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Katie Charlwood (31:05)

John George Haig is at Lincoln Prison and he starts experimenting with field mice. Not. Not in that way, to my knowledge. Not in that way. So by experimenting, feel I should like confirm here? I mean, he's dissolving field mice in sulfuric acid. Like he's seeing how long it takes for the acid to dissolve the field mouse. But for why. So in these experiments he discovered that it takes about half an hour to dissolve the mouse. He estimated that by using, I don't know what, algebra, ratios, math. By using math that by comparing the weight of a mouse to a human that he could guess just how long it would take for a human body to dissolve. Everybody needs a hobby, right? Right. Kissy comes to the realization in prison that it is much more difficult to get caught when there's no one to tattle on you. That's right. No victim left alive means there's no one to rat on you. This was not intentionally a rodent pun, but here we are. So he uses sulfuric acid inspired by a Greek born French murderer, Georges Alexandre Surratt, who did the same thing. Which is wild because you know, I'm completely ignoring the fact that the only reason he knows who Seurat was was because Seurat was caught convicted of murdering two people and dissolving their bodies in acid before being executed by Guillotine on 10 April 1934. Like, is that the outcome you want, Johnny boy? Is it? Either way, he decides his best course of action is to practice dissolving mammals in sulfuric acid. Now, sulfuric acid is One of, if not the most used chemical in the world. Like it's used in almost all industries and it's colorless and odorless. It's used widely in the manufacture of like fertilizers and the making of paints, dyes and drugs. It's everywhere. So he would collect sulfuric acid and use the workshop in the prison. Because he was allowed to use the workshop in the prison. I mean he's like fraud. They're all like, it's fraud, it's not like murder. And so they're like, hey, it's okay for you to use the workshop and the tools. So he would collect the sulfuric acid, he'd use the workshop and he'd pay prisoners to collect field mice for him. And he'd pay them with tobacco that his parents sent him because they were like, oh, you're in prison, here, have tobacco. You need a smoke, son. So he's going all Dexter's laboratory in the Lincoln Prison tin shop. So he practices in the Lincoln Prison tin shop, testing his dissolving times and the like. And he applies for an early release. And you know what, they give it to him. And so he's released in September 1943. So far this man has never served a full sentence. He's always been let out early, then gone and committed another crime. I think after the second one, you think maybe not, maybe not. So he's released in September 1943 and he then lives and is employed by Alan Stevens. So he's lodging there and working there. And who else is living in this abode? Will. Alan's wife evelyn and their 15 year old daughter Barbara. So John George Haig starts, and I'm going to use this word loosely, a relationship with Barbara. She's 15 and he is 36 years old. And apart from the fact that she's more than half his age, that's his boss's daughter. Right. And the boss who he also happened to live with. Okay. Mr. And Mrs. Stevens have an issue with this relationship. Not because they think this 30 something old man is grooming their teenage daughter? No, no, they like him. They think he's the cat's pajamas. They think that she's too immature for him. Is she? Mr. And Mrs. Stevens, is your 15 year old daughter too amateur for the nearly 14 year old man? Perhaps. I'd say maybe, maybe just. But I feel like you could be looking at this through just a bit, bit of a blurred perspective here. In August the following year, Haig finally finds what he's been looking for. Not an Age appropriate woman, but instead three basement rooms to rent in a building on Gloucester Road. He negotiates the price like he haggles, obviously, and then moves in. On 6 September 1944, on 7 September, the very next day, he places an order of 20 gallons of sulfuric acid. But that's not all. He also orders six pounds of muriatic acid, which is more famously known as hydrochloric acid. But like, I mean it's basically not as pure. It's like an impure form of hydrochloric acid. It is incredibly corrosive even when diluted. So it has a lot of uses, like in the manufacturing of polyvinyl chloride, also known as pvc, also known as vegan leather. So pvc, we just used to call it PVC back in the 2000s, in the millennium, back in the olden days, somebody somewhere had some PVC trousers. Sometimes they'd go so far as to call it pleather. We knew it was plastic. Sidebar I'm going to tell you a