The police made several mistakes in their handling of the case, especially in overlooking the remains of Christie's previous murder victims in the garden at Rillington Place; one femur was later found propping up a fence. The garden of the property was very small, about , and the fence was parallel to the wash-house where the bodies of Beryl and Geraldine were later found. Several searches were made at the house after Evans confessed to placing his wife's remains in the drains, but the three policemen conducting the search did not go into the wash-house. The garden was apparently examined but was not excavated at this point. Christie later admitted that his dog had unearthed Eady's skull in the garden shortly after these police searches; he threw the skull into an abandoned bombed-out house in nearby St. Marks Road. There was clearly no systematic search made of the crime scene, in which this or other human remains would have been found and pointed to Christie as the perpetrator. Several police searches of the property showed a complete lack of expertise in handling forensic evidence and were quite superficial at best. Had the searches been conducted effectively, the investigation would have exposed Christie as a murderer, and the lives of Evans and four women would have been saved.