John Haigh was a charming man, well respected amongst his peers. But not everything was at it seemed; if you were rich you needed to watch your back before a bullet was in it and your corpse was dissolved…
John George Haigh was born on 24th July 1909, in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England. He grew up in the village of Outwood, West Riding of Yorkshire with his parents John and Emily. John and Emily were members of a conservative Protestant sect known as the Plymouth Brethren; the sect is known for extreme Christian views. They have to be separated from what they perceive as evil, including television, radio, and the Internet. Physical contact is forbidden before marriage, and they’re chaperoned when dating. His childhood home was surrounded by a 7-foot fence, and he wasn’t allowed to have friends in case he was ‘contaminated’ by the outside world. Even participating in sports was forbidden. His father, John, had a blue tinted blemish on his forehead and often told the young Haigh that it was a mark of the devil, a punishment for sinning in his youth. He was told his mother was blemish free because she was an angel. Haigh, understandably, was terrified of developing his own ‘sign of the devil’, but, as he got older, he realised he could commit ‘sins’ such as lying, and he never developed the mark. This may very well have led Haigh to believe he was invincible. There are some rumours that, as a child, his dream was to become a vampire although I think this is more likely to be something he made up later on.
He was an intelligent child and was especially brilliant at playing piano, developing a penchant for classical music. Haigh won a scholarship to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield (interestingly, the same school Stephen Griffiths would later attend before going on to murder 3 women between 2009-2010) then to Wakefield Cathedral, where he joined the choir. When he finished school, he took an apprenticeship in motor engineering before taking jobs in insurance and advertising. At 21 years old, Haigh’s employer fired him after accusing him of stealing cash from the business. However, this wouldn’t stop him for long; he was a well-dressed man and known for his charm and gift of the gab.
It was on the 6th July 1934 when Haigh married Beatrice ‘Betty’ Hamer, but the marriage wasn’t too last. In the same year, Haigh was sent to prison for fraud and Betty discovered she was pregnant. When Betty gave birth, she put the child up for adoption. He only saw his wife once more, to briefly lie to her; he told her he had already been married so she wasn’t officially his wife. Unsurprisingly, his highly religious family were disgusted by his behaviour and had very little to do with him at this point.
In 1936 he moved to London where he worked as a chauffer to a William McSwan. William owned numerous amusement arcades and Haigh would help maintain the machines, earning a decent wage. However, it would appear that Haigh couldn’t stay away from a criminal lifestyle; calling himself William Cato Adamson, he passed himself off as a qualified solicitor. He fraudulently sold shares to unsuspecting victims – he was selling them so cheap they believed they couldn’t lose! This was because the shares didn’t exist, they were from estates from deceased people. These escapades earned him a 4-year prison sentence. He was released just after the start of World War II. After being released, he briefly stayed with the Stephen family, and he met their daughter Barbara. She was 20 years his junior and the two started a relationship, with Barbara continuously hoping to become Mrs. Haigh. He continued defrauding people (I’m sure you’re shocked by this) and spent a lot of time in and out of prison.
Haigh became intrigued by Georges-Alexandre Sarret, an Italian born French murderer. He was executed via guillotine for a double murder he had committed; Sarret had dissolved the corpses in sulphuric acid. This is the part that really caught Haigh’s attention. He had previously been imprisoned because there were witnesses to his crimes. Surely leaving no witnesses meant there could be no accusations? Haigh started experimenting with field mice, using Sarret as his inspiration. He would dangle these terrified creatures above a container of sulphuric acid before dropping them in; it only took half an hour for the mouse corpse to completely dissolve.
