John Christie: The Bad Neighbour/Sex Strangler of Notting Hill

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[00:02:43] Hey everyone, my name is Nikki Young and this is Serial Mapper, the number one true crime podcast for Naps.

[00:02:48] I'm back with another true crime story to share with you today.

[00:02:53] And I'm going to be sharing a story that I've been working on for a while now.

[00:02:58] It's called The Truth of True Crime.

[00:03:03] It's a story about a man who is a victim of a crime.

[00:03:08] I'm back with another true crime story to lull you to sleep or perhaps to give you nightmares.

[00:03:13] If you're listening to the podcast for the very first time, or you haven't had a chance to listen to the episode just before this one,

[00:03:18] the Timothy Evans case, stop here and go back and listen to that one first.

[00:03:23] These two stories are very much connected and I highly recommend starting with Timothy's case before you hear John's.

[00:03:28] John Christie was a World War I veteran, and he was a great actor.

[00:03:33] He was a veteran who lived with his wife Ethel in the bottom floor flat of 10 Rillington Place,

[00:03:38] a low-income apartment building in London's Notting Hill District.

[00:03:43] In the 50s, there was a media storm when one of the tenants living in the same building as John,

[00:03:48] a man named Timothy Evans, was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and baby daughter despite claiming innocence.

[00:03:53] John and his wife were both killed in the same building.

[00:03:58] John and his wife were star witnesses in that trial,

[00:04:03] testifying that their upstairs neighbor, Timothy, and his wife argued constantly,

[00:04:08] and the night before her murder, they had heard a loud thud in the night.

[00:04:13] Timothy was hanged for his crime, and life went back to normal for John and Ethel Christie.

[00:04:18] That is, until another tenant of 10 Rillington Place made a horrifying,

[00:04:23] discovery. The bodies of six women hidden in the walls, floors, and garden of the apartment building.

[00:04:28] One of the bodies found was Ethel Christie, John's wife,

[00:04:33] leading the police to believe that John Christie had murdered her along with the other women hidden in his flat.

[00:04:38] This war veteran was a serial killer,

[00:04:43] and what he did to his wife was to kill her.

[00:04:48] With this shocking revelation,

[00:04:53] many wondered if John Christie had also killed Timothy Evans' wife and baby just a few years prior,

[00:04:58] meaning they had hanged an innocent man, a grieving husband and father.

[00:05:03] John Christie would be dubbed the sex strangler of Notting Hill,

[00:05:08] but had he also framed Timothy for murder?

[00:05:13] Before he was a prolific serial killer with dark, menacing eyes,

[00:05:18] John Reginald Christie was born on April 8, 1899 in Yorkshire, England

[00:05:23] to a large middle-class family of seven children.

[00:05:28] Known to his close friends and family as Reg,

[00:05:33] he had a difficult and confusing upbringing.

[00:05:39] His mother, who he described as a wonderful woman, coddled him.

[00:05:44] It was well known that John was her favorite child,

[00:05:49] and she sheltered him away from the world from a very young age.

[00:05:54] His father, on the other hand, was strict, making the children march in line like little soldiers.

[00:05:59] He was also physically abusive and subjected him and his siblings to beatings.

[00:06:04] This left John feeling really confused, with one parent smothering him with love and affection,

[00:06:09] while the other was angry and physically abused him.

[00:06:14] As such, John was said to be a high-strung hypochondriac who knew how to fake being ill or injured in order to get attention.

[00:06:19] If he was feeling particularly lonely,

[00:06:24] he'd pretend to be really sick or to hurt himself so that his mother and his sisters would dote on him.

[00:06:29] It's said that John also hated dirt and the feeling of being unclean,

[00:06:34] despite his obsession with gardening.

[00:06:39] Gardening seemed to be his only solace, an activity that he had learned from his father.

[00:06:44] While John was described as incredibly smart for his age with a high IQ,

[00:06:49] he was equally as socially awkward.

[00:06:54] He had low confidence and basically no friends, though not for lack of trying.

[00:06:59] At school he'd join in on sports, at church he sang in the choir.

[00:07:04] He went through the motions, doing the things that he believed he was supposed to be doing,

[00:07:09] but internally he was struggling to figure out just who he was.

[00:07:14] There was one incident in particular that happened when he was 8 years old that cost him a lot of internal turmoil.