story about me and my pleather trousers that I wore to her funeral. In my defence, it was bought as one of my funeral outfits. Sidebar I used to go to a lot of funerals. Like a lot of funerals. People around me kept dying. I will not be blamed for it. Heart attacks are common these days, so a lot of grandparents died in quick succession. And there has been a lot of death in my family since I was quite young. So I've grown up around death. And there was always a section in my wardrobe like dedicated for funerals. Right? To this day I have at least three separate funeral appropriate outfits for basically any or most, most types of funerals. Like I am ready to go, right? I also have the perfect funeral bag. Like I have everything anybody will need. I have a similar bag for weddings. It they both contain tissues like, and mints. Anyway, that's not the point. I have fidget toys for children, the whole shebang. I got you covered, like. But anyway, back to the funeral. We get to the funeral. My brother and my dad are both wearing ankle length black leather coats like they've just stepped out of the fucking matrix. My oldest brother, he is wearing a three quarter length black leather jacket. I am wearing my PVC trousers and a black and camel cashmere jumper. The camel was a trim. Okay. It was mainly black. So we're at the crematorium actually. So it's like a funeral service at it and you know, there's still prayers and stuff. So we have to like sit on the Pew and kneel down and all this kind of stuff. And every time I moved, my clothes squeaked. And every time my brother moved, his clothes squeaked. So it's like, oh, now we pray. And it was continuous all the way through this funeral. And it goes back, and it gets to the point where I just start laughing so hard that my brother shoves my face right into his shoulder. Bear in mind, I'm 12 at this point.

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Katie Charlwood (40:36)

I'm 11 at this point. And he's just like, she's really sad, by the way. She's really sad because I'm shaking with. With my whole body. And he's just like, oh, bladder. The teals, the teals. And then at the very end of the funeral, it kept playing over and over again. Time to say goodbye. But it kept playing on a loop. And that just set me off again because I was like, when we. Saying goodbye, by the way, because the coffin's still sitting there like it was if stuff was broken. Anyway, anyway, funerals always at many of them. So PVC plastic that looks like leather. And muriatic acid, hydrochloric acid. They're also used in steel production, in cleaning tiles, and it's even used in balancing the PH in your pool, if you have a pool. I don't have a pool because I have Ireland, where it rains most of the time. If I want to pool, I'll just dig a hole in the garden. Mixing muriatic acid and sulfuric acid creates the joker. No, it creates a corrosive superacid, like muriatic acid can dissolve iron. Right. And there's a lot of safety precautions you have to take with that. And so he orders buckets and buckets of acid, and it's delivered the very same day. How efficient. Then one night in the Goat Pub in Kensington, London, who does he bump into but his old chum, former employer, or William? Donald McSwan. He meets with McSwan's parents, Donald and Amy, again. And everyone has a swell time. The end. Please. In the immortal words of Cher Horowitz, as if. As if just by existing, John feels like William is rubbing his success in his face. He just couldn't have that. There is nothing more dangerous than a man with wounded pride, regardless of whether the slight is imagined or not. A couple of days after he sets up his Hindenburg basement, he invites his old buddy William over. And John crosses him over the head with either a table leg or. Or a piece of pipe. He can't quite remember Which. And William McSwan takes about five minutes to die. He's gone over there to hang out with someone he thought was his friend, only to be killed by him. Because William had money. And at this point, he's working with his parents, who are landlords in London. So he would collect rent from all of the flats or apartments around London and make a pretty penny. Like, he'd be collecting all this money for his parents, and then he would earn from that. And he was doing very well for himself in this scenario. And of course, John is jealous. He wants that money without, you know, actually having to go and earn it. After bonking William McSwan on the head and watching him die, he strips him of all of his valuables and puts him in a drum that he fills with 40 to 50 gallons of sulfuric acid. So he is, like, kitted out at this point. He's got rubber boots, he's got gloves, he's got a big butcher's apron on, and he's using a bucket to