John George Haigh (; 24 July 1909 – 10 August 1949), commonly known as the Acid Bath Murderer, was an English
serial killer
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A
*
*
*
* with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
convicted for the murder of six people, although he claimed to have killed nine. Haigh battered to death or shot his victims and disposed of their bodies using
sulphuric acid
Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen and hydrogen, with the molecular formu ...
before forging their signatures so he could sell their possessions and collect large sums of money. His actions were the subject of the television film ''
A Is for Acid
''A Is for Acid'' is a 2002 British television film based on the life of the serial killer John George Haigh, known as the Acid Bath Murderer, because he dissolved the bodies of six people in sulphuric acid. Haigh, hanged in 1949 for his crimes, ...
''.
Early life
John Haigh was born in
Stamford,
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...
, and raised in the village of
Outwood,
West Riding of Yorkshire
The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...
. His parents were engineer John Robert Haigh and his wife Emily (née Hudson), members of the
Plymouth Brethren
The Plymouth Brethren or Assemblies of Brethren are a low church and non-conformist Christian movement whose history can be traced back to Dublin, Ireland, in the mid to late 1820s, where they originated from Anglicanism. The group emphasizes ...
, a conservative
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
sect.
Haigh later claimed that he suffered from recurring religious nightmares in his childhood. He developed great proficiency at the piano, which he learned at home. He was fond of classical music and often attended concerts.
Haigh won a scholarship to
Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield
Queen Elizabeth Grammar School (QEGS) is an independent, public school for boys in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. The school was founded by Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I in 1591 at the request of leading citizens in Wakefield (headed ...
, then to
Wakefield Cathedral
Wakefield Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of All Saints in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, is a co-equal Anglican cathedral with Bradford and Ripon Cathedrals, in the Diocese of Leeds and a seat of the Bishop of Leeds. Originally the pa ...
, where he became a choirboy. After school, he was apprenticed to a firm of motor engineers. After a year, he left that job and took jobs in insurance and advertising. Aged 21, he was dismissed after being suspected of stealing from a cash box.
After being fired he moved on to forging car documents.
Marriage and imprisonment
On 6 July 1934, Haigh married 23-year-old Beatrice 'Betty' Hamer. The
marriage
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...
soon disintegrated.
The same year that Haigh was jailed for
fraud
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...
, Betty gave birth while he was in prison, and she placed the baby girl for
adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...
and left Haigh. Haigh's conservative family ostracised him from then onwards.
Haigh moved to
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
in 1936, and became chauffeur to William McSwan, a wealthy owner of amusement arcades. He also maintained McSwan's amusement machines. Thereafter he pretended to be a
solicitor
A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...
named William Cato Adamson with offices in Chancery Lane, London;
Guildford
Guildford ()
is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...
,
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
; and
Hastings
Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England,
east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...
,
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
. He sold fraudulent stock shares, purportedly from the estates of his deceased clients, at below-market rates. His scam was uncovered by someone who noticed he had misspelled Guildford as "Guilford" on his letterhead. Haigh received a four-year prison sentence for fraud.
Haigh was released just after the start of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
; he continued as a fraudster and was sentenced to several further terms of imprisonment.
Regretting that he had left victims alive to accuse him, he became intrigued by French murderer
Georges-Alexandre Sarret Georges-Alexandre Sarret (born Giorgio Sarrejani; 23 September 1878 – 10 April 1934) was a French criminal who was the last person to be executed in Aix-en-Provence. He was guillotined for double murder in a notorious case that involved his ...
, who had disposed of bodies using
sulphuric acid
Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen and hydrogen, with the molecular formu ...
.
Haigh experimented with field mice and found that it took only 30 minutes for the body to dissolve.
"Acid bath" murders
Haigh was freed from prison in 1943 and became an accountant with an engineering firm. Soon after, by chance, he bumped into his former employer William McSwan in a
Kensington
Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London.
The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...
pub. McSwan introduced Haigh to his parents, Donald and Amy. McSwan worked for them by collecting rents on their London properties, and Haigh became envious of his lifestyle.
On 6 September 1944, McSwan disappeared. Haigh later admitted he had lured McSwan into a basement on Gloucester Road, hit him over the head with a lead pipe, and then put his body in a drum with concentrated sulphuric acid. Two days later, finding that McSwan's body had mostly dissolved, Haigh emptied the drum into a manhole.
He told McSwan's parents that their son had gone into hiding in Scotland to avoid being called up for military service. Haigh then began living in McSwan's house and collecting rent for McSwan's parents. They became curious as to why their son had not returned, as the war was coming to an end. On 2 July 1945, he lured them to Gloucester Road by telling them their son was back from Scotland for a surprise visit. There he killed them with blows to the head and disposed of them.