In 1943 Haigh was, yet again, released from prison. He took a job as an accountant with an engineering firm and while working here he, by chance, bumped into William McSwan. They began spending time together as friends, frequenting the pub together and became that close William even introduced him to his parents, Donald, and Amy. William explained that he worked as a rent collector for his parents, and he earned quite a bit of money from it. Despite earning decent money himself, Haigh became jealous. During March 1944 Haigh was involved in a car crash, suffering a traumatic head injury (other killers have suffered head injuries, you can read more here). He later believed that this was catalyst for his killings, that the crash flooded his mind with the nightmares he had as a child and described them ‘I saw before me a forest of crucifixes which gradually turned into trees. At first, there appeared to be dew or rain, dripping from the branches, but as I approached, I realized it was blood. The whole forest began to writhe and the trees, dark and erect, to ooze blood ... A man went from [sic] each tree catching the blood...When the cup was full, he approached me. 'Drink,' he said, but I was unable to move’.
On the 6th September 1944, William disappeared without a trace. Haigh had lured him to a basement and beaten him over the head. William was placed into a 40-gallon drum filled with sulphuric acid and within 2 days his corpse was nothing but sludge. He was unceremoniously poured down a manhole. Haigh had misinterpreted the Latin phrase ‘corpus delecti’; this is a Latin phrase that means ‘body of the crime’. The rule means prosecutors must prove the corpus delicti in a criminal case and cannot use an accused person’s confession or statement as their only evidence. Haigh thought it meant he couldn’t be prosecuted without a body.
Haigh lied outright to William’s parents, saying he had escaped to Scotland to avoid being drafted into the war and even going as far as sending fake postcards as if from William. Haigh moved into their house and began collecting the rent on their properties, just as William had. However, the war was coming to an end and Donald and Amy began to worry about the whereabouts of their son. Haigh soon realised they would soon figure out that something was seriously wrong so, on 2nd July 1845, he told the couple that William was back for a surprise visit. He took them to a workshop he rented in Gloucester Road and attacked them, hitting them in the head until they both died. He placed their bodies into 40-gallon drums of sulphuric acid and waited for the bodies to dissolve; one they did he poured what remained down the drain in the middle of the workshop. Forging signatures, Haigh stole their pension cheques and sold the properties they owned. He moved into the Onslow Court Hotel in Kensington.
By 1947 Haigh had lost most of the money due to his gambling habits so he decided to plan his next crime. Haigh decided to target Doctor Archibald Henderson and his wife Rose; he pretended he had an interest in a house they were selling. As always, Haigh was his usual charming self and Rose eventually invited him to a party they were holding, wanting him to entertain their guests with his excellent piano playing. During a break at the party, Haigh snuck away from the party and stole one of Archibald’s guns, a revolver. He rented a workshop at 2 Leopold Road, Crawley, Sussex, and moved in his drums and acid. Haigh told Archibald about this workshop, saying he used it to invent various creations, before inviting him to come and view them. It was the 12th February 1948 when Haigh drove Archibald to the workshop and took him inside. Once inside, Haigh shot Archibald in the head with his own revolver. Haigh then rang Rose and lured her to the workshop with claims that Archibald had fallen ill. As I’m sure you have guessed, as soon as Rose entered the workshop, she too was shot dead. Haigh set to work, disposing of the bodies in the drums before forging a letter with their signature. This ‘signed’ letter have him permission to sell their property and keep the proceeds; he sold everything except their car and their dog, which he kept.
Olive Durand-Deacon also lived at the Onslow Court Hotel. She was a 69-year-old widow who was, financially, very comfortable thanks to her deceased husband, solicitor John Durand-Deacon. In her youth she had been an active suffragette and even spent the night in cells after throwing a brick through a window during a protest. Haigh struck up a conversation with Olive and told her he was an engineer with a workshop; this caught Olive’s attention. She had an idea, creating false nails for women to wear (there was a post-war urge for some glamour), and Haigh invited her to the workshop. As soon as Olive arrived at the workshop, he shot her in the back of the neck with Archibald’s gun. He removed all of her jewellery, and her Persian lamb coat, before placing her body into the sulphuric acid.
