WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.639 --> 00:00:11.080 You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking 2 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:14.160 killers in true crime history and the authors that have 3 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:21.519 written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every 4 00:00:21.559 --> 00:00:25.239 week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and 5 00:00:25.359 --> 00:00:29.879 infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, 6 00:00:30.280 --> 00:00:33.320 journalist and author Dan Zufanski. 7 00:00:39.399 --> 00:00:46.640 Good Evening, London, nineteen fifty three, police discover the bodies 8 00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:49.640 of three young women hidden in a wall at ten 9 00:00:49.799 --> 00:00:55.880 Relinketon Place, a dingy terrace house in notting Hill. On 10 00:00:55.960 --> 00:00:59.479 searching the building, they find another body beneath the floorboards, 11 00:01:00.119 --> 00:01:04.760 then an array of human bones in the garden. But 12 00:01:04.840 --> 00:01:08.040 they have already investigated a double murder at ten Rillington 13 00:01:08.159 --> 00:01:13.560 Place three years before, and the killer was hanged. Did 14 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:18.120 they get the wrong man? A nationwide manhunt is launched 15 00:01:18.120 --> 00:01:21.599 for the tenet of the ground floor flat. A softly 16 00:01:21.640 --> 00:01:28.239 spoken former policeman named reg Christie, Star reporter Harry Procter 17 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:32.959 chases after the scoop. Celebrated crime writer Fern Tennys and 18 00:01:33.040 --> 00:01:37.760 Jesse begs to be assigned to the case. The story 19 00:01:37.879 --> 00:01:42.439 becomes an instant sensation and with the relentless rise of 20 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:46.640 the tabloid press. The public watches on like never before. 21 00:01:47.840 --> 00:01:51.480 Who is reg Christie? Why did he choose to kill 22 00:01:51.519 --> 00:01:55.760 those women and to keep their bodies near him? As 23 00:01:55.799 --> 00:01:59.200 Harry and Ferns start to learn the full horror of 24 00:01:59.239 --> 00:02:03.239 what went on at Rillington Place, they realized that Christy 25 00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:09.159 might also have engineered a terrible miscarage of justice in 26 00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:15.919 plain sight. In this riveting true story, Kate Summerscale minds 27 00:02:15.960 --> 00:02:20.280 the archives to uncover the lives of Christie's victims, the 28 00:02:20.319 --> 00:02:24.919 tabloid frenzy that their deaths inspired, and the truth about 29 00:02:24.919 --> 00:02:29.759 what really happened inside that house. The book that we're 30 00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:33.800 featuring this evening is the peep Show The Murders at 31 00:02:33.879 --> 00:02:39.280 ten Rillington Place, with my special guest journalist and award 32 00:02:39.280 --> 00:02:44.759 winning author, Kate summer Scale. Welcome to the program and 33 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:48.919 thank you very much for this interview. Kate summer Scale, Well, 34 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:52.240 thank you, it's great to be here. Thank you so much, 35 00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:55.080 and congratulations on this book. I know it came out 36 00:02:55.120 --> 00:02:58.960 previously in the UK, but we're talking about this American 37 00:02:59.439 --> 00:03:02.000 release of this book, ten reallyked in Place. 38 00:03:02.879 --> 00:03:05.719 Yes, it came out in a few months ago in 39 00:03:05.759 --> 00:03:10.360 the UK and justin now in the Spring in the US. 40 00:03:10.759 --> 00:03:14.360 You take us initially in this book you call it 41 00:03:14.599 --> 00:03:19.000 the in the Walls, and you take us to March 42 00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:22.840 twenty fourth, nineteen fifty three, and you introduced a central 43 00:03:22.879 --> 00:03:27.840 figure in this book, Harry Proctor from the Sunday Pictorial. 44 00:03:28.120 --> 00:03:31.639 Can you tell us about Harry Procter and introduce this 45 00:03:31.879 --> 00:03:33.400 chapter in the Walls. 