The Christie Case

[contrafib]

that message was written in block capitals, don't know why it came out like that

[Honest John]

I'm giving a talk about the case tomorrow at the National Archives at Kew at 2pm if anyone's interested - an analysis about the sources for the study of the case, to be exact.

Read the memoirs of Christmas Humphreys, Maxwell-Ffye and Sydney Dernley recently. The first two don't mention the Evans case, though CH refers to criminals in general and their characteristics - many fit those of Evans. Dernley states that Evans did not go the gallows protesting his innocence and so thinks this suggests he wasn't (one could argue that SD would say that, of course). The film Pierrepoint based on no evidence that I know of states otherwise.

[Sherlock]

I vaguely remember Syd Dernley speaking on television at about the time his book was first published and saying that he felt that Evans was guilty of the crime for which he had been hanged.

Apparently Dernley, who died in 1994, was removed from the official list of executioners in 1954 after he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and fined £50 plus £25 costs for publishing obscene material. I remember briefly looking through Dernley's book in the past and as far as I can remember he did not mention this conviction.

It seems that Evans went to his death on the gallows quietly with little fuss and did not protest his innocence as he is portrayed as doing in the film Pierrepoint.

I do not know if he would have been more likely to have created some kind of scene prior to his death had he indeed been innocent of the deaths of Beryl and Geraldine. What do others think?

Is there any surviving testimony from the prison officers who looked after Evans prior to his execution as to whether he made any further statements concerning the murders?

[Sherlock]

Another question which is perhaps worth asking is whether there were any previous indications before the death of Geraldine that Evans was capable of attacking a child. There does not seem to be anything to suggest that Christie was capable of this, but that does not necessarily mean that he did not do so. The same applies to Evans.

It would seem that Evans was capable of attacking women due to the violent arguments he had with Beryl, but what is known of his relationship with his baby daughter? Was he genuinely fond of her as Ludovic Kennedy suggests, or did he resent her presence, for example because he had less money to spend on beer or because he felt that Beryl was giving all her attention to the baby and ignoring him?

It would also be interesting to know what Beryl really felt about the baby. We know that she did not want a second child; did she therefore want a child at all? My impression is that Geraldine's birth was not planned.

In many ways the character of Beryl Evans is one of the major mysteries in the case. She seems to have been a fairly attractive, respectable and intelligent person; what then attracted her to Evans, with his low intelligence? Did Beryl herself have a bad temper? What kind of relationship did she have with her father Mr Thorley? Did her father approve of Evans as a husband for his daughter? How much did she tell Christie of her marital problems?

[Chris]

I'm giving a talk about the case tomorrow at the National Archives at Kew at 2pm if anyone's interested - an analysis about the sources for the study of the case, to be exact.

I would have been, but unfortunately can't go tomorrow. Do you happen to know whether it's likely to be made available as a podcast on the TNA website?

[RivkahChaya]

I think I've said before that the only scenario where Christie is entirely guiltless, is one where Beryl killed the toddler, maybe through abuse, maybe through carelessness or neglect, or maybe through a genuine accident, but because she had been careless or careless before, the accident wasn't believable-- anyway, when her husband found the baby dead, he got angry, and killed Beryl.

The problem with that is the situation as I understand it, is that the place where Beryl's body was found had other bodies dumped there, and Timothy would have noticed them.

As far as not protesting his sentence, maybe he was depressed over the loss of his family, and didn't want to go on.

[Sherlock]

Here is a thought which has been going through my head recently:- is it even possible that Beryl actually killed Geraldine rather than Evans or Christie?

The reason I am suggesting this scenario is because as I think Honest John pointed out in his book we do not seem to know a great deal about Beryl as a person. It does not seem entirely clear what kind of a personality she had, although it would seem that she could be roused to anger, and we do not know exactly why she chose to marry Evans as he was well below her own level of intelligence, although as F. Tennyson Jesse observed in the introduction to[I ]The Trials of Evans and Christie[/I] it was not a shotgun marriage.

Could it be that Beryl did not want a child at all when Geraldine was born; one gets the impression that the pregnancy was not planned and may have come as something of a shock. Others may think differently, but I even sense that Timothy may actually have been fonder of his daughter than his wife was. Ludovic Kennedy stated in his book that Beryl often left Geraldine in a filthy state and did not object when Evans's mother and sisters took the child round to their own house to bathe her and provide her with clean clothing. If this is true it might suggest that the child was neglected at least to some extent.

Might Beryl have killed the child out of anger and frustration when she could not bear her squalid surroundings and her husband's violent behaviour any longer? Might Evans then have killed Beryl out of rage when he discovered the death of his daughter?

Might Beryl have resented the child as it meant she was tied to a life of drudgery compared to the life she had known before she married Evans?

If Beryl did kill the child Evans might have been expected to tell this to the police after his arrest. Possibly if he had already killed Beryl he did not wish to cause his family further distress by revealing that Beryl had killed Geraldine.

There is also the fact that as far as is known there is nothing in the background of either Evans or Christie to suggest that either man was capable of attacking a child, although both were capable of attacking adult women.

I do not know if this is a plausible scenario or not. What do other contributors think?

[RivkahChaya]

Here is a thought which has been going through my head recently:- is it even possible that Beryl actually killed Geraldine rather than Evans or Christie?

If you scroll back, you will see I suggested something like that before.

I doubt that Beryl killed the baby deliberately. I would guess it was an accident, but it may have been abuse that was not intended to kill, and then Timothy killed Beryl when he found his daughter dead.

I do not think that is what happened, I just think that is the only plausible scenario in which Christie did not kill Beryl and the baby.

I can't think of a plausible scenario where Christie killed one and not the other, unless he killed Beryl, and then Timothy Evans accidentally, or in frustration killed the baby while trying to care for her by himself, but I think that is so highly unlikely as to be impossible, in practical terms, because it means that Beryl is missing for a significant amount of time, and Timothy does not bring it to anyone's attention, while he struggles to care for his daughter by himself. "Significant amount of time" might have been just a few days, but I think we know forensically that isn't what happened.

[contrafib]

Exciting news for everyone. Honest John and I have recorded an unofficial audio commentary for the film '10 Rillington Place', using the audio from the film but no video. As the copyright part of it is not quite clear, it might get taken down at some point but probably not.
Part 1 is on you tube, the rest coming soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMlF_ejXwyw

[contrafib]

We do come up with some sort of conclusion about the Evans killings as well.

[Chris]

I would have been, but unfortunately can't go tomorrow. Do you happen to know whether it's likely to be made available as a podcast on the TNA website?

The podcast of Jonathan Oates's talk, "John Reginald Christie: a study in sources, The National Archives and beyond", is now available on the National Archives website:

http://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/john-reginald-christie-a-study-in-sources-the-national-archives-and-beyond/

[Honest John]

There is also an alternative commentary to the film, by contrafib and myself, which may interest browsers of this forum.

[Brickbat]

We do come up with some sort of conclusion about the Evans killings as well.

Thanks a lot for putting these up. Though it's a bit cumbersome to go through all 11 clips I'm curious to hear your conclusions so I'll watch them all.
Actually, is that a mummified Christie on your kitchen floor?

[contrafib]

Thanks a lot for putting these up. Though it's a bit cumbersome to go through all 11 clips I'm curious to hear your conclusions so I'll watch them all.
Actually, is that a mummified Christie on your kitchen floor?

If you go to the contrafib channel and then go to playlists, you can click on it and it will play them all in order automatically

[contrafib]

An easy link to the commentary

http://www.youtube.com/view_all_playlists

The mummy is actually from the Sistine Chapel tour in Rome