John Haigh: The Acid Bath Murderer

 

John Haigh: The Acid Bath Murderer

John Haigh was known to the other residents of Kensington’s Onslow Court Hotel as a successful businessman. He wore smart suits and drove a sports car, but his money did not come from his business. It came from murder.

When residents of the Onslow Court Hotel came down for breakfast on the morning of 19 February 1949, they immediately noticed that one of their number was missing. Mrs Olive Durand-Deacon, a wealthy 69-year old widow, had been a permanent resident at the hotel for some years and was noted for her punctiliousness. It was unlike her to be late for a meal.

Mrs Constance Lane, another resident and a close friend of Mrs Durand-Deacon, was particularly concerned and decided to make a few discreet enquiries. Her concern deepened when the hotel’s chamber maid told her that Mrs Durand-Deacon’s bed had not been slept in.

Later that morning Mrs Lane was approached by another of the Onslow Court’s residents, Mr John George Haigh. Haigh was something of an odd man out at this genteel South Kensington establishment, a private hotel which was almost exclusively the preserve of elderly, well heeled, upper-class ladies. It was not that his presence was resented by the other residents. On the contrary, most of the Onslow Court ladies found the dapper 19-year old engineer handsome, charming and meticulously well mannered. Mrs Durand-Deacon was a particular fan of his and the two of them had taken to spending long hours huddled together in the lounge, ‘talking business’.

Haigh asked Mrs Lane if she knew Mrs Durand-Deacon’s whereabouts, saying that they had had an appointment the previous day and that Mrs Durand-Deacon had failed to show up. He did so hope she was all right.

Missed appointment

Mrs Lane already knew about the appointment. She had seen Mrs Durand-Deacon just as she was about to leave the hotel, and she’d said she was on her way to Haigh’s factory in Crawley to discuss a business project. Mrs Lane could not understand how she could have “failed to show up”.

Mrs Lane had never liked Haigh. He was too oily for her taste, and his involvement with Mrs Durand-Deacon had always made her uneasy. She instinctively mistrusted him, and now she had a creeping feeling that something was seriously amiss.

Mrs Lane toyed with the idea of going to the police but realized that there might be some perfectly innocent reason for Mrs Durand-Deacon’s absence. So, anxious not to embarrass her friend or make a fool of herself, she decided to wait.

The following morning, 20 February there was still no sign of Mrs Durand-Deacon. Mrs Lane was at breakfast, pondering her next move, when she was again approached by Haigh, expressing concern. Mrs Lane was suddenly galvanized into action. She told Haigh that she was going down to the police station to fill out a missing persons report, and that she would like him to go with her. Haigh had little choice but to agree, and he offered to drive them both down to Chelsea police station.

Fingernail scheme

The report Haigh made to the police was plausible enough. According to him, Mrs Durand-Deacon had approached him for some technical advice. She was thinking of starting a business, designing and manufacturing artificial fingernails. She had already made prototypes but she knew absolutely nothing about the technical side of things. Being an engineer, perhaps he, Haigh, could give her a few pointers?

In reality, Haigh said, Mrs Durand-Deacon’s idea was a commercial non-starter in ration-bound post-war England, but he had not wanted to hurt her feelings and said he would be delighted to help. They had planned to drive down to his workshop in Crawley to look at some materials from which the nails could be made. He had arranged to meet Mrs Durand-Deacon on the afternoon of 18 February at 2.30 p.m. outside the Army and Navy Stores in Victoria Street. He had waited there until 3.30 p.m., but she had not arrived and he had driven down to Sussex alone. He was, of course, extremely concerned about Mrs Durand-Deacon’s welfare, and would do anything he could to help the police to locate her. The police thanked Haigh for his co-operation and said that they would be in touch if they thought of anything else.

Haigh drove Mrs Lane back to the Onslow Court Hotel, hoping that he would hear no more of the matter. Four days later, however, on Thursday 24 February, Woman Police Sergeant Alexandra Lambourne went back to the hotel to gather additional background information on Mrs Durand-Deacon. She interviewed Haigh at some length and, like Mrs Lane, was immediately repelled by his superficial charm and unctuous concern for the well0being of the missing window. She was an experienced police officer and was convinced that Haigh was lying.

