The Christie Case

[Honest John]

I have not heard anyone refer to the thigh bone propping up the fence prior to March 1953; which doesn't mean to say it wasn't there before, nor indeed, for how long. It is odd that no one noticed it, though.

The identity of the skull could have been ascertained through dental records, as in the case of the murder of Mrs Dobkin in about 1942. However, this was only possible because the police/pathologist had a good idea of who the skull belonged to and so could check with her dentist asap.

Since there was no thought that this was a murder case and given the number of missing people - and that Muriel was far from Putney - I wouldn't give much of chance for a successful ID. Police manpower was very strained after 1945 when the War reserve constabulary had to be released.

By the way, there was a TV programme in 1988, part of which is available online, which features ex PC Ledger (a picture of Christie in the Daily Mail helped him ID Christie) and Leonard Trevellian (the latter says he chased a villian into no 10 and later talked to Christie - in early 1953)

[RivkahChaya]

Here is something which has recently occurred to me; what would have happened to Christie if Evans had been found not guilty of the murder of Jeraldine in 1950?

Is it Jeraldine, or Geraldine? I've always seen it with a G.

I have always assumed that Christie killed Geraldine. I'm finding conflicting information in different sources over whether Timothy Evans was ever charged with the murder of Geraldine. There seems to be a biography of Christie that states that Evans was charged with murdering Geraldine, but not tried for it, while other sources say he was never charged with it.

It also seems to be common knowledge that he at one time confessed to murdering Beryl Evans, and the trial was really about death vs. life, not about guilt. I don't know how the British system at the time worked, but in the US, when a prosecutor wants a certain outcome, he may hold back a charge, so that if he doesn't get the outcome in the first trial, he can conduct a second one without violating double jeopardy. There's a case in Texas of a mother who was accused of killing two of her sons, and is now on death row. She was tried for only one, because the prosecutor wanted to be able to try her separately for the second, in case she was acquitted of the first. So, maybe that is why Evans was not charged with killing his daughter-- the prosecution got a verdict of death for Beryl, and had no need to try him again.

Is that possibly the case?

I do seem to recall reading some place that lingering doubts over whether or not Evans killed his daughter was one reason the government was slow to pardon him, even when it was clear Christie had killed Beryl.

I know this happened in the 1950s, and people didn't understand the phenomenon of false confessions then, but Geez.

Anyway, my point: what was Christie's motive for killing Geraldine? what is just that she was a "loose end"? was it because he had a story that Beryl had left, and it didn't sell if she hadn't taken the child with her? Or was Geraldine old enough to talk at all? I know some people think that children at a certain age will see things they can't express verbally at the time, but will remember them, and express them later, when they have learned to speak more. Was it possible he was worried about that?

I am not finding much by Googling. I know I have this info in a book some place, but some of our books are in storage.

[Honest John]

Geraldine is the correct spelling.

Evans was charged with both murders but tried for the death of his daughter.

He confessed to the murders twice to Inspector Black and Chief Inspector Jennings; later to Dr Matheson and to DS Trevellian, and again to Black.

He was never tried for the murder of his wife; the prosecution had that option but decided to go for child murder as a defence of provocation was then impossible.

The Brabin Report of 1966 concluded that Evans probably killed his wife but probably did not kill his daughter and because he was convicted of the latter he was pardoned.

It is said that Christie killed Geraldine because he had already killed Beryl and to leave her alive would result in enquiries being made about her mother, leading to him. No reference has ever been made to whether this poor 13 month old could speak.

I would recommend 'John Christie: Serial Killer of Rillington Place' (published in 2012).

[RivkahChaya]

13-month-olds usually can't speak, except maybe "cookie," "milk" and "mama."

However, they can suddenly show fear of someone they previously did not fear. It was also believed at the time that they would "remember" things they saw, and articulate them later. This isn't true. Children under 30 months have a type of "amnesia," for lack of a better term, that results from certain brain structures just not being fully developed. But psychological theory at the time held that people with mental illnesses, or children with behavioral difficulties, that we'd nor call ADHD, or autism, attributed these things to trauma that occurred when a child couldn't consciously remember it*. A lot of the treatment for these children consisted of trying to bully them into remembering non-existent trauma.

I have no idea whether Christie would have known about those theories.


*Yes, I know about the "refrigerator mother" theory. That was a type of trauma. Supposedly. I read The Empty Fortress. Oh my gawd.

[Sherlock]

Oddly enough, although Geraldine's name is spelled with a "G" on her and Beryl's headstone in Gunnersbury Cemetery, on the metal plate on their coffin her name was spelled "Jeraldine". It is recorded on page 138 of Camps's Medical and Scientific Investigations in the Christie Case that the undertaker had been specifically told that the child's name must be spelled with a "J" when the coffin was ordered.

On page 136 of that book there is a photograph of the coffin immediately after exhumation in 1953 in which the named Jeraldine can just be made out on the plate.

[RivkahChaya]

Does she have a birth certificate? Also, I know much was made of the fact that Timothy Evans was illiterate, although he could sign his name. Did he know how to spell his daughter's name? If the "Jeraldine" request was made, someone must have made it. Was Beryl able to read and write?

I don't suppose it really matters, I'm just curious.

