A Serial Killer Helps Abolish the Death Penalty

HISTORY This Week

The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios

Society & Culture, History

4.5 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2022

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

March 20, 1953. A middle-aged man named John Christie packs up a suitcase and leaves his apartment in Notting Hill, London. No one knows where he’s gone. But a few days later, people realize why he left… a new tenant makes an unsettling discovery: bodies, hidden in the walls of the kitchen. Today: the case of serial killer John Christie. Why, decades later, are parts of his story still a mystery? And how did that very mystery play into a big change in the UK – the abolition of the death penalty?

Thank you to our guests: Professor Kate Winkler Dawson, author of the book Death in the Air and the forthcoming book All That is Wicked. Jonathan Oates, author of the book John Christie of Rillington Place: Biography of a Serial Killer. And Sir Julian Knowles, author of The Abolition of the Death Penalty in the United Kingdom; How it Happened and Why it Still Matters.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History Channel, original podcast.
0:04.0	Just a quick note before we start our episode, we want to let you know that today's story covers topics including murder and sexual assault.
0:11.0	Listen to discretion is advised.
0:15.0	History this week, March 20th, 1953.
0:21.0	I'm Sally Helm.
0:23.0	A dingy London cul-de-sac sits in the shadow of an old iron foundry.
0:30.0	The last row house on the block is number 10.
0:35.0	It's cramped and narrow and it needs a coat of fresh paint.
0:39.0	The foundation is sinking, so the doors and the windows look slightly tilted in places.
0:44.0	It gives you the sense that the whole house might fall over if you just jabbed it really hard with your elbow.
0:55.0	In a living room just on the other side of the first floor bay window, the tenant, a middle-aged man named John Christie, is arranging things with his new subletters.
1:03.0	There's the bedroom, here's the key.
1:06.0	He's not technically supposed to be subletting at all, but he's anxious to get out of town and he needs the money.
1:12.0	He borrows a brown suitcase from one of the new tenants, hats his clothes, and walks out the front door.
1:20.0	Almost immediately Christie's landlord discovers the illegal subletters.
1:25.0	He's not happy. He kicks them out of the apartment, but he can't find Christie anywhere.
1:32.0	He lets another tenant in the building use Christie's kitchen, and a few days later, on March 24th, that guy decides he wants to put a radio up on the wall.
1:40.0	He knocks on the wall, looking for a solid place to attach a bracket, but unexpectedly he hears a hollow sound.
1:49.0	He gets a flashlight, pokes a hole through the flimsy wallpaper, and finds a body.
1:56.0	The man will soon discover that there are in fact not just one, but three bodies stuffed into this hidden alcove, and the body count doesn't end there.
2:13.0	Today, the case of serial killer John Christie.
2:17.0	Why decades later are parts of his story still a mystery? And how did that very mystery play into a big change in the UK?
	...

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