In the grim annals of British criminal history, few names conjure such revulsion and fascination as John Reginald Halliday Christie. Between the 1940s and early 1950s, this unassuming man transformed his modest London flat at 10 Rillington Place into a house of horrors, leaving a trail of murder, sexual violence, and a tragic miscarriage of justice that would rock the nation for decades.
Born on April 8, 1899, in Halifax, Yorkshire, Christie grew up in a stifling household under an emotionally distant father and domineering mother and sisters. He was a quiet, withdrawn child, and by adolescence, he had developed significant sexual dysfunction. Nicknamed cruelly by his peers as “Reggie No-Dick,” Christie’s impotence shaped his adult relationships, fueling a disturbing connection between sexual satisfaction and violence that would define his later crimes.
Christie’s early adulthood was turbulent. He served as a signalman during the First World War, suffering a mustard gas attack in 1918. Though he claimed the incident left him blind and mute for years, historians believe his afflictions were exaggerated—a likely symptom of an attention-seeking personality disorder. After the war, he married Ethel Simpson in 1920. Their relationship was marred by sexual dysfunction, and Christie frequently sought out prostitutes, unable to sustain a healthy marital life.
During the 1920s and early 1930s, Christie amassed a string of petty criminal convictions, including theft, fraud, and assault. He spent several spells in prison. In 1934, newly released, he reunited with Ethel, and the couple moved into 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill—a grim, overcrowded building that would become synonymous with death.
By the outbreak of World War II, Christie had turned a corner publicly. He secured work as a War Reserve Police Constable, a position that granted him respectability and authority despite his criminal past. Yet behind this façade, he harbored lethal desires.
In 1943, Christie committed his first known murder. Ruth Fuerst, a 21-year-old Austrian munitions worker and part-time prostitute, became his victim. Christie lured her to his flat, gassed her into unconsciousness using domestic coal gas, then strangled and sexually assaulted her corpse. He buried her body in his small back garden. This deadly pattern—gas, sexual assault, strangulation, and concealment—would become his lethal signature.
Four years later, he killed Muriel Eady, another acquaintance lured to his home under the pretense of medical help. Christie claimed he had a special inhaler for treating her bronchitis, but instead gassed her and repeated his sexual violence. Like Fuerst, Eady ended up buried in the garden.
In 1948, the Christies’ lives intertwined fatefully with a young couple: Timothy and Beryl Evans. Timothy, a semi-literate van driver, and his wife Beryl moved into the top-floor flat at 10 Rillington Place. In 1949, Beryl became pregnant again and, desperate for an abortion, confided in Christie, who falsely claimed he could help. Christie murdered her instead. Days later, their baby daughter Geraldine was also found dead.
Timothy Evans confessed under duress, giving conflicting statements, likely due to police pressure and his limited mental capacity. He was charged with murdering Geraldine and hanged in 1950. Christie was a key prosecution witness, portraying himself as a respectable neighbor. The real killer sat in the witness box while an innocent man took the fall—a profound miscarriage of justice that would later stain British legal history.
Christie’s crimes continued. Between 1952 and 1953, he murdered three more women—Rita Nelson, Kathleen Maloney, and Hectorina MacLennan—all sex workers or vulnerable women. He gassed them, assaulted them post-mortem, and hid their bodies in a concealed alcove in his kitchen, papered over to disguise the grim stash.
In December 1952, Christie murdered his wife Ethel, likely to silence her as suspicions grew. He placed her body beneath the floorboards of their flat.
By March 1953, Christie fell behind on rent and abandoned Rillington Place. The new tenant, Beresford Brown, discovered the concealed bodies in the kitchen alcove, and the horrific truth unravelled. Christie was captured near Putney Bridge on March 31, 1953.
At his trial, Christie pleaded insanity but was found guilty of his wife’s murder. He confessed to killing Beryl Evans but denied murdering baby Geraldine. Nonetheless, public outcry over the Evans case was immense. Investigations ultimately exonerated Timothy Evans, leading to a 1966 posthumous pardon and contributing significantly to the movement that abolished the death penalty in Britain.
On July 15, 1953, John Christie was executed by hanging at HM Prison Pentonville. Even in death, the legacy of his crimes cast a long shadow, forever entwining his name with the walls of 10 Rillington Place—a house that stood as silent witness to a decade of depravity and one of Britain’s greatest judicial tragedies.
Christie’s story is more than a tale of murder; it’s a chilling reminder of how an outwardly ordinary man can conceal monstrous secrets and how fragile the justice system can be when manipulated by a cunning predator. The echoes of his crimes continue to reverberate, warning that even the most unassuming neighbor might hide unspeakable darkness.
