The Christie Case

[contrafib]

I'm not doubting that he did interviews and got a lot of valid information but he had already decided the truth before he started (he stated this in the radio documentary recently added on youtube) so all his findings i believe were suited to fit the thesis. This is entirely different from objective evidence-gathering to reach a truth. This issue has already been widely covered in this forum, but in a nutshell he makes lots of assumptions, writes in a way that excludes any doubt in his thesis (including emotional language), made no alterations to later editions of his book, despite official papers being released that indicated that Evans wasn't a harmless halfwit, and didn't even correct his error in the garden photograph where he misidentified Beryl and created the impression that she was more desirable than she actually looked. I'm sure Christie wasn't particularly choosy, but the character in the film, played by Judy Geeson, undoubtedly looks far more attractive than the real Beryl.
Unfortunately, John Eddowes (son of Michael) decided to take a completely opposite tack ,but equally as biased as Kennedy, and decided Evans's complete and utter guilt using a lot of his own conjecture. So, we were back to square one after his book. The film '10 Rillington Place' is full of inaccuracies, some but not all changing the nature of the story and the 'characters'.
I'm really not interested in an argument; as i said, we've already widely discussed this, and noone is claiming to know anything for certain, probably the reason we're still talking about it.

[Limehouse]

Oh come on contrafib! I don't see what difference the attractiveness or otherwise of Mrs Evans makes to the case at all. The truth is, she was murdered, and however shady and furtive Timothy Evans might have been, he could easily be matched by Christie who had convictions for violence against women and had already murdered before the Evans family moved into the house.

[EddieX]

I take your point Contrafib. Indeed, I have been probably conditioned by the film 10 Rillington Place from an early age (probably about 14 or so when I first saw it) into believing that Christie was responsible for Geraldine and Beryl's death. I read the book upon which the film was based when I was about 30ish and obviously this confirmed the film's take on the tragedy.

About 2 years ago I re-read the book and also the Brabin report, which was the first time I had seen the full argument that it was more probable than not that Evans murdered Beryl. I found Brabin's reasoning on a lot of the minutiae of the case impressive, but I think he lost the plot, to some extent, when deciding that Evans was probably a murderer. The fact that Christie had murdered twice before the death of Beryl and Geraldine did not seem to weigh with Brabin on the question as to whom of the two was the murderer.

[Honest John]

Christie only had one conviction for violence - in 1929 against Mrs Coles (the 1923 incident was not one of violence contary to oft repeated myth) - and that was 20 years before the murder of Beryl and Geraldine. Conviction not convictions, therefore. Not that this proves or disproves anything, of course, as regards the Evans issue.

[contrafib]

Oh come on contrafib! I don't see what difference the attractiveness or otherwise of Mrs Evans makes to the case at all. The truth is, she was murdered, and however shady and furtive Timothy Evans might have been, he could easily be matched by Christie who had convictions for violence against women and had already murdered before the Evans family moved into the house.

I don't think it's a huge factor but it's an example of the inaccuracy of the film.

[RonIpstone]

Accuracy is not Limehouse's strong suit.

[Brickbat]

I subsequently learnt a little more about Beryl Thorley's family in the 1930s, Christie's finances in 1952 and Ruth Fuerst's movements and employments 1939-43. Too late for inclusion unfortunately.

@Honest John: Do you plan to include all the additional information in a later (paperback) edition of your book, or will it be avalable in another form? Thank you.

[Sherlock]

Yes, I would also be very interested in that information if you ever planned to publish it in any form, Honest John.

[Honest John]

I will ask about inclusion in the paperback version which comes out next year, but if this can't be done I am happy to post the details on this site.

By the way, 6 Almeric Road, Christie's home in Battersea in early 1929 still stands - his only known address in London to be still standing, apart from 23 Oxford Gardens.

If anyone thought the recent book to be of any merit, please consider a review on amazon.

[contrafib]

Honest John,

i read your book over Xmas and i think it certainly plugged a gap in the market, so to speak, being the first book to collate lots of information about the main players in Christie's life. I consider it a must-have for those interested in the case, and i will write a review saying this.
I do think you were a little hamstrung by limitations regarding the word count because i would have liked to have read a bit more of your own analysis regarding Christie. I don;t mean to expect a professional analysis of his mental state, but your conclusion was interesting and it might have been nice to have had a progression of the 'Christie as human being' idea through the book. The book generally read as a very straight factual account of his life. Also surprised to see so few pictures of Christie and none of the Evans family despite their significant role in the subject's life. Was this to move the book away from being about the Rillington Place case??
So many pictures of places as well.
Overall, very worthwhile.

[Honest John]

Glad you liked the book. Yes, it certainly could have been quite a lot longer. Originally there was a lot about the legal and political controversy from 1953 onwards, but this had to be cut to meet word limits.

The Evans pictures are pretty expensive to reproduce and I was able to acquire other pictures more economically. Yes, I was trying to shift the attention a little away from the events of 1949-50, as important as these are.

I was also aiming to be as factually accurate as possible, so hearsay, eg that Christie was a police informer in the 1940s (see Murderers' Moon) was dropped.

[Sherlock]

Hello Honest John

It was interesting that you were unable to find any evidence to corroborate crime reporter Norman Rae's claim that he arranged a meeting with Christie near Wood Green Town Hall after the latter had left Rillington Place in early 1953. Do you therefore think that Rae concocted this story for his own purposes?

On the other hand it would seem that Christie did have some dealings with the press, as he had first met Sunday Pictorial reporter Harry Procter at the time of the Evans murders in 1949, and after Evans's conviction he attempted to sell photographs of Evans to the Kensington Post. Christie also lent his camera to a member of this newspaper's staff for an outing in 1952.

It seems that Christie was quite active as a photographer in the Noting Hill area.
One wonders if any photographs taken by him still exist today; the only one I am aware of which may have been by him is the well-known one of Timothy, Beryl and Jeraldine with Evans's sister in the back garden of 10 Rillington Place.

[Sherlock]

It is also interesting that an artist named Frank Nicolle sketched Christie as he sat on a stool in a cafe and that the latter admired the drawing. I wonder if the sketch is still in existence today?

I also remember reading in a biography of pathologist Francis Camps that another artist drew a sketch of Christie in the dock at the Old Bailey and that the artist's housekeeper felt ill when she looked at it!!! I cannot remember the title of the book but I think it was published as a paperback in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The book contained an illustration of the sketch; I only remember that the artist was nicknamed "Pip".

[Sherlock]

Ones also wonders if Ruth Fuerst's daughter Christina Sonya, Rita Nelson's son George, Hectorina Maclennan's two daughters Marion and Juline, and any of Kathleen Maloney's five children are still alive today and know about the sad deaths of their mothers.

Another interesting point is that Timothy Evans also had a half-brother named John who lived at home as well as his mother, stepfather and two sisters. Oddly, Ludovic Kennedy never mentioned him in his book, although he has much to say about Evans's relationship with his sisters.

[Sherlock]

I was looking through a newly-published paperback in my local bookshop yesterday entitled "The Evil Within" by Trevor Marriot, a retired detective, who provides a potted history of the world's most notorious serial killers.

It had a reasonable amount on the Christie and Evans cases, but as far as I could see from my brief look it was once again merely a re-hash of the "standard version", with no new information.

I think that it will be very difficult to better Honest John's book for many years to come!!!!!!