10 Rillington Place

10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill, Notting Hill Gate, London, was the site of one of Britain's most notorious serial killers, and a miscarriage of justice which contributed towards the abolition of the death penalty in Britain. It is also the title of a book on the murder case by Ludovic Kennedy published in 1965, and a movie starring Richard Attenborough in 1970.

New murders by Christie

Two years passed. By December 1952, Ethel Christie was in poor health with chronic arthritis and rheumatism. John Christie later claimed that he only put her out of her misery by strangling her one night. He kept up the pretence that Ethel was all right, writing letters to her sister in Sheffield, claiming that she could not write because of the arthritis. Over the next three months, he invited three prostitutes back to 10 Rillington Place. None of them left. Nobody missed Kathleen Maloney from Southampton or Rita Nelson from Belfast, but Hectorina MacLennan was last seen by her boyfriend, Alex Baker, with Christie. Christie claimed that she had wandered off and kept up the pretence for two weeks, even asking Baker how she was when he saw him. Baker assumed that she had gone back to Scotland, but he was soon proven wrong.

Related Topics:
Arthritis - Rheumatism - Sheffield - Southampton - Belfast - Scotland

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Christie's bizarre life fell apart in the first three months of 1953. He did not reply to letters from relatives enquiring about Ethel, and sold all his furniture—even his bed. He became increasingly aware of the unpleasant smell which would no doubt soon be detected by the neighbours, and on 21 March, he illegally sub-let his flat to a couple named Reilly, who paid him seven pounds thirteen shillings—three months' rent in advance—before he left 10 Rillington Place for good.

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The landlord soon learned of the sub-letting, and he ordered the Reillys out. He gave permission to the second floor tenant, a Jamaican immigrant named Beresford Brown, to use the ground floor kitchen. Brown decided to tidy up the kitchen, which had become a hovel since Ethel's death. He cleared rubbish into the back yard and tore off some of the peeling wallpaper. In one corner, he discovered not a wall but a door to what had been a pantry. Mr. Brown pulled the door ajar, pointed his torch into the pantry, and saw a sight that would stay with him for the rest of his life. He saw a body, clad only in a bra, stockings and suspenders, and hunched over in a sitting position; not surprisingly he called the police, who soon discovered two more bodies in the pantry.

Related Topics:
Landlord - Jamaica - Pantry

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The bodies of Kathleen Maloney, Rita Nelson, and Hectorina MacLennan had been hidden in the pantry by Christie. A more thorough search revealed the corpse of Ethel Christie under the floorboards in the front room, and two more skeletons were discovered in the garden—those of Ruth Fuerst, an Austrian prostitute, and Muriel Eady, a former work colleague of Christie, who had died in an earlier killing spree in 1943/1944.

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