46 00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:40.479 Harry Procter was a star crime reporter for the Sunday Pictorial, 47 00:03:40.520 --> 00:03:43.879 which was one of the leading tabloids in Britain at 48 00:03:43.919 --> 00:03:49.400 a time of great competition and prosperity in Fleet Street 49 00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:53.039 the British Press. He was a working classman from the 50 00:03:53.080 --> 00:03:57.599 north of England who had risen by his wits to 51 00:03:57.680 --> 00:04:03.759 this preeminent position. He was charming, quite devious in getting 52 00:04:03.759 --> 00:04:10.360 his stories, extremely ambitious. He was determined to get the 53 00:04:10.479 --> 00:04:15.319 scoop on the Christie case. When the bodies of six 54 00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:19.639 women were discovered in this tiny terrace house in notting Hill, 55 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:26.800 West London. The bodies were concealed in the crevices of 56 00:04:26.839 --> 00:04:29.879 the building in its garden, so there were three bodies 57 00:04:29.920 --> 00:04:33.279 behind the kitchen wall, one beneath the floorboards in the 58 00:04:33.319 --> 00:04:37.800 front room. The bones of two further women in the backyard, 59 00:04:38.600 --> 00:04:43.519 and the tenant of the house, a man called Reg Christie, 60 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:49.079 an apparently respectable, middle aged office worker, had gone on 61 00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:53.000 the run when Harry Proctor turned up at this street 62 00:04:53.079 --> 00:04:57.040 one foggy evening in nineteen fifty three to ask the 63 00:04:57.079 --> 00:05:02.720 police what was going on, And the real shock for 64 00:05:02.839 --> 00:05:06.519 Harry was that he realized he had been to this 65 00:05:06.680 --> 00:05:11.839 exact same address three years earlier and had interviewed Christie, 66 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:17.120 the man who the police were now seeking about another 67 00:05:17.199 --> 00:05:21.399 double murder in the very same house, for which another 68 00:05:21.480 --> 00:05:26.839 man eventually hanged. And this man, Timothy Evans, had at 69 00:05:26.839 --> 00:05:31.079 one point accused Christie of killing his wife and daughter, 70 00:05:32.079 --> 00:05:35.839 but the jury did not believe him and had Evans 71 00:05:35.959 --> 00:05:39.240 was put to death. Now that all these bodies had 72 00:05:39.240 --> 00:05:43.920 been found and the premises, and Christie was the chief suspect, 73 00:05:44.639 --> 00:05:49.959 it became obvious to some, including Harry, that he might 74 00:05:50.360 --> 00:05:53.040 tim Evans might have been telling the truth. Christy might 75 00:05:53.079 --> 00:05:55.360 have committed this double murder of a woman and her 76 00:05:55.800 --> 00:06:00.399 baby daughter in nineteen forty nine. And worst of all, 77 00:06:00.439 --> 00:06:04.560 for Harry, he had himself that he prided himself on 78 00:06:04.639 --> 00:06:10.600 his journalistic prowess, missed the story he'd interviewed Christie. He 79 00:06:10.959 --> 00:06:15.040 like the jury had believed him to be innocent, and 80 00:06:15.600 --> 00:06:19.279 as a result, Christy had been left free to carry 81 00:06:19.279 --> 00:06:19.800 on killing. 82 00:06:20.839 --> 00:06:23.839 So you say that Harry Procter felt some guilt in 83 00:06:23.959 --> 00:06:29.319 being duped by Regg Christi originally with the Tim Evans case. 84 00:06:29.680 --> 00:06:33.160 So what was his vow now in light of that 85 00:06:33.240 --> 00:06:36.040 guilt and in light of what had happened at ten 86 00:06:36.160 --> 00:06:37.560 Rillington in the Discoveries. 87 00:06:38.079 --> 00:06:45.360 Yes, Harry felt guilt, remorse, shame. He also felt humiliated 88 00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:50.920 about his journalistic skills, and he was determined to put 89 00:06:50.920 --> 00:06:55.279 it right. He felt bad too for Tim Evans, the 90 00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:57.959 man who had hanged. This was possibly one of the 91 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:03.800 worst miscarriages of just this in English legal history, and 92 00:07:05.079 --> 00:07:09.240 is so Harry wanted, for all these reasons, for remorse, ambition, 93 00:07:10.120 --> 00:07:13.759 and a quest for justice. He wanted to get Christy 94 00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:17.199 to confess to the murders, not only of the six 95 00:07:17.240 --> 00:07:19.759 women who had been found in the house that March, 96 00:07:20.319 --> 00:07:23.399 but of Beryl and Geraldine Evans, the woman and child 97 00:07:23.519 --> 00:07:27.480 killed three years earlier, because that confession would clear Tim 98 00:07:27.480 --> 00:07:32.879 Evans's name and be a sensational scoop for Harry's newspaper. 99 00:07:33.759 --> 00:07:37.639 So he went about trying to secure an exclusive with Christie. 