He is also thought to have been responsible for the murders of his fellow tenant Beryl Evans and her baby daughter Geraldine – murders which were originally blamed on Beryl’s husband Timothy. All were gassed, raped and strangled and hidden in the kitchen in an alcove covered over by wallpaper. August 2020 brought with it the publication of a new book entitled Inside 10 Rillington Place. Far from being ‘just another’ book to add to the many already written upon the whole subject, this constituted a historical watershed in that the writer was none other than Beryl Evans’s youngest brother Peter Thorley.

Four years later in August 1943 he committed his first murder, strangling Ruth Fuerst, an Austrian munitions factory worker, in his bed while his wife was away. When he was eight years old, Christie’s grandfather passed away. Christie later cited the moment of seeing his grandfather’s dead body in a casket as life-changing. Here was a man who had scared him, now nothing more than a body. After that, Christie said corpses held a “fascination” over him. On 8 November, Evans returned from work and Christie told him that the operation had gone wrong and Beryl had died at 3pm.Rita Nelson, 25, was last seen alive on January 13, 1953, and is thought to have been killed by January 19. Kathleen Maloney, a 26 year-old local prostitute, was last seen in early to mid January but was probably killed after Rita Nelson. Hectorina Maclennan, 26, was killed at some point before Christie moved out of the flat on March 20, 1953.

I have just looked at the photo I took at Timothy’s grave on the 9th/March/2020 (70th Anniversary) & the name on the card is Mary Westlake. So in 1949, when Beryl Evans got pregnant for the second time, she decided to get an abortion, despite the procedure being illegal. And John Christie offered to do it. The Murder Of Beryl Evans And The Trial That Followed But the murders for which John Christie’s name is most widely known occurred in November 1949 — murders for which another man was hanged. Timothy Evans Moves Into 10 Rillington PlaceWhen the Second World War came along, Christie applied to join the War Reserve Police, serving as a constable at the Harrow Road police station.