The Christie Case

[contrafib]

That would be great if it's this year. Don't worry about offering a verdict. I think people will respect your opinion (if not the mainstream press) if they feel it's been arrived at, as with Furneaux's book, rather than the book being written to fit the original view.
Have you got a title? I can suggest 'Christie' (sorry!)

Good luck

[Sherlock]

Would it be possible for you to say anything about any additional information you coudn't put into the book due to the restriction on length?

[Honest John]

My initial thought was the title 'John Christie: The Facts', but the publishers went with 'John Christie: Serial Killer of Rillington Place'.

Some of the missing parts included a discussion of the political and legal issues following the Scott-Henderson report and beyond, the ballad of John Christie by Alexander Baron (1998, I think), some material on the family; one member claims one of Christie's sisters was a prostitute but I have found no evidence to support this, and so on.

[Sherlock]

A couple of years or so ago I was looking a the Find A Grave website and I came across the burial locations for Christie's victims. I remember that Ethel Christie was recorded as buried in Burngreave Cemetery in Sheffield and that Muriel Eady was recorded as buried in Gunnersbury Cemetery, which is also the burial location of Beryl and Geraldine Evans.

I also remember that Ruth Fuerst was recorded as buried in a cemetery in Salzburg, Austria, although I cannot remember the name. The burial locations of Hectorina McLennan, Rita Nelson and Kathleen Maloney were also given, which were all in London; I only remember that one of them was buried in Abney Park Cemetery.

Unfortunately, this information no longer appears on the website.

[Brickbat]

A couple of years or so ago I was looking a the Find A Grave website and I came across the burial locations for Christie's victims. I remember that Ethel Christie was recorded as buried in Burngreave Cemetery in Sheffield and that Muriel Eady was recorded as buried in Gunnersbury Cemetery, which is also the burial location of Beryl and Geraldine Evans.

I also remember that Ruth Fuerst was recorded as buried in a cemetery in Salzburg, Austria, although I cannot remember the name. The burial locations of Hectorina McLennan, Rita Nelson and Kathleen Maloney were also given, which were all in London; I only remember that one of them was buried in Abney Park Cemetery.

Unfortunately, this information no longer appears on the website.

Hectorina, or Ina, MacLennan is also buried at Gunnersbury.
Christie's grave by the way, must also still exist today, at a marked plot within the grounds of Pentonville , just near the prison wall. Or has it been cleared?

[Honest John]

This is interesting information indeed. Rita and Kathleen are buried at Gunnersbury Cemetery in west London - as are, of course, Beryl and Geraldine Evans. When I contacted the cemetery authorities they could find no reference to any of the others.

I did not know where Ruth was buried nor that Ethel was buried at Burngreave Cemetery in Sheffield, though I had read she'd been cremated. As to Hectorina, I have read correspondence that inferred the corpse was to be buried in Scotland, though perhaps I should check Abney Wood Cemetery records, which are at Hackney Archives. I will contact Sheffield and Hackney about this as it would be good to tie this up.

Although I can't alter very much now, I am still trying to tie up a few loose ends, such as the correct spealling of Rita's middle name (Camps gives it as Elisabeth, but most police files use z rather than s - will check the birth certificate); whether any of Christie's relatives spoke to the local press in 1953 (I don't think so, but you never know) and finally at the post office archives relating to the dismissal in 1950 as I have reason to doubt the standard explanation given by Kennedy and repeated thereafter.

By the way I have just been sent the proof of the book's cover and blurb. The title is John Christie of Rillington Place: Biography of a Serial killer and it should be out in October, which is of course a key month for Muriel Eady Christina Sonya Fuerst and Geraldine Evans, though for different reasons.

[contrafib]

Geraldine would be 64 in October and her parents would be in their 80's. You have to question how long they would have stayed together though, even if the events hadn't happened, and whether they were likely to have lived to a ripe old age.

[Sherlock]

As Honest John has discovered that Ruth Fuerst gave birth to a daughter named Christina Sonya Fuerst in 1942, one also wonders whether she is still alive. If so, she would now be about 69 years of age.

I have also read that Ruth Fuerst's father was named Ludwig Fuerst and was an artist in Vienna, although Honest John has also recorded hs name as Frederick. I have never come across any further details about him or his artwork on Google; I wonder if anything is known about him in Austria? Honest John records that he had died by 1953.

If the information I read was correct and Ruth was buried in Salzburg after her body was discovered, I wonder if other members of her family arranged her funeral? She had probably been brought up as a Roman Catholic.

I also wonder when her mother Friedl died, who was living in New York in 1953.

It would also be interesting to know anything about Ruth's brief career as a student nurse when she arrived in England in 1939, such as what hospital she worked at. Also, was she really an amateur prostitute when Christie met her, or was this merely a rumour?

[Honest John]

Dear Sherlock, The forthcoming book contains a lot more information about Ruth and her family. You will have to read chapter three when it comes out.

As to the graves, I think the information that was on Find a Grave but now isn't may have been removed on grounds of accuracy. I have checked with the cemetery in Sheffield and find that Ethel is not buried there. Abney cemetery would be an odd choice for Hectorina as she died in Kensington and her family lived in Scotland. I have emailed Hackney Archives on this one and they take ages to reply. The Evanses and Christie appear in Find a Grave, and he's in suitable company - Crippen and Heath as well as other killers, Nazis and traitors.

There is so much myth about all this that I am going to stick with the inferences in the case files re Ethel and Hectorina, unless I can pin down the Scottish cemetery in question.