WPS Lambourne had nothing to back up this gut feeling, but she felt strongly enough about it to mention it in her report to her Divisional Detective Inspector Shelley Symes. “Apart from the fact I do not like the man Haigh and his mannerisms,” she wrote, “I have a sense that he is ‘wrong’, and there may be a case behind the whole business.”

Symes had enough respect for Sergeant Lambourne’s judgment to ask the Criminal Record Division at Scotland Yard to run a check on Haigh. Within a matter of hours, they came back to him with a file which showed that John George Haigh had been jailed three times, twice for obtaining money by fraud and once for theft. Further enquiries in London and Sussex showed that he owed substantial sums of money, and that he was in arrears with his bill at the Onslow Court Hotel.

On Saturday 26 February, Sergeant Pat Heslin and Police Sergeant Appleton of the Sussex Constabulary went to see Mr Edward Jones, owner of Hurstlea Products, a small engineering company located in Giles Yard off Leopold Road in Crawley. Jones told the police that he had known John Haigh for some years and over the past few months he had let him have the use of a storehouse at the back of the factory for a peppercorn rent. Haigh had been using the premises for some sort of ‘experimental work’, but had never said precisely what this entailed.

The police were anxious to look around the shed, but Jones told them that Haigh had the only set of keys. So Heslin prised the padlock off the door of the small brick built shed. At first glance the whitewashed interior looked ordinary enough. There was the usual clutter, plant pots, old bits of wood, a couple of work benches, carboys of chemicals, protective clothing but then something caught the sergeant’s eye. On one of the workbenches there was a small hat box and an expensive leather briefcase. They simply didn’t belong.

Loaded gun

Heslin looked through the case and found a variety of papers and documents, including ration books and clothing coupons. The contents of the hat box included several passports, driving licenses and diaries, a cheque book and a marriage certificate, none of which bore the name of Haigh. At the bottom of the box was the most alarming find of all, a .38 Enfield revolver and a small white envelope containing eight bullets.

The following evening, 27 February John Haigh was invited back to Chelsea police station to answer further questions. Haigh appeared to be totally unconcerned as he was installed in the Divisional Detective’s office with a cup of tea. He had actually dozed off by the time Detective Inspector Symes, Inspector Albert Webb and Superintendent Barratt arrived to interview him at 7.30 p.m.

They came at him well armed with evidence. Not only did they have the obviously stolen documents from the Crawley workshop, they had also traced Mrs Durand-Deacon’s jewellery to a dealer in Horsham, Sussex. The dealer’s description of the seller matched John Haigh precisely, as did that of a dry-cleaner to whom he had apparently taken Mrs Durand-Deacon’s Persian lamb coat.

Confronted with this evidence, Haigh puffed on a cigarette, and said calmly: “I can see you know what you’re talking about. I admit the coat belonged to Mrs Durand-Deacon and that I sold her jewellery.”

“How did you come by the property.” Asked Symes, “and where is Mrs Durand-Deacon?”

Haigh thought for a while before replying. “It’s a long story,” he confided. “It’s one of blackmail and I shall have to implicate many others.”

Just then, the telephone rang and Symes and Barratt were summoned from the room. Left alone with Inspector Webb, the most junior of his interrogators, Haigh switched tack. “Tell me frankly,” he asked, “what are the chances of anyone being released from Broadmoor?”

Destroyed with acid

Webb’s immediate reaction to Haigh’s extraordinary question was to caution him and advise him of his rights. Haigh dismissed the warning with a wave of the hand. “If I told the truth,” he continued, “you would not believe it. It is too fantastic for belief. I will tell you all about it. Mrs Durand-Deacon no longer exists. She has disappeared completely and no trace of her can ever be found. I have destroyed her with acid. You will find the sludge that remains at Leopold Road. Every trace had gone.

“How can you prove a murder if there is no body?” Haigh added, obviously pleased with himself.

