John Christie, a quietly spoken Yorkshireman, was one of Britain's most prolific serial killers who targeted young women throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

Among the many victims of John Christie - known as Reg to his friends - was a young Plymouth girl whose chaotic and troubled life came to a brutal end at his hands.

Christie, who had been a Special police constable, killed at least eight women, although it is still believed he may have taken the lives of many more as some the trophies he collected from each killing were never matched to a victim. One such was a clump of pubic hair which did not come from any known victim.

According to his own account, he strangled Ruth Fuerst, his first known victim in 1943, during sex at his house, a place that became infamous - 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill, London. His second victim, Muriel Eady, was lured to his flat where he gassed her, saying he had a special cure for her bronchitis. Not content with just killing her, he went on to rape Muriel's unconscious body, strangling her until she died.

He would then murder at least another six women - including Plymouth girl Kathleen Maloney - over the next nine years using the same techniques.

Kathleen Maloney, as a young girl, who went on to become one of six victims of John Reginald Halliday Christie

Christie liked to keep the bodies close to him in his ground-floor flat – a characteristic common to many necrophiliacs.

He buried Ruth Fuerst under the floorboards in the living room before moving her to a hole in the garden. He buried Muriel Eady next to her. Police made the grim discovery of three more of his victims in a concealed alcove behind a cupboard in the kitchen.

Rita Nelson, his sixth known victim, was murdered in 1953. He gassed and then strangled her while she was tied to a kitchen chair before he headed off to bed. The next morning he went to the kitchen and enjoyed a cup of tea with the corpse of 24-year-old Rita still in the chair. Only after finishing his mug of tea did Christie hide the body in the alcove.

Despite being a loner at school, the young Christie excelled at maths and had an IQ of 128 – a score which put him in the smartest five percent of the nation. Christie was also a choir boy and a King’s Scout, the highest rank in the boy scouts.

Serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie

Psychologist theorised that Christie formed a hatred and dread of women after being ridiculed during his teenage years about his sexual inadequacies. He later claimed: "All my life I’ve had this fear of appearing ridiculous as a lover."

Just after the First World War, Christie married 21-year-old Ethel Simpson with the two of them living in Sheffield for the first part of their marriage.

It was claimed she teased him about his attacks of impotence and neighbours gossiped about her only staying with him out of fear. During their marriage Christie was convicted of several crimes including stealing from the post office where he worked, obtaining money on false pretences, violent conduct, larceny and assaulting a prostitute. In a preclude to his later attacks on prostitutes, the court heard how Christie had hit the woman over the head with a cricket bat, which the magistrates described as a "murderous attack".

He was also convicted of stealing a car from a priest who had befriended him. After being released from prison he reconciled with Ethel in late 1933 but the relationship soon suffered difficulties when Ethel suffered a miscarriage.

Four years after reconciling, Christie and his wife moved into the ground floor apartment of 10 Rillington Place in the Ladbroke Grove neighbourhood of Notting Hill.

John Christie

Christie continued to seek out prostitutes to relieve his increasingly violent sexual urges. He also had several affairs, including one with a woman at the police station that he worked at – as a result Christie was soundly beaten after her husband found out.

Astonishingly, Ethel backed up Christie's lies about the killings, which led to police pointing the finger of suspicion at another man.

Christie had killed fellow Rillington Place tenant Beryl Evans and her 13-month-old daughter Geraldine. He then framed Beryl’s husband, Timothy Evans, for the murder. Timothy had an IQ of around 70 and was easily manipulated, falsely confessing to his wife's murder.

Over a series of interviews he gave four different confessions, but none of them correctly stated where the bodies were buried.

Christie’s flat and garden were searched, but mistakes were made by the police - not only did they not find any bodies, they failed to notice the human bones propping up his backyard fence. On a second search, the decaying bodies of Beryl and Geraldine were found in Christie’s washhouse.

Christie blamed Evans in court and, backed-up by his wife Ethel, the jury believed him.

Evans was found guilty of the murder of his wife and was hanged in 1950.

On 14 December 1953, Ethel Christie was strangled by her husband in bed for unknown reasons. John Christie buried her under the living room floorboard and there she remained.

Christie lost his job at the Post Office Savings Bank after it was learned he had failed to disclose his criminal convictions. Unemployed, he sold his dead wife’s jewellery for money. He also forged Ethel’s signature and emptied her bank accounts.

However, Christie went on a frenzy of murders in the weeks after his wife’s murder, strangling three other women - all prostitutes in their twenties whose corpses he hid in the secret alcove in his kitchen.