[00:07:20] His grandfather died and he had the opportunity to see him lying in the casket during the wake.

[00:07:25] In the past, his grandfather was a person who scared him,

[00:07:30] intimidated him, but now he was just a lifeless corpse.

[00:07:35] John would say that this single experience was life-changing for him,

[00:07:40] as it sparked a lifelong fascination with the dead.

[00:07:45] He would spend his entire life in the casket,

[00:07:48] even trying to get a peek of the body inside the casket.

[00:07:53] Looking at corpses was one of the only things that exhilarated him.

[00:07:58] Sexually, he was stunted.

[00:08:03] He was late to the game, as his low self-esteem kept him from dating,

[00:08:08] and his parents never explained the birds and the bees.

[00:08:13] During those rare occasions when he did find himself with a girl,

[00:08:18] he couldn't get aroused.

[00:08:23] He was impotent, earning himself nicknames from the other boys like

[00:08:28] No Dick Reggie and Can't Do It Christy, and this made him hate women.

[00:08:33] The issue wasn't that he couldn't get it up at all.

[00:08:38] He was a very independent man.

[00:08:43] He was very independent, so he began to spy on women who had no idea

[00:08:48] that they were being watched.

[00:08:52] He visited sex workers who would play into his fantasies.

[00:08:56] Later in life, he admitted,

[00:09:00] movie theater as a projectionist. When World War I broke out, he enlisted with the British

[00:09:05] Army as a signalman, even though he was just 17 years old at the time. He joined the 52nd

[00:09:12] Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment. Despite the grueling conditions, he seemed

[00:09:18] to thrive in the military, starting the war as a private and then getting promoted

[00:09:23] three times during his service. Towards the end of the war, he was injured during

[00:09:28] a mustard gas attack and he was sent to the infirmary. John would claim his injuries were

[00:09:34] so extensive that he was now blind, and for three years, he hid away from the world, claiming that

[00:09:41] he couldn't speak. That is if you believe his word because John was known to embellish

[00:09:47] for attention. In actuality, doctors believed his symptoms to be hysteria. There weren't any

[00:09:54] reports to confirm these injuries and he was discharged from the army as fit for duty.

[00:10:00] After leaving the military, he worked as a clerk for some time, and then he met and married his

[00:10:05] wife, Ethel, in May of 1920. Ethel's friends would say that she was fearful of her new husband

[00:10:12] and basically just went along with whatever he wanted. And truly, looking at photos of John

[00:10:18] Christie, I can kind of understand why. I don't know what it is, but there's something about

[00:10:23] the eyes of men like John Christie. They're the same kind of dead, soulless eyes that we see on

[00:10:30] many other serial killers. They look evil, unhinged, soulless and unstoppable. John would

[00:10:38] pretend theirs was a happy marriage, but he continued to visit sex workers the entire time,

[00:10:44] unable to perform in bed with his wife. Again, this made him angry and hateful. He started to

[00:10:52] become more violent at home, causing the couple to separate after only four years of marriage.

[00:10:58] Ethel remained in their marital home located in Sheffield while John moved to London where

[00:11:04] he began a life of petty crime. He started with small crimes like theft when he stole a

[00:11:10] bike from a 12-year-old child. But as time passed, his crimes grew more serious.

[00:11:17] On one occasion, he moved into an apartment with a young mother and her son.

[00:11:22] This living arrangement didn't last long. During an argument about John's refusal to get

[00:11:27] a job, John took a cricket bat to the back of her head, seriously injuring her. For this,

[00:11:34] he was given a six-month prison sentence. But over the next decade, John would spend his time

[00:11:40] in and out of jail for crimes like larceny and assault. He must have had some kind of epiphany

[00:11:47] during his last stint in prison because he decided to reach back out to his wife Ethel

[00:11:52] to try to reconcile and save their marriage. Ethel was still living in their home back in

[00:11:58] Sheffield, but she had been having a four-year affair with a man that she worked with.

[00:12:04] This man had no idea that Ethel was married. She told him that her husband died in the

[00:12:09] war during a mustard gas attack. She loved this man she was having an affair with, much more than

[00:12:16] she had ever loved her husband John. But when he found out that she couldn't bear children,

[00:12:21] he broke things off with her, leaving her in a predicament. So when John tried to make his

[00:12:28] way back into her life, she allowed it. John was released from prison and he and Ethel decided to

[00:12:35] have a fresh start, moving into a new ground floor flat at 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill.