Webb’s first reaction to Haigh’s confession was to disbelieve it. It was simply too fantastic, too grotesque. Haigh was obviously setting himself up for an insanity plea. After all, he had already mentioned Broadmoor.

When Symes and Barratt returned to the interview room, Webb asked Haigh to repeat what he had said. Haigh did so. Symes cautioned him again, but there was no stopping Haigh now. He talked for two and a half hours, as Inspector Symes wrote.

He described the events of Friday 18 February in meticulous detail. He told how he had picked up Mrs Durand-Deacon in his Alvis and driven her down to Crawley. He described how she had bent over her handbag to extract her fingernail designs and how, as she turned away from him, he had pulled a .38 Enfield revolver from his jacket pocket and shot her through the nape of the neck, killing her instantly. Haigh went on to describe how he had then knelt by his victim’s body, made an incision in her neck, gathered a few inches of her still coursing blood in a glass, and drunk it.

Having slaked his thirst, Haigh claimed he had gathered together Mrs Durand-Deacon’s valuables, the Persian lamb coat, rings, a necklace, earrings and a gold crucifix, and stowed them in his car.

He had then proceeded to get rid of the body. The clutter which the police found in the workshop was in fact the paraphernalia of Mrs Durand-Deacon’s material destruction, carboys of sulphuric acid, a specially lined metal drum, rubber gloves and apron, a gas mask and a stirrup pump. Haigh had needed all these things in order to dissolve the body. He had known precisely what to do. He had done it before.

Dressed to kill

He had laid the 45-gallon drum on its side and pushed Mrs Durand-Deacon’s head and shoulders inside, and then righted the drum so that the whole body slumped down to the bottom. He had then gone to the “Ye Olde Ancient Priors’ restaurant in Crawley and ordered a poached egg on toast and a cup of tea. On his return he had donned his rubber apron, gloves, wellington boots and gas mask, and poured concentrated sulphuric acid into the drum. “The question of getting the right amount was only learned by experience,” he boasted.

Haigh said he adjusted the acid level to cover the entire body by using a stirrup pump. Once satisfied, all he had to do was wait for the flesh and bone to dissolve. He knew this would take at least two days, and so he then went for dinner at The George Hotel’s restaurant, before driving back to the Onslow Court Hotel.

Haigh went on to describe how, on the following Monday, he had disposed of his victim’s jewellery for £110, and then returned to Crawley and emptied the sludge, Mrs Durand-Deacon’s decomposed body, out of the drum with a bucket, and poured it on to some waste ground at the back of the shed.

Five other murders

The police said nothing as Haigh told his terrible story of murder and theft, vampirism and genteel cups of tea. When he had finished with his version of the demise of Mrs Durand-Deacon, Haigh moved back in time and, by the early hours of 1 March, he had also confessed to five other murders.

The first, he claimed, had been committed on 9 September 1944. The victim had been an old acquaintance, William McSwan. He had killed him in a basement flat in Gloucester Road. A year later, he had lured William’s parents, Donald and Amy McSwan, to the same flat, and had beaten them to death. He had forged Donald’s signature to gain power of attorney over their estate.

While selling one of their properties some time in February 1948, he had met Dr Archibald Henderson and his wife Rosalie. He had killed them in the storeroom in Giles Yard.

In each case, he had acquired money or other property belonging to his victims by skilful forgery and deception. Years after he had disposed of their remains, he had written forged personal and business letters, “successfully staving off enquiries from relatives, friends and associates”.

Haigh added that he had destroyed all the bodies by means of his acid bath method after drinking a glass of their blood.

The arrest of John Haigh caused an immediate public sensation. Stories of acid baths, vampirism and murder are the stuff of which the tabloid newspapers are made. Haigh’s remand at Horsham magistrates’ court drew huge crowds, predominantly composed of jeering women.

On 4 March, after being transferred from the Chelsea police cells to Lewes Prison, Haigh sprang more surprises. He asked to see Inspector Webb, with whom he clearly felt some sort of affinity.  He confided in the young detective that he had committed three murders which he hadn’t mentioned in his earlier statement, a woman and a youth in west London, and a girl in Eastbourne. This brought his total to nine.

