John George Haigh was a 1940’s serial killer. He was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire but grew up in a village named Outwood, which is just west of Yorkshire. His parents were both members of the Plymouth Brethren, a conservative protestant sect. He did not have much space and had to stay within a 10 foot wall that his father put up around their garden to lock out the outside world. He claimed that he suffered from recurring religious nightmares. His strict religious parents lead him to have a psychotic state of mind where he was obsessed with religious iconography and sacrificial fantasies.
Haigh did not have many friends and he claimed that his childhood was “bleak and lonely”. His only real friends were his few pets and his neighbor’s dog that he cared for every once in awhile. The religion that his parents believed in caused Haigh to have no contact with the social world. He was even forbidden to participate in any sports. Haigh’s father felt that the world was “evil” and the family needed to keep themselves separate. His father also told Haigh that the blue blemish on his own head had been the result of him “sinning” in his youth.
Haigh soon ecame obsessed with the sign and was terrified to develop a similar one. He considered it the “sign of the devil”. He thought of his mother as an angel because she had no mark. As Haigh grew up he started to realize that no such mark would appear, considering he had lied and committed other crimes. This is what people believe was his psychotic turning point because he started to believe he was invincible and could get away with anything. His dreams or nightmares would consist of trees turning into crucifixes weeping blood. John described his dream.
His words were “I saw before me a forest of crucifixes hich gradually turned into trees,” “At first, there appeared to be dew or rain, dripping from the branches, but as I approached Trealized it was blood. The whole forest began to writhe and the trees, dark and erect, to ooze blood… A man went from each tree catching the blood… When the cup was full, he approached me. ‘Drink,’ he said, but I was unable to move. ” He later became known as manipulative and a compulsive liar. At the time of his arrest, when questioned, he showed signs of being insane.
It started to become an indication that Haigh was aware that appearing ‘bonkers’ and damaged by his childhood would ossibly work in his favour when it came to court. Haigh was a different kid but his childhood never reflected problems or odd behavior. He was not a violent child, and he was very religious because of his parents. His problems started to show in his early 20’s. He finished high school and got a scholarship to the Wakefield Grammar School and then won another scholarship as a choirboy at Wakefield Cathedral.
He was very smart and only married once which only lasted a few months. Her name was Beatrice “Betty” Hamer and was 23 years old. They got married on July 6th, 1934. Soon after they ere married Haigh was thrown in jail for fraud. While in jail Betty gave birth to a baby girl but gave her up for adoption and left Haigh. He stayed alone and never remarried. He remained a fraud. He soon got out and moved to London in 1936. There he worked as a maintenance person for a wealthy amusement park owner (William McSwan).
After that he became a bogus solicitar and was put in prison for 4 years for fraud. He was released just after the start of World War II but continued with his fraudulent activity and was sentenced to several terms of imprisonment. While in prison he came up with what he onsidered the perfect murder; the destruction of the victim’s body by dissolving it in sulphuric acid. He started experimenting with mice and found out that it only took 30 minutes to dissolve the body. His first big crime was the murder of Donald McSwan in 1944. His former employer’s son). He took McSwan to his basement and beat him with a club, he then drank his victim’s blood and soaked him in an acid bath. Haigh told Don’s parents that he had gone into hiding to avoid the draft of World War II but when the war was over Don never showed up. The McSwan’s started o question Haigh on Don’s whereabouts. Haigh invited them over to talk about it and murdered them the same way he killed their son. After he killed the McSwan family he sold their elongings and spent all of their cash.
Once he lost all the money he got from the McSwan’s he wanted to murder again to get more money. He murdered Dr. Archilbald Henderson and his wife, Rosalie. In August of 1947 the Henderson’s posted a house for sale. Haigh pretended that he wanted to buy it and negotiated a price, but then he claimed that a business deal had fallen through so he could not purchase the house immediately. On February 12th, 1948 he killed Dr. Henderson in Haigh’s workshop. He shot him in the head, drank his blood, then dumped his body into a bath of sulphuric acid.
After he got done he went back to Mrs. Henderson and claimed that her husband was very sick and needed her so she went with Haigh to his workshop. He killed her the same way he killed her husband. His last murder was the murder of Mrs. Henrietta Helen Olivia Robarts Durand-Deacon in 1949. She was a 69 year old wealthy widow and Haigh shot her in the back of the head killing her instantly. Since he struck so close to home he retended to express concern for her disappearance. He even went to the police station with one of her friends to have an investigation done.
His previous criminal record made the police suspicious so they brought Haigh in for questioning. Haigh believed that with no body they could not pin him for murder but they found enough evidence to convict him with the murder of Mrs. Henrietta Helen Olivia Robarts Durand-Deacon. The investigators searched Haigh’s work shop and found twenty-eight pounds of human fat, the partly corroded bones of a human foot, Mrs. Durand-Deacon’s plastic handbag(which had esisted the acid), a plastic lipstick container cap, a full upper denture and three human gallstones.
One of the bones of the hip girdle was still partly preserved and showed clearly that the remains were female. According to police, Haigh had been sloppy in his workshop and also in his hotel room. They found a diary in the hotel room which he wrote in much detail about all of his murders. John George Haigh’s signature for the crimes were: he used acid to dispose of the bodies, would either beat them to death or shoot them because he believed it was undetectable and issolved the corpses in concentrated sulphuric acid after drinking their blood.
When he got done with that he forged papers to be able to sell the victims possessions and collect substantial sums of money. He killed his victims in a span of 5 years was known as the acid bath murderer and described as a vampire. When he was arrested he denied everything but eventually admitted to the police about all the murders. He claimed he killed 9 people but he was only convicted for 6. He was found capable of withstanding trial but it was later found that he was fully aware of his crime and he was sane.
He plead insanity because he knew that if he acted insane in court the trial could work in his favour and he could blame his insanity on his childhood, but he was proven sane and aware of his crimes. Twelve doctors did different tests on him and they all came back fine but after one doctor talked with him for a week he decided that: Haigh had “paranoid constitution”- the same mental illness as Hitler. Other than that, he was never diagnosed with a mental disorder. He was sentenced to life to be executed in prison, and was later hanged at Wandsworth Prison on August 6th, 1949.