100 00:07:37.959 --> 00:07:40.040 Even while Christy was still on the run before the 101 00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:43.399 police had caught him, Harry still sort of set about 102 00:07:43.439 --> 00:07:46.560 making plans for how he could get a story and 103 00:07:46.600 --> 00:07:50.199 get it before and hear all his rivals and have 104 00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:53.639 it himself. And to do this he went to the 105 00:07:53.680 --> 00:07:57.920 north of England, back down Christie's family and secured an 106 00:07:57.959 --> 00:08:02.480 interview with his brother Percy, and he persuaded Percy that 107 00:08:02.680 --> 00:08:08.279 if he signed an agreement that the story should go 108 00:08:08.399 --> 00:08:14.560 exclusively to the Sunday Pictorial, the Pictorial would pay all 109 00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:20.160 of Christie's defense costs and pay for psychiatrists to interview 110 00:08:20.240 --> 00:08:23.199 him to assess whether he was insane, to do everything 111 00:08:23.279 --> 00:08:26.759 possible to help him. This was a strange kind of 112 00:08:26.920 --> 00:08:30.399 pact with the devil that Harry was making. He was 113 00:08:30.519 --> 00:08:36.679 undertaking to support Christie's defense. His paper would do that 114 00:08:37.480 --> 00:08:41.879 in return for a story that would ultimately condemn Christy 115 00:08:42.399 --> 00:08:45.399 as a man who had let another man hang in 116 00:08:45.399 --> 00:08:45.960 his place. 117 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:51.919 You say the Pictorial Pictorial was going to fund the defense, 118 00:08:52.200 --> 00:08:56.679 so did they have defense attorneys? Solicitors? 119 00:08:56.759 --> 00:09:02.480 In mind, Harry had a friend who was a solicitor. 120 00:09:03.279 --> 00:09:08.399 These kinds of deals were becoming increasingly common in Fleet Street. 121 00:09:08.879 --> 00:09:11.600 They were a bit below the radar. They weren't strictly 122 00:09:11.799 --> 00:09:15.679 illegal or legal, so it was all on the hush hush. 123 00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:19.600 So Harry got in touch with his solicitor friend, who 124 00:09:19.639 --> 00:09:25.960 in turn pointed a barrister to represent Christie in court. 125 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:29.679 All this was sort of firmed up only once Christie 126 00:09:29.840 --> 00:09:33.960 was apprehended, which was a week after the murders were discovered. 127 00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:39.120 He was found by the Thames by a policeman. Christie 128 00:09:39.440 --> 00:09:42.879 sort of endorsed the agreement that his brother had made 129 00:09:42.879 --> 00:09:46.799 with the Pictorial and agreed to write his story while 130 00:09:46.799 --> 00:09:51.200 he was in Brixton Prison awaiting trial or Harry, so 131 00:09:51.320 --> 00:09:54.440 that the Pictorial could publish it as soon as the 132 00:09:54.559 --> 00:09:55.399 verdict was in. 133 00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:03.360 You introduce another central carearacter, fern Tennyson Jesse, and she's 134 00:10:03.399 --> 00:10:08.200 an acclaimed novelist, and you write about the notable British 135 00:10:08.240 --> 00:10:12.639 Trials series. Tell us about that this was. 136 00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:16.039 A series that had been running for more than half 137 00:10:16.039 --> 00:10:20.360 a century, quite acclaimed and influential, sort of high brows 138 00:10:20.440 --> 00:10:25.279 series of They were trial transcripts, so the famous trials 139 00:10:25.320 --> 00:10:28.840 would be printed in full in these books and with 140 00:10:28.919 --> 00:10:37.360 an introduction by a celebrated author, crime writer and friend, 141 00:10:37.360 --> 00:10:40.120 Tennis and Jesse was one of one of the most 142 00:10:40.200 --> 00:10:44.480 acclaimed of the crime writers, true crime writers of the 143 00:10:44.519 --> 00:10:51.720 interwar years, and she had written several essays for introductions 144 00:10:51.759 --> 00:10:55.960 to the notable British Trial series already, and she'd also 145 00:10:56.039 --> 00:10:59.919 published fiction, some of which drew on real crime story. 