Also, when people were first considering a pardon for Evans, did anyone really advocate the position that he killed his daughter, but Christie killed his wife? That seems a pretty odd position to take. I'd think that if you believe Christie killed one, you believe he killed the other, unless you think the child died accidentally because she was unsupervised after her mother was dead, which still seems strange.

[Honest John]

Does she have a birth certificate? Also, I know much was made of the fact that Timothy Evans was illiterate, although he could sign his name. Did he know how to spell his daughter's name? If the "Jeraldine" request was made, someone must have made it. Was Beryl able to read and write?

The birth should have been registered in the fourth quarter of 1948, so you can check on ancestry.com, and order a certificate if required.

The Evans family had an order of newspapers form a local newsagent so I think we can be pretty certain that at least one or both had a level of literacy. Evans made contradictory statements about being able to read and then not being able to. Likewise he had a watch so that also suggests some degree of literacy.

I don't suppose it really matters, I'm just curious.

Also, when people were first considering a pardon for Evans, did anyone really advocate the position that he killed his daughter, but Christie killed his wife? That seems a pretty odd position to take. I'd think that if you believe Christie killed one, you believe he killed the other, unless you think the child died accidentally because she was unsupervised after her mother was dead, which still seems strange.

I don't know of anyone who has suggested that Christie killed Beryl and Evans killed Geraldine; author Furneaux and Judge Brabin consider Evans did the first murder and Christie did the second; others that both were killed by the same man.

[caz]

13-month-olds usually can't speak, except maybe "cookie," "milk" and "mama."

However, they can suddenly show fear of someone they previously did not fear. It was also believed at the time that they would "remember" things they saw, and articulate them later. This isn't true. Children under 30 months have a type of "amnesia," for lack of a better term, that results from certain brain structures just not being fully developed.

They neglected to tell me. One of my earliest memories is from the summer of 1955 (aged 18 months) when my mum dressed me as a fairy for a fancy dress competition at a holiday camp. I remember as if it were yesterday how I felt when it was my turn to walk round the ballroom and everyone laughed. That puzzled me because I couldn't see what was funny and nobody else got that reaction, but it must have been because I was the youngest and looked cute. I couldn't be remembering it all from what mum told me in later years because I know exactly how I was feeling inside at the time, and can remember the ballroom and the wooden floorboards at the back where we all had to stand before parading, where mum was worried about what she called "splinters" because I had bare feet.

Mum's nickname for me was Fairy Fay.

Having said that, I agree that baby Geraldine would have been too young to give anything away, although Christie may have erred on the safe side if he had little experience with children of any age.

Love,

Caz
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[RivkahChaya]

Caz, it's possible you've constructed a memory after being told the story. See Elizabeth Loftes' research on how surprisingly easy it is to create a false memory.

It's also possible that you just had precocious neurological development. All my teeth came in really early. I had all eight permanent teeth in front before I started kindergarten, and all my baby teeth before I was six months. Stuff happens.

I'm just talking averages. It's normal for a 2 1/2 year-old not to have terrific memories of the past, so that a kid that age with a head injury is not necessarily exhibiting damage because she can't remember what she had for dinner the day before, or what she did on her last birthday.

[caz]

Hi Rivkah,

I have a lot of very early memories, not just the fairy one, and they all relate to feelings I had at the time that nobody else would have known about. For instance, my dad took me by train to stay at Norland Nursery when my mum was having my younger brother, and I remember stuff that happened at the nursery that nobody could have told me about when I was older.

Maybe you constructed the memory, or your mom did, of you having all your baby teeth at six months.

Only kidding.

Love,

Caz
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[RivkahChaya]

Hah. I have pictures of the teeth.

[Honest John]

Hah. I have pictures of the teeth.

If anyone is interested, I am giving a talk on the Christie murders at Ealing Central Library on Thursday 30 May. It begins at 6.15pm, but I would recommend anyone interested to arrive at the library at 6pm to buy a ticket for £4.

[caz]

Good luck with the talk tomorrow, John. Wish I could be there. I'm currently reading and enjoying Edward Marston's Crime Archive edition on the Christie case.

Love,

Caz
X

[Smoking Joe]

Does she have a birth certificate? Also, I know much was made of the fact that Timothy Evans was illiterate, although he could sign his name. Did he know how to spell his daughter's name? If the "Jeraldine" request was made, someone must have made it. Was Beryl able to read and write?

, which still seems strange.

Timothy Evans presumabley could read road signs also.He would have had to in his job as delivery driver. He would I assume also have had to be literate enough to read the addresses to which the items had to be delivered to. Literate enough also to read which items were on which Invoice. Just how Illiterate in fact was he?
On the issue of baby teeth, I kid ye not,I had two bottom centre milk teeth till the age of 37,when they both fell out,unaided,on the same day. Im not suggesting that has any bearing on the Christie case but...........it's true.

[Observer]

Hey Smoking Joe

Why was Timothy Evans granted a free pardon? Why was his body exhumed and re-buried in consecrated ground. Why did the Home Office award Timothy Evans's half-sister, Mary Westlake, and his sister, Eileen Ashby, ex-gratia payments as compensation for the miscarriage of justice in Evans's trial?

Bear in mind that Government, and the judiciary are loath to hand out free pardons.