Psychos R Us - John George Haigh (The Acid Bath Murderer) Modus Operandi John George Haigh methodically planned each of his murders, with all three stages carefully though out to prevent untidy, or messy finishes to his activities. The first stage was to isolate the victim from any familiarity around them (escorting to his glamorised "workshop", which was nothing more than an adjacent room next to a factory). In all of the above cases, his victims were always led under a pretence of discovery, which was based upon his initial friendship established with each of them. Put quite simply, they had absolutely no reason to suspect Haigh of performing anything unusual, until it was too late. The next stage was to cleanly render his target incapable of responding to his attack (via the use of a .38 Webley revolver). He concealed the gun upon his person once he had coaxed his intended target inside his workshop. Then Haigh would seize any opportune moment to kill the victim with as little effort as possible on his part. Finally, and probably most difficult of all, was the traceless disposal of the body (vats of industrial acid).

It was Haigh's mistaken (and arrogant) belief that a corpse could be completely disposed of via the acid. Unfortunately for Haigh, certain parts of the human body are more resilient to attack than most people realise, either by their very nature (such as teeth and bone) and artificial items (such as dentures) and are usually picked up as trace evidence by forensic experts. Haigh's false assumption that murder could not be proved without the body was to have lead to his downfall. One other key element in all the murders is the violations performed on the victims in the consumption of blood. Though the murders were very important to Haigh, he also saw the need to sustain himself financially, and would thus strip the body of any valuables that he could use himself (things such as jewelry, and ration cards which he later used for himself). These would later be found at his home, which provided further damning evidence against him. Motives The initial explanation that Haigh supplied was that he was a vampire, and as such required the life blood of the living to sustain himself. The elaborate disposal methods he used on the bodies afterwards was merely a systematic way of ensuring that he would not be caught.

Whatever the decision, the jury were convinced that it was a hasty ruse given by Haigh as part of an insanity plea, to prevent him being hung. It took just 15 minutes for the jury to find Haigh guilty of his crimes, and being very sane when he committed them It was a mystery how an intelligent boy from a good home could be shaped into the cool, calm and calculating killer which Haigh evolved into. It eventually was left to Haigh himself to define those seminal moments in his childhood which would culminate into life shaping events. His father was intensely religious, and as a young child was embedded deeply into his upbringing, with a focus on the more negative references in the Bible involving "Satan", "Thou shall not..", "Thy will not..." etc. This was also coupled with very vivid dreams involving crucifixes transforming into trees that wept blood (a possible reference to the crucifixion of Christ at Golgotha).

An important point to note at this stage is that whilst his childhood experiences may have had a profound effect in his actions, he kept detailed accounts of his murders, possibly as a form of recollecting the events when he needed to "re-live" the experience (as a form of "trophy"). These records make for a very disturbing, yet fascinating reading into the mind of a serial killer. Quotes Whilst awaiting execution, Haigh had this to say of his parents: "Although my parents were kind and loving, I had none of the joys, or the companionship, which small children usually have. From my earliest years my recollection is of my father saying: 'Do no' or 'Thou shall not'. Any form of sport or light entertainment was frowned upon and regarded as not edifying. There was only condemnation and prohibition..." "It is true to say that I was nurtured on Bible stories but mostly concerned with sacrifice.

If by some mischance I did, or said, anything which my father regarded as improper, he would say: 'Do not grieve the Lord by behaving so.' And if I suggested that I wanted to go somewhere, or meet somebody, he would say: 'It will not please the Lord.'" More ominously and disturbing, were Haigh's description of his recurring nightmare: "I saw before me a forest of crucifixes which gradually turned into trees. At first there appeared to be dew, or rain, dripping from the branches, but as I approached I realized it was blood. Suddenly the whole forest began to writhe and the trees, stark and erect, to ooze blood...A man went to each tree catching the blood...When the cup was full he approached me. 'Drink,' he said, but I was unable to move." DARK DOCUMENTARIES » Serial Killers Documentaries » The Acid Bath Murderer (2011) The Acid Bath Murderer (2011) Serial Killers DARKDOCUMENTARIES does NOT serve ads BUT some video hosting sites, unfortunately do. Just Install AD BLOCK Plus for your browser of choice to eliminate this nuisance.

