Fact is Stranger than Fiction Friday (2) The story of the 10 Rillington Place Murders

Time for my second installment of the Fact is Stranger than Fiction Friday regular. This week we look at the story of the 10 Rillington Place murders that took place in the 1940's and '50's by former special police constable, John Christie. So shocking was this story it was later made in to a film in 1971, which was my first introduction to 10 Rillington Place.

Christie lived with his wife, Ethel, in a ground floor flat in London's Notting Hill. He had been a petty criminal and frequented prostitutes for many years. In 1943 he invited Australian prostitute, Ruth Fuerst, back to his flat and strangled her. He buried her in the backyard and resigned from the police force a few months later. He got a job as a clerk in a factory and met colleague, Muriel Eady, who was to be his next victim. She was suffering from bronchitis and he claimed to have some medical background and that he had invented a new concoction that could help her. He took her back to his flat and got her to inhale the mixture through a tube connected to a jar, which was in actual fact just an over the counter chest medicine. While she was not looking he inserted another tube in to the jar and this tube was connected to the gas tap. Eady soon passed out from inhaling the domestic gas and he raped, strangled and buried her in the garden alongside his first victim.

A few years later he sublet the top floor flat to a young couple Timothy and Beryl Evans and their newborn baby Geraldine. A year later Timothy Evans confessed to the murder of his wife and baby and police found their bodies in an outhouse. Later Evans accused Christie of their murder, stating that Christie had tried to perform an abortion on his wife that had gone wrong. But Christie was the main witness for Evans' prosecution and he was sentenced to death in 1950. Two years after that Christie strangled his own wife, Ethel, in her bed. Between 19 January and 6 March 1953 he murdered 3 more women after modifying his gassing technique; just releasing the gas in to the room until they became drowsy. He hid these bodies in an alcove in the kitchen that he then wallpapered over and wrapped in a similar way to Evans' wife and daughter. On their discovery this cast doubt as to Timothy Evans' guilt but he had already been put to death.

Prior to his killing sprees Christie had been gassed himself during the war and spent months in a hospital unable to see or speak. Once he had recovered he claimed he was unable to talk loudly. I don't think you can talk about these murders and not mention the amazing film. Christie was played expertly by Richard Attenborough who effected Christie's quiet whisper of a voice to a chilling end.

In some ways this amazing film made these murders seem too real. Normally you hear about this kind of thing on the news but you rarely are made to see the victims lives before hand or witness the killer in the act, seeing his fragile yet manipulative side in a shocking reality check. Still one of may favourite movies.