146 00:11:00.440 --> 00:11:05.200 So she was absolutely fascinated by true crime and in 147 00:11:05.320 --> 00:11:09.720 particular by the psychology of murderers. And she was quite 148 00:11:09.759 --> 00:11:12.919 a pioneer in this field in writing essays that tackled 149 00:11:13.480 --> 00:11:17.960 and a psychological and unconscious motive as well as the 150 00:11:18.039 --> 00:11:22.240 nitty gritty of who done it and how, and so 151 00:11:22.320 --> 00:11:27.320 she was she read about Christie's the discovery of the 152 00:11:27.320 --> 00:11:31.000 bodies at ten Rillington Place and Christie's arrest in the papers, 153 00:11:31.440 --> 00:11:34.519 and again even before he was arrested, she was pleading 154 00:11:34.519 --> 00:11:37.759 with her editor at Notable British Trials to give her 155 00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:41.840 the commission on this story because she wanted to be 156 00:11:41.879 --> 00:11:44.840 able to get a ticket to the Old Bailey trial 157 00:11:45.279 --> 00:11:49.440 of Christie and then to write. She wrote a long 158 00:11:49.559 --> 00:11:57.000 essay in which she considered his psychology and his methods 159 00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:02.960 and also try to unpack the mystery of whether he 160 00:12:03.080 --> 00:12:08.440 had indeed killed Tim Evans' wife and child. The main 161 00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:12.519 argument against that it would seem almost obvious that he 162 00:12:12.639 --> 00:12:16.240 had because these bodies have been found in the wash 163 00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:20.000 house behind his flat at ten Rillington Place in nineteen 164 00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:24.480 forty nine. Yet the strange thing was Tim Evans, even 165 00:12:24.559 --> 00:12:28.480 though he'd accused Christie of being a murderer, had at 166 00:12:28.519 --> 00:12:32.120 another point made a very full and detailed confession to 167 00:12:32.200 --> 00:12:36.919 having murdered Beryl and Geraldine Evans himself. So it was 168 00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:42.120 a very perplexing case, and there were arguments on both side. 169 00:12:42.159 --> 00:12:46.279 Campaigners on both sides both Tim Evans innocence, but others 170 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:49.679 others believed in his guilt and thought it was indeed 171 00:12:49.759 --> 00:12:53.919 a coincidence that these two stranglers had shared a house. 172 00:12:56.120 --> 00:12:59.399 You're right about that. Once Christy is apprehended, the police 173 00:12:59.480 --> 00:13:04.600 obvious questioned him. So throughout this book is the various 174 00:13:05.399 --> 00:13:08.639 answers to the questions that police have for him. Tell 175 00:13:08.720 --> 00:13:13.440 us about the first questioning and what is called a confession? 176 00:13:13.600 --> 00:13:17.200 What does he actually say that he confesses to. 177 00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:23.159 Well, the police, to Harry, the frustration of Harry Procter 178 00:13:23.320 --> 00:13:28.000 and others didn't really question Christie at all about the 179 00:13:28.039 --> 00:13:33.320 Evans murders. The establishment, from the police to the courts, 180 00:13:33.919 --> 00:13:37.399 and the government didn't want to rock the vote on 181 00:13:37.639 --> 00:13:41.159 this previous conviction. They didn't want the scandal of a 182 00:13:41.159 --> 00:13:47.240 miscarriage of justice, especially because there was a big furia 183 00:13:47.399 --> 00:13:51.159 at the time about whether capital punishment should be abolished 184 00:13:51.279 --> 00:13:55.759 in England. So the police asked Christy about the women 185 00:13:55.759 --> 00:13:58.519 whose bodies had been found in his house that much. 186 00:13:59.320 --> 00:14:04.639 His first was really bizarre. He claimed that most of 187 00:14:04.679 --> 00:14:07.799 his victims had attacked him and he had killed them 188 00:14:07.919 --> 00:14:12.679 in self defense. He's claimed that these women much younger 189 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:17.240 than him, had forced their way into his house or 190 00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:22.759 refused to leave, had demanded sex, had got violent, and 191 00:14:22.840 --> 00:14:26.399 it was a really strange kind of reversal of what 192 00:14:26.519 --> 00:14:29.960 must really have happened, a straight kind of projection of 193 00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:33.559 what he'd done to them and framing it as what 194 00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:38.240 they'd done to him. And the forensic evidence completely discredited 195 00:14:38.559 --> 00:14:43.519 these stories of his and in a couple of cases, 196 00:14:44.399 --> 00:14:48.159 including that of his wife Ethel, whose body was found 197 00:14:48.200 --> 00:14:51.480 beneath the floorboards in the front room, he claimed that 198 00:14:51.519 --> 00:14:54.639 he had carried out a mercy killing, that she had 199 00:14:54.679 --> 00:14:57.879 wanted to die