[learn_more caption=”Fred Dinenage: Murder Casebook – ‘John George Haigh: The Acid Bath Murderer’ (2011) ” state=”open”] John George Haigh (24 July 1909 — 10 August 1949), commonly known as the “Acid Bath Murderer“, was an English serial killer during the 1940s. He was convicted of the murders of six people, although he claimed to have killed nine. He did not use acid actually to kill his victims, but rather as (he believed) a foolproof method of body disposal — dissolving their bodies in concentrated sulphuric acid before forging papers in order to sell their possessions and collect substantial sums of money. During the investigation, it became apparent that Haigh was using the acid to destroy victims’ bodies because he misunderstood the term corpus delicti, thinking that if victims’ bodies could not be found, then a murder conviction would not be possible. The substantial forensic evidence, notwithstanding the absence of his victims’ bodies, was sufficient for him to be convicted for the murders and subsequently executed. [/learn_more] Related Documentaries: Dennis Nilsen – Born To Kill?

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The Devil You Know (2012) Anthony Sowell, also known as 'The Cleveland Strangler' is an American serial killer that was convicted of murdering 11 women and hiding their remains inside and outside his duplex in Cleveland, Ohio.. Share this: John George Haigh, the Acid Bath Murderer : Crawley, Sussex You are here: Home » Miscellaneous » John George Haigh, the Acid Bath Murderer John George Haigh, the Acid Bath Murderer John George Haigh, the acid bath murderer, killed 3 people in Leopold Road, West Green in 1948-9. Haigh, the son of fervently religious Plymouth Brethren, was born in 1909 in Stamford, Lincolnshire, and brought up in Outwood, Yorkshire. He became a choirboy at Wakefield Cathedral. The adult Haigh was, sadly, no choirboy. While in prison for fraud, he came up with a plan for the perfect murder: by dissolving a body in acid, he would leave no trace of the crime. The Kensington Murders His first victim was William Swann, the wealthy owner of an amusement park, for whom Haigh had worked before his spell in prison.

Swann, and later Swann’s parents, were lured into Haigh’s basement at 79 Gloucester Road in London, where Haigh killed them and dissolved their bodies in a 40-gallon drum. The motive was financial: Haigh sold the Swanns’ properties and made the equivalent of about a quarter of a million pounds. The Crawley Murders While living in the Onslow Court hotel in Kensington, Haigh rented a workshop in Leopold Road, West Green, Crawley, to which he transferred his grisly apparatus. He lured a wealthy doctor, Archibald Henderson, there and shot him in the head, then dissolved the body. Dr Henderson’s wife followed shortly afterwards. Haigh sold their possessions and pocketed the money. A fellow resident of the Onslow Court hotel, Olive Durand-Deacon, was also lured to Crawley and disposed of. Once Mrs Durand-Deacon was reported missing, detectives soon became aware of Haigh’s criminal record. A dry cleaner’s receipt for his final victim’s fur coat, as well as papers relating to his earlier victims, led to a thorough examination of Haigh’s workshop in Crawley. The eminent pathologist, Prof.

Keith Simpson, discovered 3 human gallstones and part of Mrs Durand-Deacon’s dentures, all of which the acid had failed to dissolve. Conviction and Execution In custody in Horsham, Haigh was charged with 6 murders. He confessed to these and three others. At Lewes Assizes, Haigh was prosecuted by Sir Hartley Shawcross , who was later to become a politician of temporary allegiances known as Sir Shortly Floorcross. The jury found Haigh guilty after only 5 minutes’ deliberation. He was sentenced to death, and hanged in Wandsworth prison on 10 August 1949. The Scene of the Crime Leopold Road runs off Ifield Road, although the workshop in which Haigh disposed of his victims no longer exists. More Odds and Ends … A Is for Acid (TV Movie 2002) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends.

Error A Is for Acid ( 2002 ) 1h 39min John George Haigh, the notorious "acid bath murderer" in 1940s England, becomes the subject of this dramatization. Director: a list of 324 titles created 21 Aug 2011 a list of 181 titles created 20 Dec 2011 a list of 1030 titles created 22 Apr 2013 a list of 43 titles created 05 Jul 2013 a list of 7850 titles created 08 Nov 2013 Title: A Is for Acid (TV Movie 2002) 7.1/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Add Image Add an image Do you have any images for this title? Edit Storyline Dramatisation of the true story of the notorious "acid bath murderer" John Haigh, who murdered women and disposed of their bodies in vats of acid in the 1940's.

