Fiendish Killers

by Anne Williams

  Before long, Shawcross was frequenting prostitutes. He later claimed that they had taunted him with his sexual inadequacy, but this was never proved. It has been speculated that he thought people would make less fuss about the killing of prostitutes than the killing of children, and thus targeted the women. Whatever the reason, he murdered his first adult victim, twenty-seven-year-old Dorothy Blackburn, in March 1988, dumping her body in the Genessee River. There were bite marks on her body in the genital region and she had been strangled to death.

  Other murders of prostitutes followed, including that of Anna Steffen in September 1989 and Patricia Ives. In another instance, he brutally murdered a homeless woman of fifty-nine, Dorothy Keeler. Around this time, the police, who so far had failed to come up with any solutions to the crimes, began to suspect a serial killer, and the press dubbed the murderer ‘the Genessee River Killer’. There was a pattern to the murders: in most of the cases, the victims had been asphyxiated and the culprit had attempted to conceal the bodies. However, because Shawcross’s criminal record was sealed by the authorities at the time, he did not come up as a suspect.

  The scene of the crime

  The murders of prostitutes continued, but it was only when police discovered the body of a woman who was not a prostitute that a proper search for the murderer was carried out. This was twenty-six-year-old June Stott, who had been strangled and gutted from throat to crotch. Her body showed evidence of mutilation, particularly in the anal and genital area.

  The police now came up with a profile of the killer, and prostitutes in the area gave evidence about a man named ‘Mitch’ who was a regular customer. The murders continued and the mutilations became more and more horrifying: in one case, that of June Cicero, her body had been almost sawn in half after her death. Then came a breakthrough – police in a helicopter saw a man urinating or masturbating on the bridge near where Cicero was killed. They reasoned that he must have returned to the scene of the crime and alerted police patrol teams on the ground to track him down. When Shawcross’s vehicle sped away, they noted the registration number and found that it belonged to Clara Neal, who turned out to be Shawcross’s latest girlfriend. From there, it was short work to catch up with Shawcross himself and to arrest him.

  Once in custody, Shawcross admitted that he had committed the child killings earlier in his career and boasted about his war record. They also discovered that his police record had been sealed. When prostitutes in the area were shown his photograph, they identified him as ‘Mitch’, the mystery punter. It seemed that, at last, the police had found their man. And not a moment too soon – by this time, Shawcross had claimed eleven female victims and may have been guilty of other murders that were not accounted for.

  Eating body parts

  Under questioning, Shawcross admitted all eleven crimes, adding that he had eaten the body parts of many of his victims, especially the genitals, often returning to cannibalise them days after the murders, when the bodies had been rotting in the ground. Such was his perverted behaviour that when the case came to trial, the defence mounted a plea of insanity on behalf of their client. The trial was shown on television and was watched by hundreds of viewers who were fascinated by the hideousness of his crimes. However, the jury were not persuaded that Shawcross was mad and he was found sane and convicted of murder. He was given a series of life sentences for the murders. Today, he continues to serve out his sentence at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in New York State.

  The case of the Genessee River Killer became a controversial one after it was revealed that Shawcross’s early criminal record for murder had been sealed, and that he had been paroled early, instead of serving out his original sentence. The authorities were criticised for letting him out of prison and for keeping his record a secret thereafter, which allowed him to remain free and commit murders for many years. Had he stayed in jail during that time, at least eleven women would have lived rather than died – and it is also possible that there were other murders he committed that were never solved.

  John Christie

  Serial killer John Christie achieved notoriety in Britain during the 1940s and 1950s because of a string of murders that he committed. What shocked the public was the way in which these happened behind closed doors, without suspicion ever falling on the culprit. Christie seemed like a respectable, quiet man, but behind the peaceful facade lurked a violent killer who for over thirteen years had, quite literally, got away with murder.

  Violent and impotent

  Christie was born in 1898 into a large family. He grew up in West Riding, Yorkshire and later claimed to have been abused by his father. The whole family were violent and domineering. Christie recounted that when he was eight his grandfather died and, on seeing the corpse lying in its coffin, for the first time felt at peace. At school he did well and won a scholarship to high school, where he was revealed to have a very high IQ and a unusual talent for mathematics. He also engaged in other school activities such as scouting and singing, but his fellow pupils did not like him and he remained something of a loner. During his adolescent years, his disturbed nature began to come to the fore; his sexual exploits were failures and he discovered he was impotent. This resulted in hysterical rage and constant hypochondria.

