immediately. He had told Minnie that her sister had changed her mind about visiting, and persuaded her to sign everything over to him. He then poisoned her and buried her in the cellar of another house that he owned. His efforts to blame her for the murder of her sister and of the Pitezel children he decribed as ‘the saddest and most heinous of my crimes’.
Regarding Pitezel, he said that he knew he was going to kill him from the first moment he met him. He won his confidence by showing kindness and consideration for him but meanwhile was showing him forged letters from Mrs Pitezel to her husband. Pitezel had drunk heavily and Holmes killed him while he was in a drunken stupour. While Pitezel was still alive, he lay him on his bed, tied him up, poured benzene over him and set fire to him. Pitezel came to and screamed for mercy, but he suffered an agonising death. When he was dead, Holmes cut the ropes from his body and poured chloroform into his stomach to make it look as if he died accidentally in an explosion. His aim was yet another insurance policy. True to character, Holmes described leaving the house ‘without the slightest feeling of remorse for my terrible acts’.
In a macabre aftermath, he is reported to have visited Pitezel’s grave some weeks after his interment, in the pretense of acquiring some samples for analysis. He claimed that he found cutting into the corpse with a knife ‘inordinately satisfying’.
His murders of the Pitezel children were even grimmer. He hid them away in a hotel for a week and then began by poisoning Howard. He then proceeded to cut the boy’s body up into pieces small enough to be put into a stove that he had purchased for just that purpose.
He took the girls to Chicago, Detroit and Toronto, letting them believe that they would be imminently reunited with their mother. He told them to climb into a large trunk and closed the lid on them, having drilled a small airhole so that they were able to breathe. He then pumped gas through the hole, killing them. He buried them in shallow graves, as ever taking pleasure in killing another human being. He had been like a father to them for eight years, but felt not an iota of remorse.
Even on the gallows in Philadelphia, on 17 May 1896, Holmes changed his story, claiming now that he had only killed two people. He tried to say more, but the trapdoor opened as he was in mid-sentence and this most remorseless of all killers plunged to his death. At least his death was not easy, faint consolation for his victims and their families – it took him fifteen minutes to die. At his own request, to deter body-snatchers, he was buried in cement, so that his body could not be dug up and dissected.
By the time he died, his Castle was no more. On 19 August 1895, a mysterious fire had destroyed it. A U.S. Post Office now occupies the site of the killing factory run by America’s first serial killer.
Part Three: 20Th Century British Psychopathic Killers
John Reginald Christie
It was a small Victorian house, built in the 1860s when the Notting Hill and North Kensington areas were undergoing development. Situated where the elevated dual carriageway, the Westway, runs today, number 10 Rillington Place was located in a row of three-storey terraced houses. The house was split into three flats, none of which had a bathroom. Instead, an outhouse in the garden was used by the occupants of all three flats and a washhouse was also located there for the use of tenants, but it was not always functioning.
Forty-year-old John Reginald Christie was a quiet little man, wth a receding reddish-ginger hair and pale blue eyes. His wife, Ethel, was a plump woman whom friends believed to be frightened of her husband. They seemed aloof as a couple, and many disliked the way they seemed to think they were better than their neighbours. For this reason, they kept very much to themselves.
Christie was originally from Yorkshire, coming from a strict upbringing
Regarding Pitezel, he said that he knew he was going to kill him from the first moment he met him. He won his confidence by showing kindness and consideration for him but meanwhile was showing him forged letters from Mrs Pitezel to her husband. Pitezel had drunk heavily and Holmes killed him while he was in a drunken stupour. While Pitezel was still alive, he lay him on his bed, tied him up, poured benzene over him and set fire to him. Pitezel came to and screamed for mercy, but he suffered an agonising death. When he was dead, Holmes cut the ropes from his body and poured chloroform into his stomach to make it look as if he died accidentally in an explosion. His aim was yet another insurance policy. True to character, Holmes described leaving the house ‘without the slightest feeling of remorse for my terrible acts’.
In a macabre aftermath, he is reported to have visited Pitezel’s grave some weeks after his interment, in the pretense of acquiring some samples for analysis. He claimed that he found cutting into the corpse with a knife ‘inordinately satisfying’.
His murders of the Pitezel children were even grimmer. He hid them away in a hotel for a week and then began by poisoning Howard. He then proceeded to cut the boy’s body up into pieces small enough to be put into a stove that he had purchased for just that purpose.
He took the girls to Chicago, Detroit and Toronto, letting them believe that they would be imminently reunited with their mother. He told them to climb into a large trunk and closed the lid on them, having drilled a small airhole so that they were able to breathe. He then pumped gas through the hole, killing them. He buried them in shallow graves, as ever taking pleasure in killing another human being. He had been like a father to them for eight years, but felt not an iota of remorse.
Even on the gallows in Philadelphia, on 17 May 1896, Holmes changed his story, claiming now that he had only killed two people. He tried to say more, but the trapdoor opened as he was in mid-sentence and this most remorseless of all killers plunged to his death. At least his death was not easy, faint consolation for his victims and their families – it took him fifteen minutes to die. At his own request, to deter body-snatchers, he was buried in cement, so that his body could not be dug up and dissected.
By the time he died, his Castle was no more. On 19 August 1895, a mysterious fire had destroyed it. A U.S. Post Office now occupies the site of the killing factory run by America’s first serial killer.
Part Three: 20Th Century British Psychopathic Killers
John Reginald Christie
It was a small Victorian house, built in the 1860s when the Notting Hill and North Kensington areas were undergoing development. Situated where the elevated dual carriageway, the Westway, runs today, number 10 Rillington Place was located in a row of three-storey terraced houses. The house was split into three flats, none of which had a bathroom. Instead, an outhouse in the garden was used by the occupants of all three flats and a washhouse was also located there for the use of tenants, but it was not always functioning.
Forty-year-old John Reginald Christie was a quiet little man, wth a receding reddish-ginger hair and pale blue eyes. His wife, Ethel, was a plump woman whom friends believed to be frightened of her husband. They seemed aloof as a couple, and many disliked the way they seemed to think they were better than their neighbours. For this reason, they kept very much to themselves.
Christie was originally from Yorkshire, coming from a strict upbringing
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