Haigh then stole McSwan's pension cheques and sold his parents' properties, for around £8,000, and moved into the Onslow Court Hotel in Kensington.
Haigh was a gambler. By 1947, he was running short of money. To solve his financial troubles, he found another couple to kill and rob: Archibald Henderson and his wife Rose. After feigning interest in a house that they were selling, he was invited to the Hendersons' flat by Rose to play the piano for their housewarming party. While at the flat, Haigh stole Archibald Henderson's revolver, planning to use it in his next crime. Renting a small workshop at 2 Leopold Road,
Crawley
Crawley () is a large town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is south of London, north of Brighton and Hove, and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of and had a population of 106,597 at the time of th ...
,
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
, he moved acid and drums there from Gloucester Road. (Haigh was also known to have stayed at Crawley's Hotel,
The George, on several occasions.) On 12 February 1948, he drove Archibald Henderson to his workshop on the pretext of showing him an invention. When they arrived, Haigh shot Henderson in the head with the stolen revolver. Haigh then lured Rose Henderson to the workshop, claiming that her husband had fallen ill, and he shot her as well.
After disposing of the Hendersons' bodies in oil drums filled with acid, he forged a letter with their signatures and sold all of their possessions for £8,000, except for their car and dog, which he kept.
Last victim and capture
Haigh's next and last victim was Olive Durand-Deacon, 69, the wealthy widow of solicitor John Durand-Deacon and a fellow resident at the Onslow Court Hotel. Haigh by then was calling himself an engineer, and Olive mentioned an idea to him that she had for artificial fingernails. He invited her down to the Leopold Road workshop on 18 February 1949 and, once inside, he shot her in the back of the neck with the .38 caliber Webley revolver that he had stolen from Archibald Henderson, stripped her of her valuables, including a
Persian lamb
Karakul or Qaraqul (named after Qorakoʻl, a city in Bukhara Region in Uzbekistan) is a breed of domestic sheep which originated in Central Asia. Some archaeological evidence points to Karakul sheep being raised there continuously since 1400 BC ...
coat, and put her into the acid bath. Two days later, Durand-Deacon’s friend Constance Lane reported her missing.
Detectives soon discovered Haigh’s record of theft and fraud and searched the workshop. Police found Haigh’s attaché case containing a dry cleaner’s receipt for Olive Durand-Deacon’s coat, and also papers referring to the Hendersons and McSwans. The workshop in Sussex rented by Haigh did not contain a floor drain, unlike the workshop he had rented at
Gloucester Road in London. He, therefore, disposed of the remains by pouring out the container on a rubble pile at the back of the property. Investigation of the area by pathologist
Keith Simpson revealed 28 pounds of human body fat, part of a human foot, human
gallstones
A gallstone is a stone formed within the gallbladder from precipitated bile components. The term cholelithiasis may refer to the presence of gallstones or to any disease caused by gallstones, and choledocholithiasis refers to the presence of migr ...
and part of a denture which was later identified by Olive Durand-Deacon's dentist during the trial.
Haigh asked
Detective Inspector
Inspector, also police inspector or inspector of police, is a police rank. The rank or position varies in seniority depending on the organization that uses it.
Australia
In Australian police forces, the rank of inspector is generally the ne ...
Albert Webb during questioning, "Tell me, frankly, what are the chances of anybody being released from
Broadmoor?" (a high-security psychiatric hospital). The inspector said that he could not discuss that sort of thing, so Haigh replied, "Well if I told you the truth, you would not believe me. It sounds too fantastic to believe."
Haigh then confessed that he had killed Durand-Deacon, the McSwans, and the Hendersons—as well as three other people: a young man called Max, a girl from
Eastbourne
Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the la ...
, and a woman from
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.
...
. These claims could not be substantiated.
Trial and execution
Haigh's trial was held at
Lewes
Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. It is the police and judicial centre for all of Sussex and is home to Sussex Police, East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, Lewes Crown Court and HMP Lewes. The civil parish is the centre of ...
Assizes
The courts of assize, or assizes (), were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes e ...
. Haigh pleaded
insanity
Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors performed by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can be manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or to ...
, claiming that he had drank the blood of his victims.
He said he had dreams dominated by blood as a young boy. When he was involved in a car accident in March 1944, his dream returned to him: "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 each tree catching the blood ... When the cup was full, he approached me. 'Drink,' he said, but I was unable to move."
The
Attorney-General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
,
Sir Hartley Shawcross KC (later Lord Shawcross), led for the prosecution, and urged the jury to reject Haigh’s defense of insanity because he had acted with
malice aforethought
Malice aforethought is the "premeditation" or "predetermination" (with malice (law), malice) required as an element of some crimes in some jurisdictions and a unique element for first-degree or aggravation (law), aggravated murder in a few. Insof ...