The back room at 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill, London, where John Christie hid one of his murder victims

In the detailed account by writer Jonathan Oates in his book 'John Christie of Rillington Place: Biography of a Serial Killer', Christie was free to be able to prepare his murder tools in the now empty property, keeping a piece of rope, doubled knotted at each end, hidden away in a tool box.

Kathleen Maloney fell into his web of evil having led a pitiful and chaotic life. She was born in King Street, Plymouth on August 19, 1926, the youngest of three daughters born to Daniel Maloney, a rag and bone man, and his wife Lillian. She was orphaned after her parents died in quick succession in 1928 and 1929.

She initially went to an aunt, Emily Oldbridge, at 110 King Street before going to a Catholic Home St Peter's at Durnford and then Nazareth House in Stonehouse where her aunt and uncle visited weekly.

Her uncle claimed Kathleen was "very wild, not in a bad way, but full of pranks".

In 1940, out of concerns for her talking to boys, she was sent to the Convent of the Good Shepherd, Saltash, where she was accused of stealing a coat. Two years later she was sent to another convent in Southampton where she was deemed "uncontrollable", being sent back to Plymouth in 1943. However, on her way back to the city she absconded at Exeter where she was said to have fallen in with some black American soldiers.

The Plymouth Probation Service took her into care in August 1944 but she kept fleeing to London and it is believed this was the beginnings of her life as a prostitute, picking up American servicemen. In January 1945 she was accused of being a vagrant at Bow Street Magistrates' court and placed on probation.

John Christie with wife Ethel

Two months later she was working as a laundry hand but broke the terms of her probation and was jailed for three months.

On her release she made friends with fellow prostitute Sylvia Sowerby and they headed to Southampton where again Kathleen racked up convictions, occasionally squatting at empty properties.

She received two jail sentences in 1946 after being arrested and deemed "likely to cause infection". Further jail sentences for prostitution and being drunk and disorderly followed, as did more offences during 1948 and 1949 which saw her handed short jail sentences for using "most foul" language, assaulting a police officer, being drunk and disorderly and prostitution.

During 1950 she was jailed for one month for being drunk and disorderly and the following year was jailed again for similar offences. In 1952 she moved to Liverpool where she again saw prison time for being drunk and disorderly. Another sojourn to Southampton resulted in more jail for drunk and disorderly.

Little changed when she went to Reading, getting fined for drunkenness and assaulting a police officer, so she headed back to Southampton.

According to Jonathon Oates' book, Kathleen drank a lot, saying to a policeman: "It's a free country, I can do what I like". At one court she told magistrates: "I am happy go lucky and have had a few drinks". To another she said: "I had been under treatment for drink in Holloway [prison], but I could not help it."

Between 1945 and 1951 Kathleen continued to live in Southampton with Sylvia Sowerby, who was herself often in trouble for being drunk and disorderly.

General view of Rillington Place in west London where at Number 10 the bodies of four women were found

Oates' book notes how Sylvia recalled: "Kathleen was never very particular as to the type of men she met. I have known her to go with Lascars [a sailor from India or South East Asia] and other seafaring types. She also associated with the Irish navvy type".

Kathleen worked as a cleaner and a laundress and at this time was described as 5ft 2ins, sporting dyed blonde hair with dirty streaks, a plump face and brown eyes. She also had five children between 1946 and 1950, one of whom was adopted while the rest where placed in a children's home.

Oates' book on Christie stated: "In September 1952 Kathleen hitchhiked to London because she was 'fed up because the police were always chasing her'".

Her few relatives turned their backs on her, ignoring her letters when she asked to stay with them, while others revealed they never heard from her again after she left Holloway prison.

One friend remarked how when she knew Kathleen in London she would see her in pubs, sometimes with American soldiers, before she was barred from the venues.

A general view of Rillington Place where police found the body of Plymouth woman Kathleen Maloney

Another former friend, Catherine Struthers, who she met in March 1952, noted how Kathleen had "no place to live and went home with any man she could find". The pair would go soliciting together and suffer yet more fines from the magistrates when caught. At one stage Kathleen was so desperate she was found sleeping in public toilets in Edgeware Road.

Around this time Kathleen encountered the widower Christie who felt sorry for her. He promised her she could have some of his late wife's clothes. She told the attendant of the Edgeware Road toilet she had been to Christie's home to collect the outfits but had been thrown out by his landlord. She also told a postman in a London pub that she'd finally met a man who had offered her accommodation in Ladbroke Grove, presumably Christie.