[00:12:42] As I mentioned in Timothy's episode, Notting Hill Today, the version that you see in movies,

[00:12:47] is absolutely lovely, but it's not at all how it was back then. Back then, it was an area

[00:12:55] that had been brutalized by bomb raids during the war, and it was now home to many low-income

[00:13:00] families stacked one on top of the other. It was while living here that World War II broke out,

[00:13:07] and John Christie decided to do his part by joining the War Reserve Police, despite the

[00:13:13] fact that he had a criminal history which I guess they just ignored. The War Reserve Police

[00:13:18] were responsible for things like finding draft deserters and punishing them, helping those

[00:13:23] injured during bomb raids, and enforcing wartime curfews. In his role, he didn't deploy overseas,

[00:13:31] he stayed on the home front. During the day, he played his role as law enforcement,

[00:13:37] and then during the night, while Ethel was away visiting family members,

[00:13:41] he would bring in various sex workers back to his apartment to help carry out his fantasies.

[00:13:47] He wanted someone who would basically play dead, who was rendered helpless or at least

[00:13:52] pretended to be. It was also during this time that he met a woman at the police station

[00:13:58] who he seemingly fell in love with and began a four-year long relationship with.

[00:14:04] Her husband was deployed to the war front, allowing John to have complete access to this

[00:14:10] girl whenever he wanted. John's wife Ethel certainly wasn't going to stand in the way,

[00:14:15] she was the kind of woman who stood by her man just at a principal alone, out of duty,

[00:14:20] though she was probably thankful that her angry, violent husband was spending most of his time

[00:14:26] outside of the home. When this woman's husband came home from the war and discovered his wife

[00:14:32] was now sleeping with John Christie, he beat the crap out of John. And this seems to be

[00:14:37] when something inside of John truly broke. It's believed that John Christie kills his

[00:14:43] first known victim in 1944. My family is getting ready to make a big move across the ocean to a

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[00:18:17] Ruth first was a young Australian munitions worker. The job didn't pay much, so it's alleged

[00:18:24] that she had supplemented her income by doing sex work part time on the side. John Christie

[00:18:30] met Ruth in a bar one day, and he was taken by her. Just fascinated by her. She was a beautiful

[00:18:38] 21 year old girl, tall with brown hair and big brown eyes. John's wife, Ethel, would often

[00:18:45] leave town to visit family. And this is when John would invite Ruth over to 10 Rillington

[00:18:50] Place to exchange sex for money. During one of these encounters, John received a telegram

[00:18:57] that said that Ethel was on her way home early with her brother. According to John, Ruth undressed

[00:19:04] and basically told him to hurry up and get it over with. While they were doing the deed,

[00:19:09] John decided to strangle her to death. Then he hid her body along with all of her clothes

[00:19:16] and her belongings under the floorboards of his flat. Ethel arrived home with her brother

[00:19:22] shortly after, none the wiser of what had just happened in her apartment.

[00:19:27] When Ruth's body began to decompose and smell, John moved her to the overgrown garden

[00:19:33] located at the back of his apartment building. The following day, he dug up Ruth's clothing

[00:19:39] and decided to burn it to get rid of the evidence. Over time, some of her bones would

[00:19:45] become unearthed, including her skull. So he pulled it up and decided to burn it too.

[00:19:52] He found this experience exhilarating. And after killing Ruth, he also found he

[00:19:58] wasn't able to become aroused by a woman unless she was helpless. Shortly after Ruth's

[00:20:05] murder, John decided to quit his job as a police officer and become a clerk at a radio

[00:20:09] factory. He meets a colleague by the name of Muriel Amelia Ede. One day, Muriel comes into

[00:20:17] work sick, suffering from a bad case of bronchitis. John says he has a cure for her,

[00:20:23] a homemade remedy that he can make her if she comes with him back to his apartment flat.