He was only caught when the gallstones of one of his victims, Mrs Durand-Deacon, failed to dissolve in the acid and were detected by the pathologist who examined the residue from the acid bath. Written by van_whistler@hotmail.com 9 September 2002 (UK) See more » Also Known As: Crimes Quase Perfeitos See more » Filming Locations: Did You Know? Goofs Haigh meets the Hendersons at the seaside and comments "splendid weather for February!" (it was in fact 12 February 1948 when he killed them). He is then seen driving Archibald Henderson to his workshop down a road with trees in full leaf; this must have been filmed in May or early June. See more » Connections When the Lights Go On Again (uncredited) A is for acid, memories of meeting Det Sgt Heslin 19 April 2013 | by peterdaphne61 (Paignton) – See all my reviews I have just seen a repeat of this TV film and was very impressed.

I had the opportunity of doing some gardening work for the Sgt Inspector Heslin (Ret'd) before he died, when he lived in Torbay. As one of the detectives who interviews Haigh and discovered his gun, he showed me photographs which very much resembled the film set of Haigh's workhouse. I also specialized someone in the RAF when, as a medic, I saw just what Sulphuric acid can do. Now I am a prolific author and wish I had taken more notes about this case. Heslin and I enjoyed good conversation and he was very proud to have been one of the main detectives to interview Haigh. Peter Carroll 4 of 5 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes The Acid Bath Murderer of England | The Lineup Podcast The Acid Bath Murderer of England John George Haigh took the plunge into murder when he knocked out his old boss and dumped the body into acid – then set out to kill again. StumbleUpon stumbles Red wine, ice cream, a warm bath – these are wonderful ways to unwind after a long day at work.

But as we’ve seen time and again, even the most soothing of activities can be twisted into terror by a madman’s dark imagination. Such is the grisly case of John George Haigh, a serial killer from England who used bubble baths of acid to dispose of his victims. Born in 1909 to an ultra-religious Plymouth Brethren family, John George Haigh was raised in Yorkshire, England. His upbringing was strict, to say the least – his father reportedly constructed a 10-foot fence around their yard as a means of blocking out the neighbors. With no playmates, young John grew up alone. At night, he was haunted by nightmares. The first signs of trouble appeared in his early 20s. After a series of odd office jobs, John was canned on the suspicion that he’d stolen company money. His life took a brief turn for the better in 1934, when he married a woman named Betty Hamer – but the marriage fell apart. Soon after, John landed himself in jail for fraud. While behind bars, Betty gave birth to a baby girl, whom she put up for adoption. John’s conservative parents refused to accept the decision, and forever shunned their son from the family.

Alone, John moved south to London, where he picked up work as a chauffeur for a wealthy businessman named William McSwan in 1936. Yet his criminal ways bubbled back up. For the next seven years, John was in and out of jail for various crimes. It was during this time that he dreamed up the perfect murder. How can one kill and then truly get rid of the body? Sulfuric acid, of course. To test his plan, John caught mice and submerged their helpless bodies in acid. There he saw it: the critters were gone within 30 minutes. In 1943 John was freshly released from prison and reconnected with his old boss, William McSwan. William invited the freed convict to dinner at his parents’ home in celebration. Shortly thereafter, William disappeared. John told William’s parents that the man had gone into hiding to avoid being drafted into World War II. But the truth was far grislier: John had lured William into his basement where he cracked him on the head, then dumped him into a 40-gallon barrel of sulfuric acid. Within a couple of days, William went from grown man to goop.

Afterward, John moved into William’s estate, claiming the businessman had asked him to do so. But with WWII drawing to a close, William’s parents wondered why their son remained in hiding. They soon voiced their suspicions to John. He knew of one way to quiet the fussy couple – give them an acid bath. With the entire McSwan family now out of the picture, John began cashing William’s pension checks. He sold off their belongings for around £8,000 (£300,000 in today’s pounds). With money in hand, the killer moved into the Onslow Court Hotel in London’s posh Kensington district. Eventually, however, the funds ran out – especially after John gambled much of it away. While on the hunt for more cash, the killer spotted a promising real estate ad in the local paper. He traveled to the home of Dr. Archibald Henderson and his wife, Rose (pictured above). Pretending to be an interested buyer, John soon struck up a relationship with the affluent couple. In February of 1948 John convinced his newfound friends to take a drive into the country and visit his new workshop in West Sussex.

