The Acid Bath Murderer

John George Haigh went down in criminal history as the ‘Acid Bath Murderer’. This British serial killer murdered six people out of greed. He always followed the same modus operandi. He lured his victims into his workshop, where he shot them in the back of the head with his revolver before dissolving their bodies in a barrel filled with sulphuric acid. The fact was that anyone who was friends with John and wealthy was living a very dangerous life. But who was John George Haigh, who was one of the first victims to be disposed of in an acid bath? John was born on 24 June 1909 in Stanford. His parents were fanatical members of the Brethren movement, then known as the ‘Plymouth Brethren’, which is why John was brought up in a strictly religious manner and completely shielded from the outside world by a 7-metre-high fence. John was an outstanding pupil who, thanks to his good academic performance, received a scholarship to attend secondary school in Wakefield and secured another as a choirboy at Wakefield Cathedral. John was extremely eloquent and handsome, and initially worked as a sales assistant. In 1934, he married Beatrice Hamer. However, the marriage was short-lived, as John had strayed from the straight and narrow and was arrested for fraud. He then worked as a secretary and chauffeur for the businessman W.D. McSwan, until, one year later, he was arrested again for fraud and sentenced to four years in prison. John was lucky, however, as he was released from prison as early as 1940 due to the outbreak of the Second World War. Afterwards, he simply continued his criminal career. He took up residence at the upmarket Onslow Court Hotel in South Kensington and, from 1944, rented a small workshop in the basement of a house in Kensington, where he worked on inventions as a self-styled tinkerer. John was a bon vivant who always drove expensive cars and wore bespoke suits. He financed his extravagant lifestyle through wealthy friends, whom he fleeced like a Christmas goose and then sent to the afterlife. He committed his first murder on 9 September 1944. On that day, he had lured Donald McSwan, the son of his former employer, into his workshop with the promise of a lucrative business deal. There, he beat him unconscious and dissolved his body in a barrel of acid. He dumped the remains in the yard. Using forged documents, John appropriated Donald McSwan’s possessions, reassuring his parents that their son was in hiding because he had been called up for military service. The McSwans believed this lie and went on to become John’s next victims. He had lured them into his workshop, where he shot them and then dissolved their bodies in acid. He then forged handwritten messages in which they informed their friends and acquaintances that they had emigrated abroad and that John would henceforth look after their business affairs and property. Following the murders, John had a considerable fortune at his disposal, but he squandered it on gambling, which is why, due to his debts, he was in urgent need of money. New victims had to be found. These were the retired couple Dr Archibald and Rosalie Henderson, who put their house in Ladbroke Grove up for sale in August 1947. John pretended to be interested in buying it, but claimed he could not yet raise the money due to a temporary cash flow problem. A friendship developed between the retired couple and John. On 12 February 1948, Dr Archibald visited John at his workshop, where John killed him. He then drove to his wife Rosalie’s house, where he told her that her husband was unwell. She subsequently accompanied John to his workshop, where she met the same fate as her husband. As he had done with the McSwans, he used forged messages to lead their friends and acquaintances to believe that they had moved abroad and that John would now be looking after their estate. But John squandered this too through his gambling addiction. By 1949, John was so deeply in debt that he needed a new victim to settle his debts. He found one in the 69-year-old wealthy pensioner and widow Henrietta Helen Olivia Robarts Durand-Deacon, who was staying at the same hotel as John. The elderly lady was a committed women’s rights activist and inventor who had long harboured a plan to manufacture artificial fingernails and have them patented. John claimed that he had developed the perfect method for this, which he wanted to demonstrate to her in his workshop. The inquisitive lady could not resist this opportunity, which proved to be her death warrant. As her friends and acquaintances were deeply concerned after the pensioner had suddenly vanished without a trace, her best friend, the pensioner Constance Lane, wanted to file a missing person report with the police. John accompanied her to the police station. A police officer found John’s behaviour suspicious. When he carried out an investigation, it emerged that John, who had a criminal record, had sold the pensioner’s jewellery and had her fur coat dry-cleaned shortly after her disappearance. They then searched his workshop, where they found human gallstones and false teeth in the courtyard. In the workshop, they discovered a large metal barrel, next to which was a container of acid, a revolver, gloves and an apron splattered with acid. A diary containing entries about the murders was found in John’s hotel room. On 28 February 1949, John was arrested; during police questioning, he initially denied everything, until he finally confessed to the murders. He recounted that, after murdering the pensioner – but before dissolving her in acid – he had gone to a café to have tea and toast with a fried egg. John did not cite greed as his main motive for the murders, but rather that he felt an urge to drink his victims’ blood. For this reason, he had cut a notch in their necks and collected one to two glasses of blood, which he then drank with relish. This earned him the nickname ‘the Vampire of London’. The question arose as to whether John had made up this story in order to escape the death penalty and instead spend the rest of his days as an insane person at Broadmoor Hospital. On 18 July 1949, John stood trial, attempting to portray himself as mentally ill in order to escape the gallows. However, this strategy failed, as the court found him to be of sound mind in the eyes of the law. John was sentenced to death for the murders of six people. Before his execution, he wrote his memoirs. Three hours before his execution, Madame Tussaud visited him to take a death mask for John’s wax figure, which was put on display the day after his death. On 10 August 1949, John was hanged at Wandsworth Prison by the executioner Albert Pierrepoint. Thus ended the story of the acid bath murderer, John George Haigh.