[00:20:29] She does, and as it turns out, this homemade remedy is actually a mixture of household gas

[00:20:36] containing carbon monoxide. Muriel is knocked unconscious and John begins to sexually assault

[00:20:43] her while he strangles her to death. He buries her body right next to Ruth in the overgrown

[00:20:49] garden located in the backyard. Supposedly all the while, John's wife Ethel is completely

[00:20:56] unaware of her husband's secret. And that brings us to 1948 when the Evans family moved

[00:21:03] into the top floor flat of 10 Rillington Place. They were a young couple, Timothy and his wife,

[00:21:10] Barrel, and they had a little baby girl named Geraldine shortly after they moved into the

[00:21:15] building. Before their first child had her first birthday, Barrel discovered that she was pregnant

[00:21:22] again. This put a lot of strain on the couple who started arguing over whether or not they

[00:21:28] could afford to keep this child. John Christie overheard one of these arguments and allegedly,

[00:21:34] he offered them a solution. Now again, if you haven't listened to Timothy Evans' story on my

[00:21:40] podcast, make sure you pause here, go back and listen to that one first. John tells Timothy

[00:21:46] and Barrel that he has the knowledge and training to help terminate her pregnancy,

[00:21:51] secretly of course, because at that time, abortions were illegal. He says that he was

[00:21:57] medically trained in the war, and he shows off a medical textbook that he has in his apartment

[00:22:02] as proof. Timothy absolutely doesn't want to, but Barrel is determined to end her pregnancy.

[00:22:09] In the end, it's agreed that the following day while Timothy is at work, John Christie will

[00:22:14] perform the abortion on Barrel. Instead, the next day, John goes up to Barrel's apartment

[00:22:21] and gives her his special gas, which is actually carbon monoxide. Once Barrel is passed out,

[00:22:29] he doesn't perform any kind of surgery on her. Instead, he strangles her to death while he

[00:22:36] sexually assaults her, just as he had done with the previous two victims. Later that day,

[00:22:41] when Timothy arrives home from work, John tells him that the abortion has failed and his wife

[00:22:47] has died. He tells them, don't worry, I'll take care of the body so that no one gets in any kind

[00:22:53] of trouble because again, abortions were illegal at the time. John instructs Timothy to sell off

[00:22:59] all of his belongings and get out of town. He'll give baby Geraldine to a family who will

[00:23:05] look after her. Timothy is a very simple man and he buys whatever story John is giving him.

[00:23:12] So Timothy sells everything he owns and he leaves town, never seeing his wife or his baby girl again.

[00:23:19] Only a few weeks later, Timothy walks into a police station full of guilt and regret

[00:23:26] and tells them that he has disposed of his wife after she died from a failed abortion.

[00:23:31] He doesn't mention John Christie's name at this time, instead saying that a man at a cafe

[00:23:37] had given him pills to induce a miscarriage, resulting in his wife's death after she had taken

[00:23:43] them. Timothy tells them that he dumped his wife's body down a sewer drain, but when the police

[00:23:49] go to look for Beryl's body down the drain, they can't find it. In fact, they determined

[00:23:56] it would have been impossible for Timothy to remove the manhole cover of the sewer by himself

[00:24:01] because it was far too heavy. It had actually taken them three men to move this manhole cover.

[00:24:06] This is when Timothy tells the police all about John Christie and that botched abortion.

[00:24:12] The police perform another search, this time an extensive search of 10 Rillington Place.

[00:24:19] The building didn't have electricity or indoor plumbing. Instead, it had a wash house in the

[00:24:25] backyard right alongside that overgrown garden. When investigators search the wash house,

[00:24:32] they find the bodies of both Beryl and baby Geraldine wrapped in a green cloth.

[00:24:38] Beryl's body showed signs that she had been sexually assaulted.

[00:24:42] At the time, police had no idea that just a few feet away laid the bodies of two of John

[00:24:49] Christie's other victims buried in the garden. John had made it so glaringly obvious,

[00:24:55] even using one of the victim's femur bones to prop up a trellis. But thanks to shoddy

[00:25:02] police work, they didn't even notice. Back at the station, the authorities weren't buying

[00:25:07] Timothy's accusations of John's botched abortion. They believe that Timothy Evans no longer wanted

[00:25:13] his family because it was just such a huge financial strain, so he decided to kill his

[00:25:19] wife and his baby. When the police speak to John Christie, he tells them that the last time

[00:25:25] he saw Beryl Evans was on November 8th, around noon, as she left to run errands with her little

[00:25:31] baby girl. He claimed to have overheard a loud argument between Timothy and Beryl Evans about