  After leaving school, Christie pursued a career as a cinema projectionist, following a lifelong interest in photography. When World War I broke out, he suffered a mustard gas attack and had to be taken to hospital. He claimed that the attack had made him blind and mute, but there is little evidence to show that this was really the case. In 1920 Christie married a young woman named Ethel Simpson, but the relationship was not a success as Christie was violently bad-tempered and impotent, visiting prostitutes to fulfil his sexual needs. After four years, during which time Christie terrorised his wife, the couple separated. Ethel went back to live with her family, while Christie moved to London. It was here that his career of crime began. He stole some postal orders while working as a postman, and received a short prison sentence for this, then committed various thefts and received a longer one. Next, he beat up a prostitute that he was living with at the time, and received a term of six months’ hard labour for the crime. In 1933, he stole a car and received another prison sentence; on his release, he contacted Ethel and there was a reconciliation. In 1938, she came to live with him in London at his flat with the now notorious address – 10, Rillington Place.

  The first victim

  Whether or not Ethel was aware of it, Christie continued to visit prostitutes, often acting violently towards them. He began to show necrophiliac tendencies and started to associate sex with death, just as he had as a boy. When World War II broke out, he made an application to join the police force, and was accepted even though he had served time in prison. He began work at a police station in Harrow Road and did well, before becoming involved in a relationship with a woman working there, whose husband was away serving as a soldier in the war. When the soldier returned, he found out about the liaison and had a fight with Christie, who resigned from his job.

  After that, Christie’s emotional life took a turn for the worse and he became more violent and aggressive than ever. This culminated in his first murder, of a woman named Ruth Fuerst, in 1943. He had sex with her and strangled her during the encounter, afterwards burying her body in the communal garden that belonged to the flats where he lived. The following year, he murdered a woman named Muriel Eady who he had met at work. He told her that he had a special medicine that cured bronchitis and gave it to her. Unbeknown to her, the mixture contained carbon monoxide. She became unconscious and while in this state, Christie raped and strangled her, before burying her in the garden along with Fuerst.

  Horrific double killing

  This was just the beginning of a long string of killings that took place over the next decade. Next to meet their fate were Beryl and Geraldine Evans, the wife and daughter of Timothy Evans who lived in the flat above Christie. When Beryl became pregnant with the couple’s second chil
d, soon after the birth of the first, she confided her doubts about the pregnancy to Christie, who offered to abort the child. On November 8, he used gas to render Beryl unconscious, and then raped and strangled her to death. When Timothy Evans came home from work, Christie told him that the abortion had gone wrong and that Beryl had died. At that time in England, abortion was illegal and both men could have been jailed for performing the operation on her. Thus, Christie convinced Evans to help him hide the body. He then told Evans to go away to relatives, leaving Geraldine in his care. Evans was not an intelligent man and apparently had a very low IQ. He did as Christie suggested, but returned to the flat several times to see his baby daughter. Each time, Christie sent him away without seeing her.

  Eventually, Evans decided to go to the police in Merthyr Tydfil, where he was staying, and told them that he had killed Beryl by accident, telling them the story of how Christie had said he could perform the abortion, how it had gone wrong and how they had hidden her body. Police went to the house several times and eventually found the bodies of both Beryl and Geraldine in the garden. At this point, Evans confessed to both murders, saying that he himself had strangled Beryl during an argument and had then strangled his daughter before leaving for Wales. In retrospect, it appears that there was a certain amount of police intimidation and that Evans’s story was contradictory, but whatever the truth, Evans rather than Christie was charged with the murders. When the case went to trial, Christie was a key witness and blamed everything on Evans. Partly as a result of this, Evans was found guilty. He was given the death sentence and hanged on March 9, 1950, leaving Christie free to kill again.

  Three prostitutes murdered

  During the trial, Christie’s criminal record came to light and he found it difficult to find work after that. In 1952 he murdered his wife Ethel while she was in bed, afterwards claiming to neighbours that she had moved away. He began to sell his wife’s belongings and even his own furniture, leaving just bare necessities to survive on. The following year he murdered three women, all of them prostitutes who he invited back to his flat in Rillington Place. These were Kathleen Mahoney, Rita Nelson and Hectorina MacLennan. After this, he moved out of Rillington Place and went to live in a men’s hostel, Rowton House. The unfortunate new tenant of his flat found, to his horror, that there were three bodies in the coal hole of his kitchen. He called the police, and when the bodies were examined, it was found that they all contained traces of carbon monoxide poisoning.

  By this time Christie was penniless and homeless, and spent his days and nights wandering around London. Eventually, he was arrested by a policeman and gave his name as John Waddington of 35 Westbourne Grove. However, the policeman recognised him from a photograph and asked if he was, in fact, John Christie. Christie, cornered, had to admit that he was.

  Christie was charged with the murder of his wife Ethel, and subsequently with the murders of the three prostitutes. He later confessed to having murdered Beryl Evans. He was put on trial first for the murder of his wife and pleaded insanity. However, the jury rejected his plea and found him guilty. He was sentenced to death by hanging, and no reprieve was given so that police could find out the details of what had happened to the other victims. Thus, on July 15, 1953, he was hanged – ironically, on the same gallows where Evans had met his death.

  For many years afterwards, there was a great deal of controversy as to whether Evans or Christie had killed baby Geraldine. Many felt it unlikely that two murderers would have ended up living in the same house; others pointed to the fact that Evans was a liar who had a fierce temper. Today, it seems that we will never know the exact truth of what happened.

