John Christie: A Very Nasty Man, Liar, and Murderer
From good old Harry Flashman were are now going to pry a little into the life and affairs of a man of similar moral bankruptcy, but of much darker and more sinister nature. In the spring of 1948, Timothy and Beryl Evans, along with their infant daughter Geraldine, moved into rooms at number 10 Rillington Place, Ladbroke Grove, London. These they were renting from the homeowner, John Christie, a balding and bespectacled man, somewhat obsequious, and in every respect unremarkable. Timothy Evans, however, would, in modern parlance, be regarded as having learning difficulties.
On the surface, John Christie, a Royal Mail counter clerk and sometime Special Constable, was a quiet and retiring man who lived an ordinary life on the lower floors of the building, along with his wife Ethel. Behind the scenes, however, Christie was a serial killer, a back street abortionist and a man with a deeply disturbed sexuality. He had already murdered a number of women in a sexual/sadistic manner. His interest was immediately captured by Beryl Evans, who, like her husband, was of low IQ, and very vulnerable as a consequence. When, in 1849, Beryl discovered she was pregnant once again, she and Timothy Evans agreed that she would seek an abortion. This, of course, was Christie’s way in, and in the course of the procedure, Christie had his way with the heavily drugged young mother, using mains gas from the cooker to anesthetize her, after which she and Geraldine were strangled.
Police suspicion immediately focused on Timothy Evans himself, which was not helped at all by his clumsy and confused testimony, and even less by Christie. John Christie’s police statement heavily implicated Timothy Evans in domestic violence, painting a picture of an unhappy marriage, and an often expressed desire on Evan’s part to somehow get rid of his wife. A more intelligent man than he would probably have been able to answer the charges more coherently, but Timothy Evans was such an obvious suspect that the police really looked no further. After fumbling his way through a long trial, Timothy Evans was found guilty, and sentenced to death. Christie, and his wife Ethel, were, of course, key witnesses, and the guilty verdict was based largely on their testimony.
On March 9, Timothy Evans was led to the gallows, and as he stood waiting for the drop, he repeated several time the now famous phrase ‘Christie done it!’
And Christie did indeed do it, and killed his own wife soon afterwards. He was eventually caught, however, when the stench of her rotting corpse under the floorboards led to his discovery. It then became clear that it was him and not Timothy Evans who was guilty of Beryl Evans’ murder. In 1966, Timothy Evans was posthumously pardoned, and John Christie was executed in London’s Pentonville Prison on July 15, 1953.