William Donald and Amy McSwan have gone to Scotland or Ireland, or was it America?

It was one or the other. I mean, does it really matter?

Johnny's ruse was simple.

A shy reclusive family, who were never reckless, impulsive and rarely went out, had unexpectedly fled

the country in the dead of night, leaving behind everything they had ever owned, from their

homes, businesses, stocks and savings, to their teacups on the table, their bread in the basket, and their clothes in the cupboard.

But somehow it had worked.

The McSwan's were an intensely private, tightly knit, and deeply loyal family who kept to themselves. So with no close relatives

or concerned family, no one reported them missing. Armed with a set of keys, a forged letter

and a power of attorney, over the next few months, Johnny paid the remaining rent on their top floor

flat, settled any bills, collected the post, tipped the milkman, topped up their gas meter with coins, and even paid Max monthly subscription to the Amusement Caterers Association.

On paper, the McSwan still existed, just not in person.

But as clever and calculated as Johnny was, being so uncaring and eager to fritter away this family's fortune, he was also brazen and callous.

And having let himself in, rifled through the drawers and flogged

off the dour clothes and sparse furnishings of the recently deceased. Johnny sold everything.

And before he sold all four of their houses, cocky in his confidence, he even collected the monthly rents, in person, having

signed the rent book himself. As for the McSwan's pitiful pension of a piffling 22 shillings

per week, he left that, as it wasn't worth his time.

Within a few months, having stolen the equivalent of £210,000, Johnny had dissolved every

single asset of the McSwan family, until just like their corpses, nothing existed.

By August 1945, having made enough money to last a lifetime, the killing spree of John George Haig, one of Britain's most infamous serial killers, should have come to an end.

But it didn't.

...