand, and added that he would be cooking the Christmas dinner. For some reason never discovered, Christie had killed Ethel and buried her body beneath the sitting room floorboards. He would sprinkle disinfectant daily to hide any stench of the rotting body. He went back to the cafe were he found another three separate ladies that he took back to Rillington Place, strangling them and abusing their bodies, before dumping them in the small alcove in the kitchen. With now four badly decomposed bodies around the flat no amount of disinfectant could stop the smell. He sold off his furniture to Mr Hookway of 319 Portobello Road, then found a couple of West Indians to sublet, and with their deposit left without a trace.

The landlord soon found out about the subletting, shocked at the state that Christie had left his property. He sold the flat to a Jamaican family, and when moving in they found one side of the kitchen wall was mere cardboard paper, making a hole through it discovered a woman's body. A large police hunt was on for Christie, meanwhile the discovery of other bodies came to light. They were identified as Kathleen Maloney, Rita Nelson, Hectorina Maclennon all found in the alcove; Ethel under the floorboards, Ruth Fuerst and Muriel Eady in the garden. The picture of Christie in his garden on the top of this page was in every daily newspaper on the front page. A policeman found Christie on the embankment by Putney Bridge. At his trial Christie pleaded insanity, and confessed to all the murders remarking "The more the merrier!" Christie was found guilty and also hung at Pentonville. The Welshman Timothy Evans was given a posthumous free pardon and his body was released to family for a reburial.

Tombstone of Timothy Evans - Picture by kind permission of Mark Sherlock