The police, however, were having their time cut out establishing a case against Haigh for the murder of Mrs Durand-Deacon. Even though he had admitted to the crime, to be certain of a conviction the prosecution needed proof that she was in fact dead, and that Haigh had indeed killed her.

The Home Office pathologist Dr Keith Simpson first carried out routine blood tests at the workshop in Crawley and established that they were of the same group as Mrs Durand-Deacon. Then he turned his attention to the wasteland where Haigh claimed to have deposited the ‘sludge’ from his acid bath. Soon he found a stone ‘the size of a cherry’. It was a gallstone. Simpson handed it to Detective Sergeant Heslin, saying: “There you are, Sergeant, that’s the first trace of a human body.” Heslin congratulated the doctor on his good luck.

“It wasn’t luck,” Simpson snapped, “I was looking for it. Women of Mrs Durand-Deacon’s age and habits, 69 and fairly plump, are prone to gallstones.”

Simpson soon found more human remains, fragments of a left foot which he managed to reconstruct and cast in plaster. The cast fitted one of Mrs Durand-Deacon’s shoes perfectly. Then he found fragments of pelvic bones and two discs from a lower spinal column.

Victim’s belongings

He discovered other non-human remains, the handle of a handbag, a lipstick container, a hairpin and a notebook, all of which could be traced back to the victim. His most sensational find, however, and the clincher in the case, was a set of dentures which were categorically identified as having belonging to Mrs Durand-Deacon.

In Lewes Prison Haigh was well aware of the forensic evidence being amassed against him, but he remained optimistic. He was certain that he could escape the gallows by convincing a jury that he was insane, and on being told that Sir Maxwell Fyfe, the eminent barrister, was to represent him, Haigh was delighted. He wrote: “I’m very glad to see we have got old Maxy. He’s no fool.”

The trial of John Haigh for the murder of Mrs Durand-Deacon, that was the only charge ever brought against him, opened at Lewes Assizes on 18 July 1949, and lasted less than two days.

There were no real questions as to whether Haigh had killed Mrs Durand-Deacon. The case rested on whether or not he was sane. The defence called Dr Henry Yellowlees, a consultant psychiatrist at St Thomas’s Hospital, as an expert witness.

Doctor Yellowlees was no doubt an able man in his field, but he was a rotten witness. “In the case of pure paranoia,” Yellowlees explained, “it really amounts, as it develops and gets a greater hold, to practically self-worship, and that is commonly expressed by the conviction in the mind of the patient that he is in some mystic way under the control of a guiding spirit which means infinitely more to him and is of infinitely greater authority than any human laws or rules of society.”

Dr Yellowlees rambled on in this vein for some considerable time. He was frequently interrupted by both Sir Travers Humphreys, the judge, and Sir Hartley Shawcross, counsel for the prosecution, neither of whom had the faintest idea what he was taking about. As for the jury, he had lost them after the first few sentences and it took them only 13 minutes to return a verdict of ‘guilty’ on John George Haigh. Sir Travers Humphreys was equally speedy as he summoned the Black Cap and condemned him to death.

Haigh was taken to Wandsworth to await execution.

Chambers of Horrors

As the day of his execution approached, Haigh’s apparently limitless poise began to crumble. He started to suffer from depression and complained of recurrent nightmares about blood. But despite this he maintained his sense of theatre. He bequeathed his favorite suit and tie to Madame Tussauds, ensuring himself his rightful place in the chamber of Horrors, and he requested that the model of himself should show at least one inch of shirt cuff.

Then Haigh became concerned about the hanging itself. He contacted the prison governor, Major A.C.N. Benke, and requested to rehearse his own execution. “My weight is deceptive,” Haigh insisted, “I have a light springy step and I would not like there to be a hitch.”

The governor turned down his request, assuring him that the executioner was highly experienced and that there would be no problems.

At 9 a.m. on the morning of 10 August, John Haigh was executed. His depression had left him and he was his old self, all swank and swagger, as he faced the gallows. That same day he was buried, as it the custom in cases of execution, inside the prison walls.

End