and she had taken a lot of 200 00:14:58.559 --> 00:15:01.799 sleeping pills and then and because they didn't work, he'd 201 00:15:01.799 --> 00:15:05.000 sort of finished the job for her. That this was 202 00:15:05.039 --> 00:15:11.159 not credible either, And it emerged after the very sophisticated 203 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:17.440 and wide ranging forensic analysis of the bodies and the 204 00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:22.120 crime scene that the women, most of the women that 205 00:15:22.120 --> 00:15:26.559 had been found, had been gassed with carbon dioxide from 206 00:15:26.559 --> 00:15:30.879 the household the main pipes, and they'd been raped by 207 00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:35.919 Christie and then they'd been strangled. So his stories of 208 00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:40.240 being the victim of these sort of wild attacks by 209 00:15:40.320 --> 00:15:42.639 women was completely discredited. 210 00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:49.639 What information came out, and it would be regarding the 211 00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:54.000 motive possibly for killing any of these women. And what 212 00:15:54.080 --> 00:15:57.559 I'm speaking to is his role as an abortionist. 213 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:01.559 Yeah, this was something that was also sort of slightly 214 00:16:01.639 --> 00:16:04.840 hushed up at the time, but it seems obvious from 215 00:16:05.279 --> 00:16:09.879 going through the archives and reading all the statements by neighbors, 216 00:16:10.039 --> 00:16:14.840 by former lodgers, by local police that Christy was practicing 217 00:16:14.840 --> 00:16:21.120 as a backstreet abortionist and this may well have been 218 00:16:21.720 --> 00:16:25.519 the way that he lured many of his victims to 219 00:16:25.639 --> 00:16:31.360 his house. I realized as I was researching that almost 220 00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:35.759 everyone had been pregnant or rumored to be pregnant at 221 00:16:35.759 --> 00:16:40.440 the time of their deaths. This was a period when 222 00:16:40.840 --> 00:16:46.480 abortion was illegal in Britain, and backstreet abortions were relatively common. 223 00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:50.919 That are risky, dangerous to the life of the mother. 224 00:16:51.879 --> 00:16:57.799 The women who were impoverished, as many were this time, 225 00:16:58.440 --> 00:17:01.279 it was the almost impossible to bring up a child 226 00:17:01.600 --> 00:17:08.000 by oneself. So if they had given birth to this, 227 00:17:08.160 --> 00:17:11.640 to this unwonted child they would have had they would 228 00:17:11.640 --> 00:17:14.039 have been parted from it immediately, it would have been 229 00:17:14.079 --> 00:17:18.000 taken into into care. So many women did seek out 230 00:17:18.039 --> 00:17:21.960 abortions because, you know, for financial reasons, they simply couldn't have. 231 00:17:22.079 --> 00:17:27.079 Unmarried women couldn't afford to raise children and read Christy. 232 00:17:27.160 --> 00:17:29.720 This may well be why he had this gassing device 233 00:17:29.839 --> 00:17:33.359 that he used on his victims as well. And there's 234 00:17:33.400 --> 00:17:37.440 an interesting question of whether his wife Ethel eventually one 235 00:17:37.519 --> 00:17:44.319 or of his victims, was complicit in this activity. It 236 00:17:44.400 --> 00:17:45.440 seems likely. 237 00:17:46.680 --> 00:17:50.359 You talk about the that in preparation for this trial 238 00:17:50.680 --> 00:17:56.680 and Harry Procter's publishers funding this defense that he had 239 00:17:57.160 --> 00:18:02.079 Reginald Christy give him, which he was able to be 240 00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:08.640 used eventually for the pictorial publication. So tell us some 241 00:18:08.680 --> 00:18:13.279 of the information that Christy gave to Harry and was 242 00:18:13.359 --> 00:18:15.839 part of his incredible notes. 243 00:18:16.880 --> 00:18:21.079 The notes were they're an extraordinary document and they were 244 00:18:21.119 --> 00:18:25.720 written over many weeks while Christie was waiting to be 245 00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:30.440 tried and sitting in his cell in Brixton Prison. There 246 00:18:30.440 --> 00:18:34.160 are quite a few fragments about his early life which 247 00:18:34.200 --> 00:18:38.279 are interesting. He talked about his father being very domineering. 