.
Sir
David Maxwell Fyfe
David Patrick Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir, (29 May 1900 – 27 January 1967), known as Sir David Maxwell Fyfe from 1942 to 1954 and as Viscount Kilmuir from 1954 to 1962, was a British Conservative politician, lawyer and judge who combine ...
KC, defending, called many witnesses to attest to Haigh’s mental state, including
Henry Yellowlees, who claimed Haigh had a
paranoid constitution, adding: "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."
Haigh apparently had believed (mistakenly) that if the bodies of his victims could not be found, a murder conviction would not be possible. It took only minutes for the jury to find him guilty. Mr Justice
Travers Humphreys
Sir Richard Somers Travers Christmas Humphreys (4 August 1867 – 20 February 1956) was a noted British barrister and judge who, during a sixty-year legal career, was involved in the cases of Oscar Wilde and the murderers Hawley Harvey Crippen, ...
sentenced him to death. On 10 August 1949 Haigh drank a brandy just before being hanged by executioner
Albert Pierrepoint
Albert Pierrepoint (; 30 March 1905 – 10 July 1992) was an English hangman who executed between 435 and 600 people in a 25-year career that ended in 1956. His father Henry and uncle Thomas were official hangmen before him.
Pierrepoint ...
.
The case was one of the post-1945 cases which gained considerable coverage in the newspapers even though Haigh's guilt was not questioned. The editor of the ''
Daily Mirror
The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...
'',
Silvester Bolam
Silvester Bolam (23 October 1905 – 27 April 1953) was a British newspaper editor.
Born in Tynemouth, Northumberland, Bolam studied at the University of Durham's Armstrong College before joining the '' Newcastle Journal''. He then moved to wor ...
, was sentenced to a three-month prison term for
contempt of court
Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the cour ...
for describing Haigh as a "murderer" while the trial was still underway.
Haigh's confirmed victims
*McSwan family:
**William Donald McSwan (9 September 1944)
**Donald and Amy McSwan (2 July 1945)
*Henderson family:
**Archibald and Rosalie Henderson (12 February 1948)
*Henrietta Helen Olivia Robarts Durand-Deacon,
née Fargus (18 February 1949)
In popular culture
* The release of the 1949 British film noir
''Obsession'' was delayed by the British Board of Film Censors due to similarities in its plot to the Haigh case.
*The Haigh case was dramatised in the episode "The Jar of Acid" on the 1951 radio series ''
The Black Museum
''The Black Museum'' is a radio crime-drama program produced by Harry Alan Towers, which was broadcast in the USA on the Mutual network in 1952. It was then broadcast in Europe in 1953 on Radio Luxembourg, a commercial radio station, and was not ...
''.
*''
Hide My Eyes
''Hide My Eyes'' is a crime novel by Margery Allingham, first published in 1958, in the United Kingdom by Chatto & Windus, London. It was published in the U.S. under the titles ''Tether's End'' or ''Ten Were Missing''. It is the sixteenth nove ...
'' by
Margery Allingham
Margery Louise Allingham (20 May 1904 – 30 June 1966) was an English novelist from the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", and considered one of its four " Queens of Crime", alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh.
Alli ...
written in 1958 mirrors the Haigh case though indirectly.
*The mid-1960s
unproduced Hitchcock project ''Kaleidoscope'' had been inspired by Haigh and serial killer
Neville Heath
Neville George Clevely Heath (6 June 1917 – 16 October 1946) was an English murderer who killed two young women in the summer of 1946. He was executed in Pentonville Prison, London, in October 1946.
Early life and career
Neville Heath was bor ...
.
*The role of Haigh was played by
Martin Clunes
Alexander Martin Clunes OBE DL (born 28 November 1961) is an English actor, comedian, director and television presenter. He is best known for portraying Martin Ellingham in the ITV comedy-drama series ''Doc Martin'' and Gary Strang in ''Men Be ...
in the ITV drama ''
A Is for Acid
''A Is for Acid'' is a 2002 British television film based on the life of the serial killer John George Haigh, known as the Acid Bath Murderer, because he dissolved the bodies of six people in sulphuric acid. Haigh, hanged in 1949 for his crimes, ...
''.
*
Nigel Fairs
Nigel Fairs is a British actor and writer.