Upon arrival, John gunned down the Hendersons and dumped their bodies in the baths. He then collected their belongings and pawned it off for money. Yes, the Acid Bath Murderer had cooked up quite the chilling racket – lure wealthy acquaintances out to his workshop of horrors, send them to the vats, then sell off their possessions for cold hard cash. John’s next and final victim was Olive Durand-Deacon (pictured below), a wealthy widow living at the Onslow Court Hotel. Of all possible things, Ms. Durand-Deacon wanted to meet with John to discuss a brilliant new idea – artificial fingernails. John happily invited her to his West Sussex workshop, where he shot her dead and submerged her body in acid. This time, however, the Acid Bath Murderer failed to cover his tracks. Detectives soon connected the missing woman to John, and began looking into his lengthy record of prior arrests. When authorities searched his West Sussex workshop, they found evidence of Ms. Durand-Deacon plus some papers referring to his earlier victims. As for the body-erasing acid baths? The plan was not as foolproof as John thought.

A pathologist identified three gallstones and a piece of a denture amongst the remaining sludge – objects that could withstand a slathering of sulfuric acid. Authorities arrested John and charged him with murder. He soon confessed to the killings. The man pled insanity, claiming he had been driven mad by a childhood nightmare that returned to him as an adult. “I saw before me a forest of crucifixes which gradually turned into trees,” John recounted of the dream. “At first, there appeared to be dew or rain, dripping from the branches, but as I approached I realized it was blood. The whole forest began to writhe and the trees, dark and erect, to ooze blood…A man went from each tree catching the blood…When the cup was full, he approached me. ‘Drink,’ he said, but I was unable to move.” The courtroom had little interest in John’s strange vision. A guilty verdict was handed down on all counts. In August 1949, John George Haigh was put to death by one of England’s longest serving executioners, Albert Pierrepoint.

Photos: Murderpedia; Wikimedia Commons; Hulton Archive / Getty The Acid Bath murderer | John George Haigh | Sussex Murders | History | The Old Police Cells Museum The Acid Bath murderer John George Haigh 1909-1949 The Acid Bath Murderer ‘Throughout his life, Haigh suffered from a recurring dream: he spoke of a forest of crucifixes that would gradually turn into trees and drip with blood. He would see a man collecting the blood into a cup but he always awakened before he could take a drink. It was the dream, Haigh would confess to the police after his arrest, that made him believe he needed blood in order to live.’ Formative years John George Haigh was a bright student who won scholarships to Wakefield Grammar School, to Wakefield Cathedral, as a choir boy. Unfortunately accounts of his youth suggest that he would never amount to more than the fraudulent, thieving con artist he became in later life. Some even argue, including Haigh that the seeds of his future career as one of the most notorious serial killers in English history were sown during his early religious upbringing. Haigh’s parents belonged to a religious sect known as the Plymouth Brethren, who were purist and anticlerical.

Almost all forms of casual entertainment, music, carnivals, magazines and newspapers were regarded as sinful. Only stories from the bible were tolerated. Haigh as a boy According to his father the world was ‘evil’ and the family needed to keep themselves separate. As his father had also told him that the blue blemish on his own head had been the result of him ‘sinning’ in his youth, it is perhaps not surprising that the young George became terrified of developing a similar ‘sign of the devil’. It is argued that the turning point in the boy’s development came when he realised that no such blemish had appeared, despite his having lied and just about broken every rule in the book. In fact he began to believe that he was invincible and could get away with anything. Ducking and Diving As a young man Haigh was an inveterate pleasure seeker who enjoyed flouting society’s rules and sailing close to the wind. On leaving school he was apprenticed to a firm of motor engineers, however this only lasted a year and he scraped a living in sales, insurance and advertising and any job that demanded snappy dressing and the gift of the gab. By the age of 21 he had already been sacked for suspected theft.