fill up the drum with acid. And the fumes are. They're getting to him. And so he has to keep running outside, like, up the basement steps and outside for air. Right? Now, you've gone to all this effort. You've got boots, you've got gloves, you've got your massive leather butcher's apron. And at no point during this did you consider maybe something for the gas, right? So hydrochloric acid is. It's London in 1944. Owning a gas mask is, like, the least suspicious thing you could do at this point, right? No one's gonna be like, oh, why has he got a gas mask? It's London in 1944. After John George Haig decides that his friend should be liquefied, he realizes that it's not William that has the money. It's his parents. In a shocking and unprecedented turn of events that no one could have predicted, William McSwan's body didn't dissolve in 30 minutes like the mice did. Deciding that the corpse needs some more time to stew, Haig leaves and comes back two days later and discovers that his former friend's body was now sort of sludge. Luckily for Haig, the basement room had a big old drain in it. Well, it's actually a manhole, like in the Sandra that's basement. Well, not in the center. It's in the basement. I'm not entirely sure if it's in the center of it, but it's in the basement. And so he decides to just pour the corpse goo down the drain. That led to the precursor to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The adult suffrage salamanders. Adult suffrage salamanders. Adult suffrage salamanders. Adult suffrage salamanders. Let him vote or you choke. Suffrage power. So he goes to Donald and Amy McSwan and is like, William's left to avoid conscription. Like, he forges documents to make it look like he's left the country. Well, that he's gone to Scotland. As if the island, the entire island and country technically of Great Britain, because Great Britain is country, but Scotland and England and Wales are also countries. Let's not. Let's not get into geography because it's too much right now. But he's up in Scotland, allegedly. He's not. He's in a drain. And so John's like, you know, he's escaped. He doesn't want to join the war. And his parents are like, the war is like getting close to the end. Like, we're reading the papers, it feels like a bit sus. But then they're getting postcards and all this stuff. Like, basically he's doing all this work to make it seem like William's still alive. And he does this all the way through to July 1945. So September 1944 to July 1945. So that's after the war is over. Okay? He continues this ruse. Meanwhile, during this time, like, he is talented Mr. Ripley, ing his way into everyone's lives. And with William away, who is going to collect the rent from all of the McSwan properties? Oh, everyone's dear friend, John George Haigh. So he is out collecting all the rent from these tenancies from all these properties all across the city of London. And also, I'm assuming outer, maybe outer London. I'm not entirely sure of exactly where the barrier of their properties ended. So he's doing this for them and he is making money. But of course, he wants more. Just full on channeling his inner Veruca Salt. He's like, I want a feast. I want a bean feast. Cream buns and donuts and fruitcake with no nuts. So good you could go nuts. Like, he is just, gimme, gimme, gimme. And so he's ready for the next stage of his cruel and vicious plan. He tells Donald that William has returned and he's hiding in his basement, which, in fairness, is totally reasonable when you consider the fact that the idea is that he has fled the country in order to not can be conscripted to not join the army, which is, you know, breaking the law. And so he's like, he's a wanted man, he's hiding in my basement. You've got to come see him. And when Donald goes to the basement to reunite with a son that he hasn't seen in a year, he comes up behind him, clashes him on the back of the head, and then bludgeons him to death. And he repeats the same gambit with Amy, lures her to the basement and kills her. Now, when I was writing this out sidebar. I know too many sidebars, Katie. I know, but I was writing this out and all I kept thinking throughout this whole part, I was like, he's just luring them into this basement. And through my head, I just kept thinking of funny bones. So, like, I don't know if you'll have it in your countries, but there was a children's TV show about a family of skeletons, a daddy skeleton, a boy skeleton, and a little dog skeleton, too. And so the intro would start and it would be like, in a dark, dark street, there's a dark, dark house. In a dark, dark house, there's a dark, dark basement. In the dark, dark basement, three skeletons live. And there was that. And that's just. It kept playing over my