As to Ruth and Salzburg, I find this puzzling as her family, well, the survivors, were in the USA in 1953 and she died in Kensington.

Has anyone heard the 1970s urban myth about Christie working in the Electric Theatre Cinema in Portobello Road (then called ther Imperial) and which still survives as a cinema? I have read nothing to support this, though he was employed in four cinemas, 1913-1939. One of his victims was employed there, though, and visited it with a friend (not Christie) shortly before her demise.

[Sherlock]

I think I have posted on this subject before, but I can think of several other people connected with the Christie case whose ultimate fate is unknown, and who could possibly have shed further light on Christie's character.

One of them is Mr Robert Hookway, who owned the shop in Portobello Road and to whom both Evans and Christie sold their furniture. Ludovic Kennedy apparently interviewed him for his book around 1960, and was informed by him that Christie was a very nice man to talk to and was full of scientific knowledge. Kennedy also stated that Mr Hookway had found that an old chest of drawers among the furniture he purchased from Christie was full of sheets of paper covered with Christie's handwriting, which appeared to consist chiefly of descriptions of women noticed by Christie. Mr Hookway apparently put these papers in the dustbin without examining them further, but Kennedy speculated that they may have contained true descriptions of Christie's crimes, including the murders of Geraldine and Beryl Evans. Of course, this could be nothing more than pure speculation.

Apparently the Brabin Inquiry was unable to trace Mr Hookway in 1965, so his ultimate fate seems to be unknown. He will almost certainly be dead by now.

Another interesting person connected with the case was the elderly Mr Charles Kitchener, who had lived in the flat above the Christies since the 1920s and moved out around 1950 due to his deteriorating eyesight. Kennedy also spoke to him when preparing his book and was told by him that he had disliked both Evans and Christie and considered that both of them were thieves. He was apparently a retired railwayman and was seperated from his wife, and I suspect he probably died around the time Kennedy's book was published.

I gather that Basil Thorley, the brother of Beryl Evans, was still alive in the 1990s as John Eddowes stated in The Two Killers of Rillington Place that he had been informed by him that he considered that Evans had been responsible for the murders of Beryl and Geraldine. I think Basil was younger than Beryl and worked as a projectionist at the Royalty Cinema in Notting Hill in 1949.

I also gather from research on the web that Black Boy House in Turner Lane near Halifax, which was Christie's place of birth in 1899, is still in existence and is currently occupied by a firm of accountants. Apparently the postcode is HX3 6UQ!!

[contrafib]

And of course there are others as we have previously mentioned on this forum, such as Lucy Endecott, who could perhaps reveal how violent the rows were between Tim and Beryl, and also the crucial information as to whether or not Beryl told her that Christie was going to abort her baby, as stated by Kennedy.

I do remember an ITV show called 'To Kill And Kill Again', which had one episode dedicated to Christie and featured former residents of Rillington Place who knew both the Christie and Evans families. I don't remember any startling revelations though.

[Honest John]

Miscellaneous

Hookway and Kitchener both died in the 1960s; the latter in Worthing in 1964; I recall Hookway died in about the same year in west London. Great shame about all the stuff he threw out.

Lucy Endicott married a Mr Dyson in Yorkshire in 1957. I don't know what happened to her. She would be nearly 80 now.

I think John Eddowes is still with us. A chap I know tried to contact him but with no success, as did I.

Basil Thorley married and went to live in Brighton, remarried in the 1970s. He was convinced Evans was a killer.

Penry Probert, Evans' stepfather, died in January 1953 and lies in Gunnersbury Cemetery. One wonders if he would have changed his opinion of his stepson had he lived a few more months.

Checked with Hackney Archives - Hectorina is not buried at Abney Cemetery. I have a contact from the Highland Archives for cemeteries near Aultbea, where her family returned to in 1952.

I did have an appendix on the further lives of the key characters for my book, but had to cut this out due to word limits.

I am also in touch with a former resident of RP and she said a little about the respectable, helpful old gent of number 10.

Finally, Black Boy House was a family home as recently as 2010.

[contrafib]

John, any other information about the key players would be very interesting. Alexander Baker of course spent 3 nights with Christie and Baker's girlfriend Hectorina at Rillington Place. I wonder what he said about that in his statements, and i must say i find it quite incredible that nobody smelled anything of the corpses very nearby in the alcove, despite the weather.

I rang John Eddowes a few years ago after seeing him post his landline number on a forum. After initial suspicion on his part, we talked for quite a long time about the case and his book. He was very vehement in his opinions, and got rather defensive when i pointed out that his theory about Geraldine's body being left in a suitcase by Evans had very little evidence. Rather a truculent man.
Martin Fido was equally convinced of his opinion when we corresponded by email a while ago though he reeled off the rather simplistic 'list of coincidences' that Kennedy put in his book.

[Honest John]

Chapter 9 of the book deals with Baker, amongst other matters. A middle aged man with a criminal record, married, of course! Other people did comment in the smell but Christie gave an excuse and they believed him.

The suitcase theory is pure speculation; as to Fido, some of the coincidences, which I think originate from Eddowes senior (who was quite keen to speculate, too), are rather spurious, and one could list a set of oddities that one would have to believe if Evans was innocent (see The Crimes of Rillington Place).

[Sherlock]

There is a picture of Alexander Pomeroy Baker in The Christie Case by Ronald Maxwell. That is the only one I have ever seen.