Within 2 days Olive had been reported missing by her friend Constance Lane. Unbelievably it was Haigh who took her to the police station. Officer Alexandra Lambourne was suspicious of Haigh from the start, finding his attitude rather strange. She questioned him to see if Olive had visited his workshop and he replied, ‘she did not turn up’. Lamborre looked further into him and discovered he had sold Olive’s jewellery. It didn’t take detectives long to make the connection and they went to search Haigh’s workshop. Inside they found several 40-gallon drums and containers of sulphuric acid. Within the paperwork was a dry cleaner’s receipt for Olive’s coat and papers relating to both the McSwans and the Hendersons. Some of the most disturbing discoveries were at the back of the workshop; there was no drain inside and the acid baths were disposed of outside on the rubble pile. Pathologist Keith Simpson investigated the remains and discovered 28 pounds of human fat, part of a foot, gallstones and the remains of a denture which was later found to belong to Olive. Simpson later wrote ‘Haigh’s labours had been in vain. The remains were identified as surely as if her body had never been in an acid bath’.
Haigh was taken into custody and was questioned by Detective Inspector Albert Webb. Strangely, Haigh asked him ‘tell me, frankly, what are the chances of anybody being released from Broadmoor?’. When the inspector refused to answer, Haigh said ‘well if I told you the truth, you would not believe me. It sounds too fantastic to believe’. Haigh was arrogant during his interview, telling police ‘Mrs Durand-Deacon no longer exists. She has disappeared completely, and no trace can ever be found. I have destroyed her with acid. You will find the sludge that remains at Leopold Road. Every trace has gone’. He bragged that after killing Olive he visited a local café ‘I should have said that in between having her in the tank and pumping in the acid I went round to the Ancient Prior’s for a cup of tea and an egg on toast. Talking of which I could do with a cuppa now if that’s alright?’. He confessed to the murders and claimed to have had a further 3 victims: a young man known as Max, a girl from Eastbourne and a woman from Hammersmith (there is no evidence for these 3 murders). Haigh told police that his main motive for murder was to drink his victim’s blood. I do wonder if he actually drank their blood or if it was a ploy to convince people he was insane? Showing again his misunderstanding of corpus delecti, he bragged ‘how can you prove a murder if there is no body?’.
Haigh’s trial was held at Lewes Assizes, which was later Lewes Crown Court, and he tried to plead insanity. Attorney General Sir Harley Shawcross QC led for the prosecution and didn’t believe the insanity pleas, telling the jury that Haigh had acted with maliciousness. Sir David Maxwell Fyfe QC, who was defending Haigh, tried to encourage the jury to believe the insanity plea. He called physician, Henry Yellowlees to the stand who told the court that Haigh has a paranoid constitution, saying ‘The absolute callous, cheerful, bland and almost friendly indifference of the accused to the crimes which he freely admits having committed is unique in my experience’.
The jury took just 17 minutes to find him guilty and Mr. Justice Travers Humphreys sentenced him to death. The tabloids dubbed him ‘The Vampire Killer’. Under the Criminal Lunatics Act of 1884, 3 psychiatrists examined Haigh’s case. Not one found any sign of insanity or reason why he could not be criminally responsible. Despite the guilty verdict, his parents still declared their love for him and believed God would forgive him. Barbara Stephens, Haigh’s partner for the last 5 years claimed she had no idea of the double life he was leading. Once the crimes were discovered she passed comment that if she had discovered what he was doing, she too would have been killed. While waiting for his death he met up with a representative from Madame Tussauds in his cell. They spent 3 hours taking a life mask to create a waxwork of him, and he even chose and donated his own clothes for the model to wear. On the 10th August 1949, Haigh had his last glass of brandy before being hanged by Albert Pierrepoint, who famously hanged Ruth Ellis (the last woman to be hanged in Britain). 500 people turned up to watch him die.
And that is the story of John Haigh and The Acid Bath Murders. I knew some basic details of this case before I started researching it, but I wasn’t aware of the severely religious upbringing he had gone through. I have no doubt that this had some sort of effect on him, but I don’t think he was insane; I do believe the theory that Haigh thought he was invincible in some way and his arrogance reinforces this for me. What do you think? Insane vampire wannabe? Or a manipulative man caught out by his ego? As always, do let me know what you think in the comments, take care of yourselves and I will see you next week.
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