Another friend of Kathleen's, Maureen Briggs, revealed how they had first met Christie in a pub. Maureen noted how the man at the bar had a raincoat over his arm. Aged around 50, he was of medium height, not very big build and had a big nose. Along with his horn-rimmed glasses he had "thinning lips and he was sort of licking his lips when he was talking".

She revealed how Christie asked if she wanted to make some money being photographed in the nude, but despite agreeing, no photo sessions took place. They saw each other the following month and then in December 1952 the pair saw him again in another pub. This time they agreed to go to a street off Marylebone Road and to a one room studio.

John Reginald Halliday Christie in a police car

Maureen said: "I was naked. Kay sat on a chair and watched. He took about six of me posing in various positions in the nude".

Christie then took his own clothes off and made Kathleen take photographs of him and Maureen naked together. He later gave them a pound each. The following month, they saw him and asked him to take more photos for cash but he turned them down.

A few weeks after Christmas Kathleen and Maureen saw Christie in another pub. According to Maureen, Christie bought them two drinks. Kathleen asked him for more money for drinks but instead Christie and Kathleen left the pub together.

Kathleen had told another drinker she had nowhere to sleep that night but a man she'd met in a cafe was going to help her. She also admitted she had drunk the equivalent of eight pints of beer that night.

Christie later put forward another version of events, saying he was propositioned by Kathleen on the street.

He claimed: "I walked away, but she followed and pushed into my house. I asked her to leave but she went into the kitchen and began to undress. 'Alright,' I thought, 'if ever a woman deserved to die, you do'".

Christie's unpublished notes revealed that in the struggle Kathleen lent forward and he grabbed ahold of her jumper at the back, holding it tight as she fell forward. He said that in his attempt to save her from hitting her head "apparently I caused her death at the same time... In her drunken state she, no doubt, became unconscious quickly indeed."

A plan of the ground floor and garden of 10 Rillington Place in London, showing the location of the bodies of murder victims Ethel Christie, Hectorina Maclennan, Kathleen Maloney, Rita Nelson, Beryl Evans and her daughter Geraldine, Muriel Eady and Ruth Fuerst

However, in truth, he carried out a perverted act. He gassed her first before having sex with her unconscious body, then he strangled her to death. Some reports suggest that the next morning Christie had a cup of tea with Kathleen’s corpse opposite him at the table. Then, he diapered her and shoved her corpse into the alcove in the kitchen and then wallpapered over.

He later claimed "it was little Kathy I felt sorry for. She was a sweet kid... I felt sorry for her."

Sadly, because no-one ever reported Kathleen Maloney as missing, there was no investigation into her disappearance.

By 1953 Christie had run out of money and moved away from Rillington Place after fraudulently sub-letting his flat to a couple. The landlord quickly noticed this, threw out the couple and allowed the tenant upstairs, Beresford Brown, to use Christie’s kitchen while the downstairs flat was empty.

Beresford Brown, who discovered Christie's stash of victims

While putting up a shelf for his radio, Brown discovered a hollow wall. He then pulled back the wallpaper to find the secret alcove with the bodies inside. The police were immediately notified and they searched the entire apartment for other bodies. Three bodies were in the wall, one in the floorboards, and two in the garden.

After the police were alerted there was a city-wide manhunt for Christie. Ten days later, on March 30, 1953, Christie was found by a police officer under Putney Bridge in London.

Daily Mirror front page - John Christie was arrested after being spotted by police constable Thomas Ledger

Christie confessed to all the killings, including the murder of Beryl Evans. However, he was only put on trial for the murder of his wife Ethel.

His trial began on June 22, 1953, in the same court in which Timothy Evans had been tried three years earlier. Christie pleaded insanity, but psychiatrists acting on behalf of the prosecution revealed him to be a liar and a murderer, stating that Christie was not a hysteric or defected in any way.

The jury rejected the insanity plea and found him guilty of murder. He did not appeal against his conviction and on July 15, 1953 he was hanged at Pentonville Prison. His executioner was Albert Pierrepoint, who had previously hanged the innocent Timothy Evans.

Timothy Evans arriving at Paddington with two detectives. He was later hanged but posthumously pardoned following Christie's execution

After being prepared for his hanging, Christie complained that his nose itched. Pierrepoint is supposed to have assured him that "It won't bother you for long".

In 1966, after two official inquiries, Timothy Evans received a royal pardon. In 2003, his sister and half-sister received compensation for the miscarriage of justice. However, in 2004 the Court of Appeal refused to consider overturning the conviction due to the costs and resources that would be involved

The execution of Timothy Evans went on to play a large part in the abolition of capital punishment in Britain in 1965.


Get in touch using, call 01752 293119 or tweet @CarlEveCrime

Want to read more?