[00:25:37] this unwanted pregnancy and the plan to take the abortion's pills, but he intervened. He

[00:25:42] tried warning the couple that these pills were dangerous and she shouldn't take them. According

[00:25:47] to John, Beryl looked absolutely terrified of her husband at that time. Later that evening,

[00:25:53] John and Ethel said they were trying to sleep when suddenly they heard a loud

[00:25:57] thump noise come from Timothy's apartment upstairs. Then they heard what they believed

[00:26:03] was someone dragging something heavy across the floor. When it went quiet again, they fell back

[00:26:08] to sleep, but they had not seen Beryl or the baby since then. John alleged that the next day,

[00:26:15] Timothy told them a story of how Beryl had left to see family in Bristol. Timothy would

[00:26:21] sell off all of his belongings and move out of 10 Rillington Place just a short while later,

[00:26:27] allegedly telling John that he was joining his wife. The police believed John Christie's story

[00:26:33] despite Timothy's claims that John was the real killer. John and Ethel would become the star

[00:26:39] witnesses during Timothy's murder trial. Now can you imagine the frustration of having this

[00:26:44] man who you know killed your wife testify on the stand that it was actually you who did it?

[00:26:50] Thanks in part to John Christie's testimony, Timothy was convicted of murder and sentenced

[00:26:56] to hang in 1950. John and Ethel returned to live in the ground floor unit of 10 Rillington

[00:27:02] Place. However, Ethel's health began to deteriorate. She was really anxious and depressed

[00:27:08] about the horrible murder that she believed her upstairs neighbor, Timothy, had committed,

[00:27:14] according to John at least. She stopped leaving the house, not even bothering to

[00:27:18] visit with her family in Sheffield as she had done often. This made it difficult for

[00:27:23] John to continue to bring sex workers back to his home, so he decided he had to get rid of

[00:27:30] Ethel. In December 1952, he murdered his wife in their bed by strangling her with a

[00:27:36] stalking before placing her body under the floorboards in their apartment. He wrote to

[00:27:42] her family members telling them that Ethel was too sick to right herself and she was trying

[00:27:47] to feel better by taking some vacations away out of town. With his wife now out of the way,

[00:27:54] John was free to continue his murder spree. He had his routine down pat and within the span

[00:28:01] of just three months, he killed his last three victims, Rita Nelson, Kathleen Maloney,

[00:28:08] and Hectorina McLennan. Rita Nelson had been pregnant and wanting to terminate her pregnancy,

[00:28:14] so just like he had done with Barrel, John offered to perform a secret abortion to help her out.

[00:28:20] But instead, he gassed her, he strangled her, and he sexually assaulted her as she died.

[00:28:28] Kathleen Maloney was a sex worker, making her a victim of opportunity. Hectorina McLennan

[00:28:34] had chatted with John about subletting his apartment with her boyfriend, but she found

[00:28:39] herself as his final victim. Just as he had done with the others, he gassed them with carbon

[00:28:46] monoxide, strangled them to death while he sexually assaulted them. Then he hid the bodies in the

[00:28:52] kitchen pantry, which he papered over. John Christie then found a couple to pay him a few

[00:28:58] bucks to illegally sublet his apartment and then he took off out of town. His landlord found

[00:29:05] the new tenants in John's apartment and he kicked them out because he had no idea who they were

[00:29:09] or where John was or why they were in his apartment. No one knew where John Christie

[00:29:14] had taken off to, but just a short while later, the reason why he had left would be revealed.

[00:29:21] The landlord of the building allowed the tenants who lived above John's apartment

[00:29:25] to use his kitchen. And while they were in the kitchen, they decided to install a shelf.

[00:29:31] But they found a small elcove in the pantry that had been sealed up with paper and tape.

[00:29:38] They thought this was odd, so they began to peel back the paper, revealing that three bodies

[00:29:44] had been hidden away. They were the bodies of John's three latest victims. One of the women

[00:29:50] described as a brunette around the age of 20 appeared to have been dead for around four weeks.

[00:29:56] She had been gassed with carbon monoxide before being strangled with a smooth surface kind of

[00:30:02] cord. Then she was sexually assaulted while she died. There were also large scratch marks on her

[00:30:08] back, indicating that after she was killed, she was dragged across the floor towards the

[00:30:13] kitchen pantry. Another victim, a young woman around age 25 with light brown hair, appeared

[00:30:20] to have been dead between 8-12 weeks. She again showed signs of being gassed and then strangled.