head. I kept seeing flashes of funny bones just over and over, which kind of shows you my macabre childhood. Anywho, he puts their bodies in a drum each. And bodies are heavy. And there is, like, no information pertaining to dismemberment. Like, it doesn't come up at all. Like, there is no discussion of dismemberment. There's no consideration of it. Like, it doesn't come up anywhere. He simply just lugs these bodies into the drums. And if you've ever had to lift a dead weight, like anyone who's fainted or collapsed, or a kid that just does not want to be picked up, that's heavy. Now, imagine that's a grown person. Like, that is difficult to do. But he doesn't dismember the bodies for, like, easy packaging into these drums. He just chucks them in. I mean, I'm assuming it's a bit more effort than that. I would assume it's a bit more effort than that. But he doesn't spend a lot of time actually, like, dealing with, like, blood and gore. Like, it's not laborious or anything. That seems like, you know, too much hard work and like, he's killing for convenience. Like, that's what he's doing. And on the 6th of July, 1945, he left his basement workshop for pastures knew. But before he did that, he made sure to pour the remaining McSwan sludge down his drain. And with the landlords out of the picture, John George Haig was being his usual flashy, showboating self, always splashing the cash, acting the jennet. And between selling off assets and collecting rent, he made about £5,000, which in today's money is about £271,818 and 20 pence. So he also makes like another three grand, like, over the course of the next few years by cashing their pension cheques. And if you were thinking, that's enough, he's doing a lot of bad things, there's more. He's also cashing in Donald and Amy McSwan's pension cheques. So he is raking in even more cash. But it is never enough. He is just fluttering at a way, he's gambling, he's staying in expensive hotels, he's eating in high end restaurants and drinking in high class bars. And he always wants more. Like, this boy puts the glut in gluttony. That same year, he meets the managing director of Hursley Products Limited in Crawley, Edward Jones. So, like, this was an engineering and tool making business and they have a deal that in exchange for running errands for Jones, he gets access to this storeroom. Now, this storeroom, it's in a construction yard. There's like, there's like rubble all around and it's just this, like one room. Unfortunately, this storeroom did not have a manhole or drain or like his previous murder basement did. But he's like, yeah, that'll do. And he just needs to make more money the only way he knows how. Fraud and murder. This brings us to the Hendersons. Dr. Archibald and his wife Rosalie, who goes by Rose. So the pair had previously been married to, like, other people. Rose had divorced German inventor Rudolf Aron in 1937, ten years prior. And, well, Archibald's wife had died. And you wouldn't be blamed for thinking, well, that's serendipitous, but, yeah, Archie and Rosie had been having an affair for years and they got married after his previous wife became ill and died. What a surprise. The doctor's wife is dead and now he could marry his mistress. How convenient. And these two, they enjoyed the high life, partying, spending money hand over fist, and their bank account was overdrawn. And because they're just constantly in need of more funds, they decided to sell a house that they had in 1947. And they're selling this house for like, eight grand. And they put an ad in the paper. And who shows up but John George Haig. He's really interested in buying this house. And, like, they're selling it for like, eight, nine grand tops. And he. He shows up and he's like. Like, he tells Rose that the house is worth more. Let me pay you two grand extra for it. So instead of eight grand, he wants to give them ten grand. And he ends up, like, weaseling his way into their lives. And he's showing great interest in buying this house. And Rose tells her brother, and his brother's like, he wants to pay you £2,000 more for this house that you've said is less. That's weird. That's suspicious. And Rose is like, no, it's not. No, it's not. He's just, like, knowing how much things are worth. Okay, Rose. So he ends up charming his way into the Henderson's life. He's like. And he's even, like, playing piano at, like, parties they're having. And at one point, they're staying in this flat, and they're staying in this flat, and they get this housewarming party going and. And they invite him over, you know, so that he can wow all their guests with his pianoforte. And he does. Now, at this house warming, he pulls Dr. Henderson's revolver. It is a.30 caliber Webley. And he pockets it for use later.

