Plan of 10 Rillington Place.
The tensions of the last two days, plus the heavy lifting, gave Christie a bad back for which he was treated. Meanwhile Evans turned up unannounced to his uncle’s, Mr Lynch, in Merthyr Vale. They were pleased to see him but asked about his family. He relaxed for a few days, returning to London on 23 November, only to be turned back by Christie. The Lynches were suitably worried and wrote to his mother in London who, in turn, telegraphed Beryl’s father in Brighton only to be told Beryl was not with him. Christie had also told them she had left on 8 November. Finally, after much heartbreak, Timothy turned himself in to Merthyr police station.
The garden at No. 10 Rillington Place.
He made two statements: the first to say he had killed his wife and put her down the drains (the London police checked, but the cover was too heavy for one): the second to explain about the abortion and that Christie had put Beryl down the drain. Christie said he would look after the baby and also told Evans to leave London.
The Notting Hill police checked the flat and the garden, finding a stolen case and a newspaper cutting about a torso murder in Evans’s flat on 1 December – these had certainly been left there by Christie to incriminate Evans. They then requested Evans be brought back to London, where they interviewed him for three hours. They also interviewed Christie.
Another check on the house and garden finally revealed the bodies of Beryl and Geraldine behind some wood in the washhouse. Evans finally confessed to the two murders in his fourth statement, much to the relief of the police. All that remained was for him to be charged with the murder of his wife and daughter, and for his trial date to be set.
Evans wasn’t helped by the prosecution using Christie as its prime witness, nor was he helped by the elderly lawyers he got on legal aid. He was also hampered by the fact that the police were not prepared to accept that the wood behind which the bodies had been found were only given to Christie on 14 November, despite being told this by the builders at several reprisals. If indeed Beryl had been ‘left’ on 8 November - that was the day she was killed. Her body and that of the baby would only have been moved on the 15th or after, when Evans was gone. The police were determined to make the charges stick no matter what the cost. None of Evans’ statements, moreover, tallied with those of the builders. Dr Teare, the Home Office pathologist, also suggested that there might have been an attempt at sexual penetration at the time of death, but this was never to be brought up in court. Finally, the defendant’s solicitor, Malcolm Morris, was only told of Christie’s previous convictions just before the trial and therefore could not use this information.
Evans’ trial began on 11 January 1950 and lasted three days. He was found guilty of the murder of his daughter, not his wife, and despite appeals was hanged at Pentonville on 9 March 1950.
The strain of the court case made Christie very ill. His weight plummeted and he was put on phenol barbitones by his accommodating doctor. The house was purchased by a Jamaican and Christie started a new job in September 1952, giving it up in December of the same year. Mrs Christie handed in her last laundry on 12 December 1952. She was never seen again, despite her relations receiving word from her in Mr Christie’s handwriting.
A local prostitute, Rita Nelson, was last seen alive on 10 January 1953, as was another, Hectorina MacLennan, on 6 March. Finally Reginald Christie sub-let his flat on 16 March to an Irish couple, the Reillys, who were turfed out by the new landlord when he came to collect the rent. The landlord then allowed the new tenant of the top-floor flat to use Christies’ kitchen. On cleaning it, the tenant discovered a papered-over alcove with the bodies of two trussed-up women, on 24 March.
This time the police took more time, finding Mrs Christie under the floorboards and two skeletons in the garden, one of which was headless. The hunt for Christie was on.
At about 9 a.m. on 31 March 1953, a policeman saw a man he recognised leaning over Putney Bridge. It was Christie! He was placed in Brixton Prison, where his obsessive neatness unnerved the other prisoners. Three doctors were to assess him. They all disliked him on sight and discovered that he always whispered when asked awkward questions, as if the loss of his voice would chase all bad things away. He made a statement to Chief Inspector Griffin, the man who had arrested Evans, confessing to the murder of seven people. He was quite candid about how much each death assuaged his blighted spirit, but never explained why he had to kill the baby.
His trial, for the murder of Mrs Christie, was held on 22 June 1953, before Justice Finnemore. The prosecution was led by Sir Lionel Heald and the defence by Derek Curtis Bennett. After a four-day trial the jury took just under an hour and a half to find him guilty and he was hanged on 15 July 1953.
It was too late for Timothy Evans. The lamb had been led to the slaughter and the police had only looked for results without bothering to look for the truth. The discovery of Christie’s murders led to serious controversy – he admitted to killing Beryl Evans, which put Evans’ guilt for the death of his own daughter in doubt.
For this reason, Evans was finally granted a posthumous pardon for the murder of his daughter in 1966, but he still remained implicated in the murder of his wife. It was only in 2003 that the independent assessor for the Home Office, Lord Brennan, accepted that Evans’ conviction and execution was a miscarriage of justice.
This episode in the life of criminal investigation in Britain called for a massive overhaul of the judicial system and was one of the cases that led to the eventual abolition of capital punishment. It also called for an investigation into police criminal procedures, namely the overhaul of the interrogation system.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS
Adam, Hargrave L., Trial of George Chapman, William Hodge and Co., 1930
Aronson, Theo, Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld, John Murray, 1994
Begg, Paul, Jack the Ripper: The Facts, Robson Books, 1988
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Borowitz, Albert, The Bermondsey Horror, Robson Books, 1989
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Carlin, Francis, Reminiscences of an Ex-Detective, Hutchinson and Co., 1925
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Downie, R. Angus, Murder in London, Arthur Barker, 1973
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Fido, Martin, Murder Guide to London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986
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Fletcher Moulton, H. (ed.), The Trial of Steinie Morrison, William Hodge and Co., 1922
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Lane, Brian, The Murder Guide to London, Magpie, 1992
Loomie, Albert, Guy Fawkes in Spain, University of London, 1971
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Parmiter, Geoffrey de C., Reasonable Doubt, Arthur Barker Ltd, 1938
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Tennyson, Jesse, F., The Trials of Timothy John Evans and John Reginald Halliday Christie, William Hodge and Co., 1957
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Williams, C.A.J., Greenacre, or the Edgware Road Murder, printed by Thomas Richardson, pamphlet
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