248 00:18:39.119 --> 00:18:42.720 He talked about the fact that he had seen his 249 00:18:42.799 --> 00:18:46.519 grandfather's dead body when he was a child, laid out 250 00:18:46.559 --> 00:18:49.279 in the parlor, and he had looked on it with 251 00:18:49.319 --> 00:18:52.400 no emotion, and he said ever since, dead bodies had 252 00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:57.039 held a fascination for him. He talked about how he 253 00:18:57.720 --> 00:19:02.960 had been gassed as a soldier in the First World War. 254 00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:06.119 He was caught up in a mustard gas attack on 255 00:19:06.200 --> 00:19:11.480 the Western Front, and the effect of this was to 256 00:19:12.160 --> 00:19:17.680 he temporarily was blinded and lost his voice, and his 257 00:19:17.799 --> 00:19:21.599 voice didn't come back for six months and not fully 258 00:19:21.680 --> 00:19:26.640 for three years. Even now, even in his fifties. He 259 00:19:26.720 --> 00:19:30.480 spoke with a whisper and the doctors at the time 260 00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:34.400 and thereafter concluded that this was a psychosomatic condition. It 261 00:19:34.480 --> 00:19:38.119 was a form of shell shop that he'd reacted to. 262 00:19:38.200 --> 00:19:43.279 The trauma of the gas attack by balling silent, So 263 00:19:43.359 --> 00:19:48.680 he sort of portrayed in fragments this his earlier life, 264 00:19:49.480 --> 00:19:54.480 but a lot of the statement is taken up. He 265 00:19:54.559 --> 00:19:58.720 also does describe the murders, but often in a very 266 00:19:58.759 --> 00:20:02.400 detached and vague way. As he said to the police 267 00:20:02.559 --> 00:20:05.039 it must have been me. It was almost as if 268 00:20:05.079 --> 00:20:08.799 he was talking of a third person. And even in 269 00:20:08.839 --> 00:20:15.160 this confession for Harry, there's that tone of voice, rather distant, unemotional, 270 00:20:15.680 --> 00:20:21.240 slightly bewildered, as if he he is a spectator of 271 00:20:21.279 --> 00:20:26.559 his own atrocities rather than the perpetrator. And weirdly, there's 272 00:20:26.599 --> 00:20:31.519 this thing that even when he was arrested, he insisted 273 00:20:31.519 --> 00:20:35.480 to the police on what a kind of moral, high minded, 274 00:20:36.079 --> 00:20:39.920 educated man he was, And in the statement for Harry, 275 00:20:40.799 --> 00:20:45.359 he goes to great lengths to impress upon him how 276 00:20:45.440 --> 00:20:48.039 sober he is, how he doesn't drink heavily, how he 277 00:20:48.079 --> 00:20:51.160 doesn't swear, how he's very fond of animals and even 278 00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:55.440 rescued a cat once. Even as he's confessing to murder, 279 00:20:55.720 --> 00:20:59.920 he's still insisting on this image of himself as this upright, 280 00:21:00.480 --> 00:21:05.640 almost Victorian figure who has extremely high moral standards and 281 00:21:05.960 --> 00:21:11.160 disapproves of prostitution, disapproves of pubs and liquor. And so 282 00:21:11.559 --> 00:21:16.720 this kind of jarring disjunction between the acts he's admitting 283 00:21:16.799 --> 00:21:20.920 to and the persona that he stood it persists in presenting. 284 00:21:22.599 --> 00:21:24.839 Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear 285 00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:32.839 these messages. Now you explain the I guess unique aspect 286 00:21:32.880 --> 00:21:36.240 of the British judicial system that they would only be 287 00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:39.960 able to try one murder at a time. So what 288 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.680 do does a prosecution choose as the first murder to prosecute, 289 00:21:44.960 --> 00:21:50.799 and also what is the seemingly the only option for 290 00:21:50.880 --> 00:21:55.279 the defense In terms of defense, the. 291 00:21:55.279 --> 00:22:01.960 Crown prosecution decided to charge Christie in court with the 292 00:22:02.039 --> 00:22:07.519 murder of his wife Ethel. She was the victim that 293 00:22:07.559 --> 00:22:10.440 he claimed to have put to death because she was 294 00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:14.279 suffering so much and wanted to die, and he said 295 00:22:14.279 --> 00:22:17.680 that he put her body beneath the floorboards in the 296 00:22:17.680 --> 00:22:21.960 front room because he wanted her to still be near him. 297 00:22:22.359 --> 00:22:25.200 He claimed to have loved her very much, acted only 298 00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:30.000 out of pity. The reason that the prosecution chose this 299 00:22:30.160 --> 00:22:34.720 murder was that they had the most evidence that Christy 300 00:22:34.839 --> 00:22:38.920 had consciously permitted it. It