John Christie biography

Synopsis

Early Life

John Reginald Halliday Christie was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1898. He grew up in a household largely dominated by his disciplinarian father and overprotective mother and sisters, and grew up to be a sexually dysfunctional, control-obsessed hypochondriac, with an inherent dislike of women.

He left school 15 and during World War I he served as a signalman. He was involved in a mustard gas attack that he claimed blinded him temporarily, and caused hysterical muteness that lasted over three years, although some believe that this loss of speech was simply a means to gain attention. His earlier sexual dysfunction and control issues precluded any normal sexual relations, and he started to frequent prostitutes from the age of 19.

This muteness did not, however, prevent his marriage, in 1920, to Ethel Simpson Waddington. Christie's sexual difficulties remained; his visits to prostitutes continued regularly beyond his wedding day.

Christie, who had become a postman, was sent to prison for three months for stealing postal orders, and two years later he was put on probation for violent behavior. He also left Ethel around this time, and moved to London, leaving her to support herself in Sheffield.

By 29 he was back in prison on theft charges, and he spent nine months incarcerated before moving in with a prostitute, then a further six months inside for assaulting her. He was also suspected of other assaults on women, but no charges were brought. A further spell in prison for car theft followed, after which he asked estranged wife Ethel to come and live with him in London, which she did in 1933. The visits to prostitutes to relieve his violent sexual urges continued, which by now also included elements of necrophilia, and these urges intensified over the next decade.

Christie and Ethel moved to 10 Rillington Place in 1938.

Crimes

Christie's first known victim was killed sometime in 1943. Ruth Fuerst was a 21-year-old Austrian girl who was having an affair with Christie when he impulsively strangled her during sex, and then buried her in the communal garden at Rillington Place. Excited by the ultimate power thrill that the death of his victim had afforded, he took great care in planning his next attack, on 32-year-old neighbor, Muriel Eady. On November 8,1944, he invited her over, claiming to be able to cure a recurring chest ailment with a special inhaler, which actually contained carbon monoxide. Once she was rendered unconscious he strangled her while raping her, and she died during the process. She too joined Fuerst in the back garden.

In 1948, Timothy Evans and his wife, Beryl, moved into Rillington Place, and soon Beryl gave birth to a baby girl, Geraldine. Evans had an IQ of 70, and was an impressionable man, although he also possessed a violent temper.