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Katie Charlwood (61:01)

So by now, John George Haig had moved himself into the Onslow Court Hotel in South Kensington. Which is posh, right? It's a posh area of London. It's well to do. There's a lot of higher class folk in there. And he is surrounding himself, you know, with people who have money, maybe some titles, you know, just enough class to make him seem more respectable. Because if he's staying in, you know, this good hotel, then clearly he can afford to stay there. Meanwhile, he's out partying, flashing his cash, loving the best life, just being an absolute bloody chad. And he's just hanging out with the Hendersons and they are party people, so they're hanging out and they're going to parties together. And here's the thing as well, John is spending considerably more time with Rose than he is the Doctor. And they're staying in this hotel in Brighton. Like they're just down to the seaside, they're having a good time. And on 12 February 1948, he drives Archibald out to his workshop storeroom in Crawley, says he's got something to show him. And, well, I mean, he does. It's the barrel of his own gun. Not the pointy bit, I mean, but also the pointy bit. It's not officially called the pointy bit. It is the barrel of the gun. It's the shooty out bit. The pointy. Anyway, he shoots Dr. Archibald Henderson in the head and dumps him into a drum with sulfuric acid. Next he goes back and gets Rose Henderson saying that the doctor had fallen ill and, you know, she needs to come right away. And so she suffers the same fate as her husband. Anything valuable they had on their person like that was gone. He took that with him. He goes back to the hotel room, clears it of all the valuables and then pays the hotel bill and just gets the haircut of Dodge. Like, he even takes, like, one of Rose's, like, really nice dresses and gives it to his girlfriend, Barbara Stevens, right? He gives her the gown of the woman he murdered. He forged their signatures and sold off, you know, their assets for about £8,000. So you're talking like, 400 grand in today's money. He did, however, keep their car and their dog. Like, he'd grown fond of the dog. He's like, you're staying with me now. So he takes them with him. And the Hendersons, well, they're party people and they have been known every now and again to skip a bill and to just go off and do their own thing. And for the most part, they're not hugely missed, like, just because of the circles they ran in. And they were often just out and about, except Rose's brother is like, where are they? They're missing. And he's like, we need to report them missing. We get to get what's going on here. And ha tells him that they're not missing, they're in South Africa. And they fled because Dr. Archibald Henderson was performing illegal abortions, because all abortions at this point were illegal. So this is the whole idea that they've been doing this and they've had to leave the country. And he uses this as a way to just kind of just like William Donald McSwan, he's like, oh, he's off in Scotland to avoid conscription. Like, there's that little bit of threat, there's that sort of, oh, it's for their safety, they need to leave scenario. Like, he's building this idea of, like, they have done something wrong, that his victims have committed a crime and that's why you can't find them. It's around about this time that an unfortunate accident happened to one of his cars. So he claims it was stolen, right? And then it is discovered smashed at the bottom of a cliff with a body nearby, right? The body isn't identified, it's just another John Doe. But there's his crashed car. Now, he had told Barbara, you know, about this car, and he brought her to the cliff, showed her it, and then the car ends up being there and she starts getting, like, a little bit wigged out by this. She's like, am I, like, she thinks, could this have been her? Could she have been that body? Like, you know, the seeds of doubt are starting to be sown. But he does this and he claims the insurance on the Stolen car. Meanwhile, he is staying at the Onslow Court Hotel in South Kensington. It's a posh place and he's not really the typical clientele. I mean, it's sort of odd to be there to begin with, because this hotel, most of the guests are widows. So, yeah, a lot of wealthy widows are staying in this hotel, just living their lives. One such lady was Henrietta Olivia Roberta Duvant Deacon. Now, she just went by Olive. So her husband, a military hero, had died 10 years earlier and she had moved into the hotel four years later. So, like, four years after the death of her husband, she'd moved into the Onslow Court Hotel. Now, some women who were staying there, they had lost their homes, like in the Blitz and things like that, but they could afford to just move in and stay at this hotel for as long as they liked, right? Olive was 69 years old and punctual to a T. She was never late with a bell. She stuck to her