In July1934, Haigh married the 23 year-old Beatrice Hamer, unfortunately the marriage soon fell apart. That same year he was jailed for fraud and Beatrice gave birth while he was in prison but she gave the baby girl up for adoption and left Haigh. Not surprisingly his family ostracised him from that point onwards. In 1936 he moved to London and became chauffeur to William McSwan, the wealthy owner of amusement parlours. He used his mechanical gifts to maintain McSwan's amusement machines. Following that he became a bogus solicitor and received a four-year jail sentence for fraud. He was released just after the start of World War II and somehow missed being called up, continuing as a pretty unsuccessful petty criminal and being sentenced to several terms of imprisonment. Whilst inside Lincoln Prison he began planning the most startling series of perfect murders. He learned much from other criminals and avidly read books on acids which he found easily available in the prison library. Using glass jars from the kitchens, dead field mice brought in from the fields and small quantities of acid taken from the tinsmith’s shop, Haigh carried out experiments to see how long it would take a small body to dissolve in acid.

It was not long before he had devised a formula to apply to humans. William Donald McSwan The McSwans In 1944 Haigh renewed his friendship with the McSwans and rented a small basement workshop at number 79 Gloucester Road in Kensington where he allegedly worked on his ‘inventions’. On September 9th he took McSwan’s son Donald to his workshop and bludgeoned him to death. He then placed Donald’s body in a 40 gallon barrel filled with sulphuric acid. Later he covered the drum and went home to sleep. The next day the remains of McSwan were little more than cold liquid and lumps which he disposed of down a drain. Amy McSwan By forging various documents he obtained all Donald's assets and then told his bemused mother that he had gone away to avoid conscription. He even sent fake postcards to them from Scotland pretending to be their son. Again using forged documentation, Haigh managed to obtain the McSwan’s property in Raynes Park, Wimbledon Park and Beckenham Park, not to mention around £4,000 in cash.

Before continuing with his plans to dispose of the remainder of the McSwan family, according to a police statement he also murdered a middle-aged woman from Hammersmith. The McSwans disappeared on 2 July 1945. They were killed in a similar fashion to poor Donald. Haigh hit them first, killing them and then claimed to have drunk their blood, before dissolving them in acid baths. The Hendersons Mr & Mrs Henderson In August 1947 Haigh met Dr Archibald Henderson and his wife Rosalie, a well healed couple whom he befriended. By this time he was renting a small basement property in Leopold Road, Crawley. On 12th February 1948 he drove Henderson to Crawley on the pretext of showing him an invention. When they arrived he shot Henderson in the head with a revolver he had earlier stolen from the doctor’s house. He then lured Mrs Henderson to the workshop, claiming her husband had fallen ill, and shot her also. After disposing of the Hendersons’ bodies in oil drums filled with acid, he forged a letter from them and sold all of their possessions for £8,000 .

Mrs Henrietta Helen Olivia Roberts Durand-Deacon In 1949 Haigh chanced upon his last victim Olivia Durand-Deacon, 69, the wealthy widow of solicitor John Durand-Deacon and a fellow resident at the Onslow Court Hotel. She mentioned to Haigh, by then calling himself an engineer, an idea that she had for artificial fingernails. He invited her down to the Crawley workshop and once inside he shot her in the back of the head, stripped her of her valuables, including a Persian lamb coat, and put her into the acid bath. Unfortunately this murder netted very little profit. He sold her coat and a few odd bits of jewellery which just about paid the hotel bill and covered his most pressing expenses. It was time to look for another victim. Mrs Durand-Deacon Mrs Constance Lane He found one in the form of Mrs Durand’s friend, Mrs Constance Lane, who was also a retired lady living at the hotel. She was deeply concerned by her friend’s disappearance and plied Haigh with questions one of which nearly knocked him off his perch. ‘Don’t you know where she is, she told me you were taking her down to your factory?

Well I must do something about that’ To avoid suspicion Haigh offered to go to the police station with her and report the matter. At Chelsea Police Station the officer on duty recognised Haigh and ran a background check on him. On February 28th the police brought him in for questioning whilst they searched his hotel room and workshop. The search revealed not only Haigh’s attaché case containing a dry cleaner’s receipt for Mrs Durand-Deacon’s coat, but also papers referring to the Hendersons and McSwans and a diary in which he kept abbreviated details of his other murders. Further investigation of the sludge at the workshop by the pathologist Keith Simpson revealed Mrs Durand’s plastic handbag, 28 pounds of human fat, corroded human bones, three human gallstones and part of a denture which was later identified by Mrs Durand-Deacon’s dentist during the trial. Despite the forensic evidence, it was Haigh’s very own sense of invincibility and arrogance that was to be his greatest undoing. Haigh was of the opinion that nothing could be found from his human slaughterhouse and cockily recounted in great detail his escapades of death.