was not an act of 301 00:22:39.599 --> 00:22:43.079 momentary madness, and the evidence for this was that he 302 00:22:43.680 --> 00:22:49.640 made preparations to kill her. He had afterwards covered up 303 00:22:49.720 --> 00:22:55.680 the crime really quite deviously by sort of forging altering 304 00:22:55.759 --> 00:23:01.279 dates on letters, sending Christmas car to her family, saying 305 00:23:01.279 --> 00:23:04.240 I was so sorry Ethel can't write this herself as 306 00:23:04.240 --> 00:23:07.759 she's got terrible rheumatism in her hands. Don't worry, I'm 307 00:23:07.759 --> 00:23:11.680 going to cook the Christmas dinner, and claiming to his 308 00:23:11.799 --> 00:23:15.039 neighbors that she was visiting her six sister, that she 309 00:23:15.160 --> 00:23:19.039 sent a telegram. So they were very, very elaborate cover 310 00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:22.319 up in the case of Ethel's death, which of course 311 00:23:22.359 --> 00:23:24.400 he didn't need to do in the case of the 312 00:23:24.880 --> 00:23:28.000 other women who nobody knew had even come to his house, 313 00:23:28.119 --> 00:23:33.559 nobody knew had died, so that seemed the easiest one 314 00:23:33.599 --> 00:23:39.920 to pin on him. And importantly this they guessed that 315 00:23:40.039 --> 00:23:45.279 Christie Lawyers would claim insanity as a defense. It was 316 00:23:45.319 --> 00:23:48.160 the only possible defense because the evidence against him was 317 00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:55.200 so great, and Ethel's death was the one that most 318 00:23:55.440 --> 00:24:02.960 clearly was sort of rational, alculating, consider premeditated, and so 319 00:24:03.119 --> 00:24:06.720 it was the best one to use as to sort 320 00:24:06.759 --> 00:24:11.279 of rebut the claims of insanity. That was his lawyers 321 00:24:11.759 --> 00:24:15.680 claimed that he was mad when the case came to trial, 322 00:24:16.440 --> 00:24:20.880 and their main argument was really the horror of what 323 00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:25.400 he'd done. The fact that he had had sex with 324 00:24:25.519 --> 00:24:29.759 these women's dead or unconscious bodies, is said, was a 325 00:24:29.799 --> 00:24:33.160 perversion so great that there was no other way of 326 00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:37.000 explaining it other than insanity. So that was the defense case. 327 00:24:39.119 --> 00:24:42.039 You're right about the state of journalism at that time. 328 00:24:42.400 --> 00:24:48.599 We always think of a tabloid journalism and sensationalistic journalism 329 00:24:48.640 --> 00:24:52.559 and headlines of something that's more recent. But tell us 330 00:24:52.599 --> 00:24:55.400 about the state of journalism that time and the tabloids 331 00:24:55.839 --> 00:24:58.119 and sensationalism in the media. 332 00:24:59.400 --> 00:25:03.680 In the wake of the Second World War, the tabloid 333 00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:09.640 journalism really boomed. There were lots more photographs used in papers, 334 00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:13.920 often a semi clad young women pin ups, which I 335 00:25:13.960 --> 00:25:17.279 think had been popularized in part during the war with 336 00:25:17.319 --> 00:25:21.960 sort of pilots and soldiers taking magazines with them, and 337 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:24.680 now it became sort of part of the mainstream press, 338 00:25:25.400 --> 00:25:29.359 and the stories were, you know, sex and violence were 339 00:25:29.799 --> 00:25:35.640 big sellers of papers, and papers were huge, like more 340 00:25:35.680 --> 00:25:39.200 people read a newspaper in Britain in the nineteen fifties 341 00:25:39.240 --> 00:25:42.000 than in any other country in the world, and there 342 00:25:42.079 --> 00:25:46.000 were eighty percent of people read a paper every day, 343 00:25:46.559 --> 00:25:48.960 and then when papers published several times a day, it 344 00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:51.599 was almost like a sort of live streaming situation where 345 00:25:51.640 --> 00:25:56.160 you'd get an afternoon paper that was updated a couple 346 00:25:56.200 --> 00:25:59.160 of hours later and then again and on an unfolding 347 00:25:59.240 --> 00:26:04.680 sensational case. Getting the latest news was the source of 348 00:26:05.960 --> 00:26:11.319 great appeal to readers, and journalists competed really fiercely to 349 00:26:12.279 --> 00:26:15.559 get to get their first, to get get their scoops. 350 00:26:16.200 --> 00:26:17.720 As a result, there was quite a lot of money 351 00:26:17.720 --> 00:26:22.039 at Fleet Street. As somebody's worked in newspapers more recently. 