John Christie (murderer) John Christie (murderer) John Reginald Halliday Christie (8 April 1899 – 15 July 1953), known to his family and friends as Reg Christie, was an English serial killer and necrophile active during the 1940s and early 1950s. He murdered at least eight people – including his wife, Ethel – by strangling them in his flat at 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill, London. Christie moved out of Rillington Place during March 1953; soon afterward the bodies of three of his victims were discovered hidden in a wallpaper-covered alcove in the kitchen. Two further bodies were discovered in the garden, and his
Serial killer The earliest usage attested of the specific term "serial killer" listed in the "Oxford English Dictionary" was from a 1960s German film article written by Siegfried Kracauer, about the German expressionist film "M" (1931), portraying a pedophilic '. In his book, "" (2004), criminal justice historian Peter Vronsky notes that while Ressler might have coined the English term "serial homicide" within law in 1974, the terms "serial murder" and "serial murderer" appear in John Brophy's book "The Meaning of Murder" (1966). The Washington DC newspaper "Evening Star", in a 1967 review of the book: This use of ""serial" killer" to