As far as he was concerned, it was a case of corpus delicti, o bodies, no crime, no punishment. Police investigation When questioned by Detective Inspector Albert Webb, Haigh asked him “Tell me, frankly, what are the chances of anybody being released from Broadmoor?” The inspector said he could not discuss that sort of thing, so Haigh replied “Well, if I told you the truth, you would not believe me. It sounds too fantastic to believe”. Haigh then confessed that he had not only killed Durand-Deacon, the McSwans and Hendersons, but also three other people: a young man called Max, a girl from Eastbourne and a woman from Hammersmith. On Thursday March 3 1949, London's Daily Mirror began a series of macabre stories about murder that began with the headline, "Hunt for the Vampire." They did not name names but there were no prizes for guessing who they were referring to. Trial and Execution Haigh was put on trial on Monday 18th August 1949 at the Sussex Assizes in Lewes.

He had no money to pay for his defence so the News of the World newspaper did a deal with him and offered to pay for his counsel if he would provide them with an exclusive. The Daily Mirror newspaper was found in contempt of court for explicitly portraying Haigh as a vampire. The editor, Silvester Bolam, was sentenced to three months in prison. The paper also had to pay £10,000 in court costs. The jury retired on the second day and it took just 17 minutes to find him perfectly sane and guilty of murder. Mr Justice Travers Humphreys sentenced him to death and it was announced that there would be no appeal. It was reported that Haigh, in the condemned cell at Wandsworth Prison, asked one of his prison guards, Jack Morwood, whether it would be possible to have a trial run of his hanging so everything would run smoothly. It is likely that his request went no further but if it did, the request was denied.

He also wrote to one of his solicitors saying, ’ When I was sentenced to death by Sir Travers Humphries I couldn’t stop laughing, I saw the judge don his black cap and he looked the entire world like a sheep with its head peering out from under a rhubarb leaf.’ On Wednesday 10th August a crowd of around 500 people gathered outside Wandsworth Prison in bright sunshine. At 9am Haigh was hanged by Albert Pierpoint, assisted by Harry Kirk. AfterThoughts Haigh finished his life story for the newspaper that had paid for his trial and wrote letters to his parents who did not see him before he died. His mother sent greetings through a reporter. He also told reporters that he believed in reincarnation and that he would be back to complete his mission. Madame Tussaud’s requested a fitting for a death mask and Haigh was happy to oblige. Haigh’s motivations for his crimes, which involved luring his prey to a fate where their blood was consumed before being dissolved in acid, have never been clearly corroborated.

His claim to have been disturbed in his childhood by his strict religious parents, leading to a psychotic state of mind obsessed with religious iconography and sacrificial fantasies, has been disputed. Critics believe that instead of insanity fuelling Haigh’s vampire-like activities, he was in fact a cold-hearted killer who arrogantly believed that where there was no body, there was no crime to pin on him. He was known to be manipulative and a compulsive liar, prone to saying anything to extricate himself from compromising positions. At the time of his arrest, his personal enquiy into what would befall him if he were found to be insane is an indication that Haigh was aware that appearing ‘bonkers’ and damaged by his childhood would possibly work in his favour when it came to court. Most of the psychologists agreed that although Haigh suffered from mental health issues he was not ‘insane’ and had been perfectly aware of his murderous actions that had involved meticulous planning. One eminent psychiatrist believed without any doubt that Haigh had a "paranoid constitution” - the same mental disease as Hitler. They believed he had most likely developed a paranoid personality to escape his parents’ suffocating universe in order to relieve himself from emotional pain.

His upbringing had contributed to a mental state where the dividing lines between reality and fantasy had become blurred. The result was that Haigh had an acute sense of omnipotence and believed he was above the law. He was in effect an ‘egocentric paranoiac’ who, although aware that killing people was against the law, still thought that it was part of fulfilling his destiny. He tried to impress on the psychiatrists more details of his abnormal dreams and obsession with blood drinking, but none of them bought his efforts to portray himself as a lunatic. However, what they weren’t aware of was that Haigh had years before developed a friendship with an employee of Sussex Psychiatric Hospital and had shown a great deal of interest in mental illness. He had a talent for deception having over the years also posed as a lawyer, engineer and a doctor. John George Haigh - Killerpedia Killerpedia 0 0 0 John George Haigh (24 July 1909 – 10 August 1949), commonly known as the Acid Bath Murderer, was an English serial killer in the 1940s. He was convicted for the murder of six people, although he claimed to have killed nine.

