The Christie Case

[Honest John]

Thanks for asking about me. The book proofs arrived recently and I have been rather busy compiling an index and checking through for the final time. At the same time I have made a few more enquiries. I now know the addresses of Beryls' family from 1929-1939, or at least a few of them and a friend is today checking a few school records. I found that they lived just around the corner from where I lived in Catford in the 1990s. I had a lengthy talk with a son in law of Kathleen Maloney, though learnt little new. I have checked inquest records for all the victims 1943-1953 and found a few more new points, such as the extent of Ruth Fuerst's movements 1939-1943. I hope to check Christie and Evans' inquest reports tomorrow. Sent a letter to HMP Pentonville for any relevant files there as they haven't been deposited anywhere, but no joy yet and may well be too late. Unfortunately not all of this can be incorporated into the book at this late stage.

Well, seven months to gp to publication. Kensington library are holding a Christie evening in November, date to be aranged, so I and a few others will say a few words before a Q and A session.

Saw the opening of the film again yesterday. Does anyone know if the music is available? Regrettably the first few minutes are so error ridden that one can only assume the words 'This is a True Story' were meant ironically, but I do not think so.

[Sherlock]

I think I first read a newspaper article on the Christie/Evans case back in the 1970s when I was about nine or ten years of age. I well remember that the article stated that Christie's last three vicitms were "stacked like brooms" in his kitchen cupboard!!

[sdreid]

The first I heard about the case was on a TV news/crime type program. It was maybe fifty years ago and I don't know what show it was. If wanted to take a wild guess I'd say Omnibus. It was a documentary type presentation wherever it was.

[Sherlock]

I have come across two other tv dramas concerning the cases of Christie and Evans, both of which were made before the well-known 10 Rillington Place with Richard Attenborough and John Hurt.

In 1970 as part of a tv series on famous murder cases called "Conceptions of Murder", an episode was shown entitled The Dreams of Tim Evans, starring Hugh Burden as Christie and Don Hawkins as Evans. The writer was Clive Exton, who later wrote the script for 10 Rillington Place.

In 1969 a German tv drama on the case was made entitled Gnade fur Timothy Evans, in which an actor named Friedrich G. Beckhaus played Christie and one named Josef Frohlich played Evans.

The case has also inspired at least three stage plays, including Christie in Love by Howard Brenton, Waiting for Pierrepoint by Paul Beard and Ten Rillington Place by Kenny Miller, based on Ludovic Kennedy's book.

[contrafib]

Anyone still out there?? John, any book news? When will the publicity start??

[Honest John]

Sorry, I don't know of these programmes. My knowledge on the TV side of the matter is low. I recall a rather poor TV programme on the topic last year.

[Honest John]

Thanks. Kennedy states that he knew of no significant work on the case published prior to 1961 which doesn't support his case, so presumably he had not read Philips, Lefebure or Harold Scott - or was deliberately suppressing such. I find myself wondering this throughout his book - was he ignorant or mendacious? Neither puts him in a good light, though I suppose ignorance is a lesser 'offence'.

[Honest John]

Camps and Jesse are two of the essential books to read (along with the condensed version of the Brabin report). Camps goes into a great deal of medical detail and Jesse's transcripts of the trials are important. Her introduction is less good, though, and contains numerous errors. Maxwell's book is not available in any public or university library that I know of, nor does the London Library have a copy. When it appears on abe books etc, it is a pricey item. However, it was the first book on the topic and is a pretty straight and unbiassed account, though says little about Evans. It was written just after Christie's trial but before the Scott Henderson review and Christie's execution. Eddowes is fairly easily and cheaply obtained but is less good and Kennedy supercedes it.

[contrafib]

This could be one for Honest John.
I have noticed that on a few programmes about the case that i have watched, there is quite a lot of footage of the inside of the house. Does anyone know when this was shot and if it was for a specific programme of the time? One in particular, called 'Crime Secrets', had house footage inside and outside plus a short interview with Evans's uncle, Cornelius Lynch.
In addition, the BBC website's 'on this day' section used to have a video of Michael Parkinson standing outside the house and in the backyard talking about the case. If i had to guess, i would say that a programme may have been broadcast on television in the mid-60s, around the time that the case was reexamined and Evans given a posthumous pardon, or maybe it was when LK's book came out.
Can anyone shed any light??

[Sherlock]

I have a copy of Murderer's Moon by Conrad Phillips in front of me. Here is what he has to say concerning the Scott Henderson enquiry which concluded that Evans was guilty:-


...One is tempted to make inferences about the conclusions Mr. Scott Henderson reached, but one must remember that he had access to all the facts, many of which I understand were not made public at the time. The police may have had overwhelming circumstantial or other evidence which conclusively proved that Evans killed both his wife and child.

The fact that the enquiry was secret was, in my view, unfortunate. In a public enquiry all the facts of the case would have been published and there would have been nothing about which to make inferences. The word "secret" suggests something "fishy" to the Anglo-Saxon mind, that the powers-that-be want to "cover up something."



This seems to me to suggest that Phillips considers Evans guilty of both murders.

[Sherlock]

The books by Jesse and Camps are definately worth reading as they contain important primary information on the case, although Camps' book has a lot of scientific information which is not easy for a layman to take in!!!!

[Honest John]

Murderers' Moon

Does anyone know if this book supports the thesis that Evans was innocent? Eddowes refers to the author, a journalist, in his book, and I recall he suggests that Conrad Phillips thought not. Thanks.

[contrafib]

There are 4 of the main books about the case that i haven't read, which are the books by Ronald Maxwell, Michael Eddowes, F Tennyson Jesse and Francis Camps. I'll definitely read the first two but are the Jesse and Camps books worth reading??

[Sherlock]

I've got the book by Marston. No new information in it and just a basic rehash of the "standard version". I suppose it might be adequate as an introduction to the case for someone new to it.

[Honest John]

Christie's collection

Christie wasn't the only man to collect hairs from women. The fictional Louis Glober in Temporary Kings by Anthony Powell did too, and one wonders if Powell writing in about 1973 was inspired by Christie.

Recently reread Gammon and Marston. Both books truly awful.