352 00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:26.480 It was amazing to read and how Harry Procter would 353 00:26:27.440 --> 00:26:32.920 bury his contact about taking role, taking them in a 354 00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:36.640 rolls Royce to the Old Bailey for their trial, and 355 00:26:36.680 --> 00:26:40.440 the Daily Expresscott bought a helicopter to get it to 356 00:26:40.839 --> 00:26:44.599 the scenes of breaking news stories more quickly in its rivals. 357 00:26:45.079 --> 00:26:49.319 So it was really, you know, it was quite unscrupulous, 358 00:26:49.720 --> 00:26:54.200 no expense spared, lots of money paid to informance as well, 359 00:26:54.240 --> 00:26:59.960 which has obviously potential for corruption and fictional fictional life 360 00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:03.839 of stories, but don't imagine it sounds like a very 361 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:12.240 exciting and stressful life, heavy drinking, heavy smoking, absolutely relentless, 362 00:27:12.319 --> 00:27:15.440 long hours and fierce competition. 363 00:27:17.599 --> 00:27:24.240 You mentioned the necessary state of prostitution and its necessary state, 364 00:27:25.039 --> 00:27:28.640 but what was even Harry Procter's attitude and the newspaper's 365 00:27:28.640 --> 00:27:30.559 attitude towards prostitution. 366 00:27:32.079 --> 00:27:37.960 The number of prostitutes in London had increased hugely during 367 00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:41.799 the Second World War because of all the servicemen passing 368 00:27:41.839 --> 00:27:46.880 through the capitol, and there were an estimated one hundred 369 00:27:47.000 --> 00:27:52.400 thousand prostitutes on the streets of London in nineteen fifty one. 370 00:27:52.759 --> 00:27:57.519 People were very anxious, the authorities were very anxious that 371 00:27:57.640 --> 00:28:02.039 this would mark the city when all the tourists came 372 00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:05.480 for the Queen's coronation in the summer of nineteen fifty three, 373 00:28:06.359 --> 00:28:09.559 and there was big public campaign to sort of clean 374 00:28:09.680 --> 00:28:12.400 up the streets, and this was popular, you know, in 375 00:28:12.440 --> 00:28:16.039 the tabloids as well as among the police. So there'd 376 00:28:16.039 --> 00:28:20.079 be these disapproving article about the women of the streets. 377 00:28:20.480 --> 00:28:23.839 Harry joined in with that. He in particular track do 378 00:28:23.839 --> 00:28:26.880 I mean most of the women who sold sex on 379 00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:31.119 the streets of London were relatively boor and they could 380 00:28:31.200 --> 00:28:34.359 make a lot more money as prostitutes, and they could 381 00:28:34.359 --> 00:28:38.319 as shop girls or waitresses in cafes or similar. It 382 00:28:38.440 --> 00:28:42.640 was a time when most women's work was very poorly paid, 383 00:28:42.799 --> 00:28:47.359 much lower waveless than men, but prostitution was relatively well paid. 384 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:53.480 And Harry tracked down a ring of high class prostitutes, 385 00:28:53.880 --> 00:28:57.599 sort of an elite lot who worked in places like Mayfair, 386 00:28:58.279 --> 00:29:03.039 and he personated a punter, and he and a fellow 387 00:29:03.119 --> 00:29:06.400 journalist sort of work their way into one of these 388 00:29:06.480 --> 00:29:09.319 high class brothels. And then he wrote a great big 389 00:29:09.440 --> 00:29:14.079 expose and claimed that now that his identity and his 390 00:29:14.240 --> 00:29:19.319 ruse had got out, all the high class madams in 391 00:29:19.400 --> 00:29:24.240 London were quaking in their boots at being discovered by him. 392 00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:27.359 So he presented this as sort of doing his part 393 00:29:27.599 --> 00:29:32.559 to rid the city of sex workers. But of course 394 00:29:33.079 --> 00:29:36.839 was also like a very exciting story for the Sunday 395 00:29:36.880 --> 00:29:40.640 Pictorial to splash across its pages, and the tone was 396 00:29:42.599 --> 00:29:48.079 pretty sort of excitable as well as disapproving, a familiar 397 00:29:48.240 --> 00:29:51.000 combination in the tabloid press. 398 00:29:53.160 --> 00:29:55.319 You write about Roy Arthur and you could tell us 399 00:29:55.400 --> 00:29:58.680 who this person is, and also the idea that he 400 00:29:58.720 --> 00:30:03.000 would try to get a psychiatrist named Jack Hobson to 401 00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:09.319