He used acid not to kill his victims but because he thought it was an undetectable method of destroying their remains. Haigh dissolved corpses in concentrated sulphuric acid before forging papers to be able to sell their possessions and collect substantial sums of money. During the investigation, it became apparent that Haigh was using the acid to destroy victims’ bodies because he misunderstood the meaning of the term corpus delicti, and mistakenly believed that, if victims’ bodies could not be found, a murder conviction would not be possible. Despite the absence of his victims’ bodies, there was sufficient forensic evidence for him to be convicted for the murders and subsequently executed. The “Acid Bath” murders John Haigh was freed from one term in 1943 and became an accountant with an engineering firm. Soon after, by chance, he bumped into his former employer, McSwan, in the Goat pub in Kensington. McSwan introduced Haigh to his parents, William and Amy, who mentioned that they had invested in property. On 6 September 1944, McSwan disappeared. Haigh later admitted hitting him over the head after luring him into a basement at 79 Gloucester Road, London SW7.

He then put McSwan’s body into a 40-gallon drum and tipped concentrated sulphuric acid on to it. Two days later he returned to find the body had become sludge, which he poured down a manhole. He told McSwan’s parents, William and Amy, that their son had gone into hiding to avoid being called up for military service. Haigh then took over McSwan’s house and when William and Amy became curious as to why their son had not returned as the war was coming to an end, he murdered them too – on 2 July 1945, he lured them to Gloucester Road and disposed of them. Haigh stole William McSwan’s pension cheques, sold their properties – stealing about £8,000 (£310,000 in 2015, when adjusted for inflation) – and moved into the Onslow Court Hotel in Kensington. By the summer of 1947, Haigh, a gambler, was running short of money.

To solve his financial troubles, he found another couple to kill and rob: Dr Archibald Henderson and his wife, Rose, whom he murdered after feigning interest in a house they were selling. He rented a small workshop at 2 Leopold Road, Crawley, Sussex, and moved acid and drums there from Gloucester Road. Haigh was also known to have stayed at Crawley’s George Hotel on several occasions. On 12 February 1948, he drove Henderson to Crawley, on the pretext of showing him an invention. When they arrived Haigh shot Henderson in the head with a revolver he had earlier stolen from the doctor’s house. He then lured Mrs Henderson to the workshop, claiming her husband had fallen ill, and shot her also. After disposing of the Hendersons’ bodies in oil drums filled with acid, he forged a letter from them and sold all of their possessions for £8,000 (except their dog, which he kept). John George Haigh (1909 - 1949) - Find A Grave Memorial Wandsworth Greater London, England English Murderer.

John Haigh was known as the "Acid Bath Murderer." A notable con man of irresistable charm and good looks, said he was marketing cosmetics, when he approached 69 year old Ms. Olive Durand-Deacon on February 18th, 1949. He invited her to his factory, in Sussex, England, which actually was a small storage room. He drove her there himself, once there, he shot her dead with a .38 Webley Revolver. He stripped her of her valuables, stuffed her body into a 40 gallon drum, filled the drum with sulphuric acid, which turned her body to sludge. He then dumped the destroyed remains outside his so-called factory, into the dirt. Mr. Haigh then went to the police station and reported her missing. Police became suspicious, after discovering he had a criminal record, they investigated him and his factory. That was his last victim. Evidence was found, he was arrested, he confessed to 9 murders, though only tried and convicted for six of those murders. He had forged documents from his victims, collecting substantial sums of funds. In 1934 he had married a Betty Hammer.

Soon after he was jailed for fraud, she gave birth to his only child, while he was in Prison, gave the child up for adoption shortly after, and then divorced John Haigh. John Haigh was the son of Emily and John Haigh, devout followers of a Plymouth Religeon. He was born in the Wakefield region of Yorkshire, England. After his trial, he was sentenced to death. He was hung on the gallows at Wandsworth Prison, in London, England. He was 40 years old. (bio by: Bonnie Fortney- Wichita, Kansas)

Question: Who was known as the Acid Bath Murderer?
Answer: John George Haigh