[00:30:28] She had also been heavily intoxicated at the time of her death, and she was sexually assaulted.

[00:30:34] This young lady was wearing a cardigan and a vest with another white garment that had been

[00:30:39] placed between her legs, sort of like a diaper. The third victim was a blonde woman around the

[00:30:46] age of 25. She had been dead for 8-12 weeks by the time she was found, and she was around

[00:30:53] six months pregnant at the time she was killed. When she was discovered, she was wearing a dress,

[00:30:59] petticoat, bra, cardigan, two vests, and then again she had a garment placed between her legs,

[00:31:05] like a diaper. John Christie had his killings down to a science, an absolute ritual.

[00:31:13] When investigators noticed some of the floorboards were loose in the front room,

[00:31:17] they decided to take a closer look. And as they pulled up the boards, they found yet another body,

[00:31:24] John's wife, Ethel Christie. She was rolled up in a flannel blanket with a pillowcase

[00:31:31] over her head. It appeared that John had killed her at some point during the night when they

[00:31:35] were sleeping, as she was still dressed in her silk nightgown. She had been strangled,

[00:31:41] but unlike the others, she hadn't been poisoned with carbon monoxide and she had not been sexually

[00:31:47] assaulted. As they carefully tore apart every corner of 10 Rillington Place looking for

[00:31:53] more bodies, they noticed a femur sticking out of the garden in the backyard. When they dug

[00:31:59] it up, they found two more female bodies scattered below flower beds and bushes.

[00:32:05] Both bodies had been there for a minimum of three years, but they may have been there

[00:32:11] as many as ten. They would also find teeth, hair, and fabric in the garden,

[00:32:16] and they would need to try to reconstruct the bodies to confirm their ID.

[00:32:21] Later, they would be identified as 21-year-old Ruth Margaret and 32-year-old Muriel Amelia

[00:32:27] Eady. Now they had to track down the killer, and the police knew exactly who they were looking

[00:32:34] for- John Christie. The authorities were very familiar with John as he had been a key witness

[00:32:41] in Timothy's murder trial just three years prior. John Christie was now completely broke,

[00:32:48] having already drained his dead wife's bank account, and now he was on the run from the

[00:32:53] police. He was also homeless and spending most of his nights sleeping on park benches.

[00:32:59] When he saw his photo on the cover of every newspaper in the area,

[00:33:04] he tried to change up his appearance just a bit by wearing hats over his balding head.

[00:33:10] Unfortunately for John, having been a big part of Timothy Evans' trial,

[00:33:14] he was very recognizable, especially to the police. And one day, shortly after the bodies

[00:33:21] had been found, he was spotted by a police officer. Initially, he tried giving them a fake

[00:33:26] name when he stopped, but they know it's him and he's arrested. On his person,

[00:33:31] he's carrying an ID card which confirms his name- John Christie. He's got a ration book

[00:33:37] and an old newspaper clipping about Timothy Evans' case. How bizarre. John Christie would only be

[00:33:43] charged with the murder of his wife, Ethel Christie. And again, I have no idea why, but

[00:33:49] this was the way that British law was set up back then. He claimed that he had woken up in

[00:33:55] the middle of the night to find his wife blue in the face lying beside him. He looked at their

[00:34:01] side table to see an open pill bottle that was now nearly empty, and he realized that Ethel had

[00:34:07] tried to take her own life. John said he couldn't stand to see her suffering, so he

[00:34:13] grabbed one of her stockings and he strangled her to death. He left her body laying in their

[00:34:18] bed for a few days trying to figure out what to do, and then he came up with this brilliant idea

[00:34:23] to place her under the floorboards in the front room. John would admit to killing all seven women,

[00:34:30] including Beryl Evans, who was initially believed to have been killed by her husband.

[00:34:35] In all cases, he downplayed his actions and he mostly blamed the women for their own deaths.