He trained at Bretton Hall College and his theatre credits include stage production of ''Translations'' at The National Theatre, Inspector Morse in the UK tour of ''House of Ghosts'', Dr Watson in ' ...
played Haigh in the
Big Finish audio drama ''In Conversation with an Acid Bath Murderer'' (2011), which he also wrote. The cast included
Richard Franklin as Archie Henderson, Mandi Symonds as Olive Durand-Deacon and
Louise Jameson
Louise Jameson (born 20 April 1951) is an English actress with a wide variety of television and theatre credits. Her roles on television have included playing Leela in ''Doctor Who'' (1977–1978), Anne Reynolds in ''The Omega Factor'' (1979), ...
(who also directed) as Rose Henderson. It was released as the fourth instalment in their ''Drama Showcase''
anthology series
An anthology series is a radio, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a differ ...
.
* For some years, Haigh’s waxwork was exhibited in the
"Chamber of Horrors" at
Madame Tussauds
Madame Tussauds (, ) is a wax museum founded in 1835 by French wax sculptor Marie Tussaud in London, spawning similar museums in major cities around the world. While it used to be spelled as "Madame Tussaud's"; the apostrophe is no longer us ...
in London.
* The stage play ''Under a Red Moon'', by Michael Slade, is a fictional account of Haigh's examination by a psychiatrist before his trial.
* Stage play ''WAX'' by Micheal Punter is based upon a fictional meeting between Haigh and a woman (Anna), an artist from Madame Tussauds, who models his wax work for exhibition in the 'Chamber of Horrors' while he is in the condemned cell.
* The ''
Criminal Minds
''Criminal Minds'' is an American police procedural crime drama television series created and produced by Jeff Davis (writer), Jeff Davis. The series premiered on CBS on September 22, 2005, and originally concluded on February 19, 2020; it was r ...
'' episode "Masterpiece" is inspired by Haigh.
* American thrash/death metal/grindcore band
Macabre
In works of art, the adjective macabre ( or ; ) means "having the quality of having a grim or ghastly atmosphere". The macabre works to emphasize the details and symbols of death. The term also refers to works particularly gruesome in natu ...
recorded a song about Haigh (from their ''
Murder Metal
Macabre is an American extreme metal band from Chicago, Illinois, United States.Birchmeier, JasonMacabre Biography, AllMusic. Retrieved April 1, 2015 Since their formation in 1985, the band has featured the same three members with no lineup cha ...
'' album) called "Acid Bath Vampire".
* Japanese stoner/doom metal band
Church of Misery
is a Japanese doom metal band from Tokyo, formed in 1995. Church of Misery's musical style melds early Black Sabbath-style doom with psychedelic rock; most of the band's songs are about serial killers and mass murderers.
Bassist Tatsu Mikami ...
recorded a song about Haigh entitled "Make Them Die Slowly (John George Haigh)". The track was released on the album ''
And Then There Were None...''
* A villain named Corroder is a serial killer who uses acid on his victims in the video game
Clock Tower 3
is a survival horror video game co-produced by Capcom and Sunsoft for the PlayStation 2. Released in 2002, it is the fourth installment in the Clock Tower (series), ''Clock Tower'' series, and the first and only video game directed by Japanese ...
. His modus operandi of killing his victims is inspired by John Haigh.
See also
*
List of serial killers by country
This is a list of notable serial killers, by the country where most of the killings occurred.
Convicted serial killers by country Afghanistan
*Abdullah Shah: killed at least 20 travelers on the road from Kabul to Jalalabad while serving under ...
*
Murder conviction without a body
It is possible to convict someone of murder without the purported victim's body in evidence. However, cases of this type have historically been hard to prove, often forcing the prosecution to rely on circumstantial evidence, and in England th ...
*
Teodoro García Simental, Mexican murderer and drug lord who drowned bodies (perhaps as many as 300) in
sodium hydroxide
Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye and caustic soda, is an inorganic compound with the formula NaOH. It is a white solid ionic compound consisting of sodium cations and hydroxide anions .
Sodium hydroxide is a highly caustic base and alkali ...
.
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
* ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'', court reports, 9 and 26 March 1949; 29 July 1949; 19 January 1951.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haigh, John George
1909 births
1936 crimes in the United Kingdom
1944 murders in the United Kingdom
1945 murders in the United Kingdom
1948 murders in the United Kingdom
1949 murders in the United Kingdom
1949 deaths
20th-century English businesspeople
20th-century English criminals
20th-century executions by England and Wales
British people convicted of fraud
British Plymouth Brethren
Confidence tricksters
English evangelicals
English fraudsters
English people convicted of murder
English serial killers
Executed British serial killers
Executed people from Lincolnshire
Fugitives
Male serial killers
Murder convictions without a body
People convicted of murder by England and Wales
People educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield
People executed by the United Kingdom by hanging
People from Stamford, Lincolnshire
People from Wakefield