  Earle Nelson

  One of the most horrifying stories in the history of American crime was that of serial killer Earle Nelson, who went on a murderous rampage between 1926 and 1927, and in the course of just one year left over twenty women dead. The victims ranged in age from young to old, and were killed in different cities across the United States and Canada.

  Blow to the head

  From the start, Nelson’s circumstances did not augur well. He was born in Philadelphia in 1897. When he was still a baby, his mother Frances died of syphilis which she had caught from her husband, Earle’s father. Not long afterwards, his father died from the same disease and Earle was left an orphan. The unfortunate child was farmed out to relatives and was eventually brought up by his aunt Lillian. Lillian was a devout Christian to the point of madness, and made sure to instil her fire-and-brimstone philosophy into her young nephew, who developed a religious mania that lasted for the rest of his life. To make matters worse, he was a strange-looking boy with a long sloping forehead, which caused others to taunt him. In addition, he had a violent temper and from an early age showed signs of mental disturbance, such as slurping his food like an animal at table and changing his clothes several times a day, often taking off his clean clothes and swapping them for filthy ones. His aunt and grandmother did their best to help him, but they failed to understand the boy, who became wilder and wilder until at the age of seven he was expelled from school.

  Not only did Nelson have to suffer his aunt’s hysterical religious fundamentalism and his unusual physical attributes, he also had the misfortune to be hit by a streetcar when he was only ten years old. He had been riding on his bicycle when it collided with the vehicle, giving him a massive blow on the head and rendering him unconscious. For a week he was in a coma and afterwards he was severely traumatised. From that point on he began to exhibit seriously violent behaviour and a range of physical and mental problems. One of the symptoms of his condition manifested itself as extreme sexual violence and, as a young man, he attempted to rape a neighbour’s daughter. This attack resulted in his being taken to a mental hospital, where he spent several years.

  The Dark Strangler

  He ran away many times from the home, adopting a variety of pseudonyms each time. As a young adult, he had a voracious sexual appetite, frequenting prostitutes, a habit he had indulged in since the age of fifteen. When he came out of the home and back to his aunt’s house, he began to drink a great deal and often talked to himself, reporting that he was hearing voices. He was clearly very disturbed by this time, but his aunt, although she was fond of him, was afraid of him and did not know how to deal with the situation.

  Eventually, Earle left his aunt’s home and began to wander about the United States on his own. He survived by taking odd jobs and committing petty thefts, sleeping rough in abandoned houses. It was not long before he was arrested and, at the age of eighteen, found himself in the notorious San Quentin jail. On his release, he returned to his aunt’s house once more and got married to a fifty-eight-year-old woman called Mary Martin but the relationship lasted only a few months. Nelson had descended into madness, talking to himself and constantly demanding sexual gratification, often masturbating in front of her when she did not comply with his wishes. Soon, he tired of her and set off on his wanderings again – this time with murder in mind.

  Nelson’s first victim was twelve-year-old Mary Summers, who was playing at her home on May 19, 1921. Pretending to be a plumber, Nelson gained entry to the house and tried to strangle the girl in the basement. However, Mary fought back and screamed loudly so that her older brother came to her rescue. Charles Summers and Nelson went out into the street and fought, until Nelson brought him down with a blow and ran away while he was lying on the ground.

  The police were called and before long, Nelson was found. He looked very rough, having scratches all over his face. Once inside the jail, it became clear that the authorities were dealing with a madman. He is said to have plucked his eyebrows with his fingernails, so that there was no hair left, and started to howl at the wall, thinking that he could see faces on it. Not surprisingly, he was sent to the city hospital for psychiatric treatment. When Mary visited him there, she learned that he had been in and out of mental hospitals from a young age, which no one had ever told her before she married him.

  While in
hospital, Nelson was assessed as being extremely dangerous, both to himself and to his wife. It appeared that he was now suffering from dementia as a result of syphilis. He was ordered to be taken back to the state mental hospital but, as he had done in the past, he escaped.

  Between February 1926 and June 1927, Nelson murdered twenty-two known victims in a killing spree that shocked America, becoming known as the ‘Gorilla Murderer’ because of his tremendous strength and oddly shaped forehead. Another name for the mystery murderer was the ‘Dark Strangler’. Most of his victims were landladies in boarding houses. His first victim was Clara Newman, a sixty-year-old woman. Nelson came to enquire about renting a room and ended up strangling her to death. He then quickly moved on and this became his trademark; after killing each new victim, he would move around the country, making it difficult for police to catch up with him. His murders continued until, on June 8, 1927, he went to Winnipeg, Canada, where instead of murdering the landlady of his rooming house, he murdered a girl named Lola Cowan, who was only fourteen years old. He hid Lola’s body under a bed in an unoccupied room of the house, following a pattern that he had adopted for hiding his victims.