[00:34:42] With Kathleen Maloney, he claimed that she was blackmailing him,

[00:34:46] saying that if he didn't pay her 30 shillings, she would accuse him of assaulting her. John said

[00:34:53] she had even followed him back to his house, screaming profanities at him, and then grabbing

[00:34:58] a frying pan in an attempt to hit him, so he had to act. He said he blacked out,

[00:35:05] and when he had woken up, he had strangled her to death. He went back to bed and thought

[00:35:11] about it for a bit, then he decided to wrap her up and put her in the kitchen alcove the following

[00:35:17] day. His excuses for the other victims were just as ridiculous, and they often involved them

[00:35:24] falling into ropes that just so happened to strangle them to death. He didn't really take

[00:35:29] any accountability. He admitted to being involved in their death, but he always made it seem like

[00:35:34] it was their fault. He was just doing the right thing, being a good guy. With Beryl Evans,

[00:35:40] Timothy's wife, he claimed it was a mercy killing. She had tried to kill herself because she

[00:35:45] couldn't stand to be pregnant, but she couldn't go through with it, so John said he gassed her

[00:35:52] and then he strangled her to death. He didn't address the fact that Beryl had also been

[00:35:57] sexually assaulted. John, however, would never admit to killing baby Geraldine Evans.

[00:36:03] Because Geraldine was found wrapped up in the same cloth right beside her mother Beryl,

[00:36:09] most people believed that he probably did kill the baby too because how likely is it that there

[00:36:15] were two killers living at 10 Rillington Place who hid bodies in the same place? John admitted his

[00:36:22] guilt, but he also pleaded insanity. The jury wasn't buying his story. He was found guilty and

[00:36:29] he was sentenced to hang. In fact, John Christie would be hanged by the very same executioner

[00:36:35] who had hanged Timothy Evans. Now there are people who believe that there were two killers

[00:36:41] living at 10 Rillington Place at the same time. John Christie, who had killed his wife and then

[00:36:46] gassed and strangled and sexually assaulted several other women in a short period of time,

[00:36:51] and Timothy Evans, who was hanged for killing his pregnant wife and baby daughter.

[00:36:58] But there are also those who believe Timothy Evans was innocent, that he was just a

[00:37:03] simpleton and he was the perfect setup guy for John Christie when the police were getting a little

[00:37:09] too close to finding out who he truly was and what he was hiding in the walls, the floorboards,

[00:37:16] and the garden. The dilapidated broken brick buildings of Notting Hill have since been torn

[00:37:22] down and they've been rebuilt into beautiful new homes. However, there is a gap left where 10

[00:37:29] Rillington Place used to stand and considering the history, it's probably for the best.

[00:37:36] Unfortunately, there appears to be more questions than answers in this story

[00:37:40] and it's likely that it will never be completely resolved.

[00:37:44] Still, I'd love to hear what you think so make sure you let me know in the comments.

[00:37:48] That's it for me tonight. If you want to reach out, you can find me on Facebook at

[00:37:53] Serialnapper. I also have a Serialnapper True Crime Discussion Group on Facebook.

[00:37:58] It's called Serial Society and I'll have the link in my shoutouts. I love to chat with you about

[00:38:03] this case and all of the other cases that I cover, plus whatever is going on in true crime.

[00:38:07] You can find my audio on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. I post all of

[00:38:14] my episodes and video format over on YouTube so go check it out. And if you're watching

[00:38:18] on YouTube, I would love if you can give me a thumbs up and subscribe. I'm over on X,

[00:38:23] formerly known as Twitter, at Serial underscore napper and I post things on TikTok. Serialnapper

[00:38:28] Nick and that's all one word. Until next time, sweet dreams, stay kind, especially in the

[00:38:35] comments. Bye.

[00:38:53] I'm Pitney. And I'm Amelia. And we're from Pitney and Amelia's Bitchin Boutique. Who were we?

[00:39:06] Why, we're your new best friends of course. Pull up a seat and listen in to what we think

[00:39:11] about people, places, and things. Geeky stuff, horror movies, weirdos we know, spirituality,

[00:39:19] sexuality, food, filth. It's like eavesdropping on the people at the next table for like an hour

[00:39:26] or so and wishing you could join in on their conversation. Also do you see who just came in?

[00:39:31] Look at that hair. Oh honey, just no. Bitchiness, you're soaking in it. We soften your hands while

[00:39:41] you do the dishes. Pitney and Amelia's Bitchin Boutique. We're here. We're queer. And we're

[00:39:49] in your ear. Every other Friday, where all the classiest podcasts are found.

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