routine and she was always considerate and compassionate to others, which even for a lady of her standing, like, from being that little bit higher class, from being wealthy, you know, she was always offering a helping hand when it was needed. Now, she's also always draped in finery, expensive jewellery and clothes. She's got furs, diamonds, the lot. Like, she's pretty decent for a high society lady, in fairness. And you can tell that she's well to do by the way she carries herself and. And buy her just, like, very clearly rich attire. So Haig, he's at the hotel and he's being flashy, a charmer, suave, some might say. And some women, like, some residents, they see right through him, right? They see right through his bullshit. Others, not so much. Like, some people just see him as, like, he's just some dude, it's fine. And so Olive starts chatting to him because she thinks he's a businessman who can help her out with her invention. False nails. He tells her that he can improve her idea and sell it and that he's got a prototype at his workshop in Crawley. So, like, they've been chatting for a while. There's been, like, a rapport building, and he's like, yeah, let me show you this. Because, like, he's not flirting with her, he's not acting out with her. He's just, you know, oh, a business proposition. Let's do this. So on the 18th of February, 1949, he drives her to the storeroom and, like, it's on a construction yard in Crawley and this is a fancy lady decked out with fuzzy and heels. Like if you're ever gonna notice somebody at a construction yard, it's gonna be the lady and the diamonds and the fur. Okay, I feel like we're gonna notice that. So he tells her to go into the storeroom. He's right behind her. So as she steps in, he walks behind her and shoots her in the back of the head. And yes, with Dr. Archibald Henderson's revolver, he strips her of her finery, of her valuables, and then puts her in a drum full of acid. He does take the fur coat with him. He does take that, but, you know, it's dirty, there's a bit of blood, some dust, probably some brain matter on it. And so he needs to get it cleaned and if he wants to flog it or, you know, if he wants to give it to his girlfriend. Now, with Haig's previous victims, I mean, they're all crimes of convenience, right? They're all to suit him. It's not for a love of killing, it's for greed, it's for money. And he picks people, typically who don't have a huge social circle. People who it wouldn't be surprising if, you know, they weren't around or seen on the daily, you know, and that's probably his biggest mistake here. One of there's a lot of mistakes here. It's just one fuck up after another at this point. So the very next morning, when the prompt and punctual Widow Durand Deacon doesn't show up for breakfast, it's noticed.

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Katie Charlwood (71:43)

All have ever intended to miss a meal, especially something like breakfast or like a lunch with the ladies, like she would get that information to them beforehand. Like that is something she did. She was very up on her etiquette and so people are like a bit weird that she's not there. Like it's odd not to see her and for no one to know why she's not there. And it's so noticeable that John George Haig even asks Constance Lane, another resident in the hotel, if she has seen Olive. Now Constance, who's also a 69 year old widow, fucking hated John George Haigh. She thought he was a sneaky, sleek, conniving weasel. And so like her hackles are up and she goes to investigate and she sees that Olive's bed hasn't been slept in. So feeling very suspicious, she reports her disappearance to the police. Now, being a high class lady, the widow of a military hero, and staying in a prominent hotel in London, the police actually investigate. They talk to the ladies who would have met Olive for tea. They chat to the owner and the staff of the hotel, and they even look into the guests. So it's not long before they discover that Haig was in arrears up until a few days prior. Like, the owner starts telling them that, you know, she was always very prompt. She always paid everything, like, then and there. She never had a debt. And John, on the other hand, he would have to be chased for every bill, and he was often just, like, off and in arrears. And then he would just suddenly find a lump sum from somewhere, pay it off, and then the process would start again. And there's also a lot of chat that John and Olive had lunch the very day she went missing. One of the things the Bobbies find odd is that the hotel hosts mainly widows. And then this there on the 28th of February, 1949, detectives take him down to the station for questioning. And he goes with them because they're like, hey, we've got some questions. Can you help us with this? And he's like, sure, I'll definitely come help you. But it does not go the way they think it'll go. Now, they had discovered, like, his history of, like, fraud and theft. And they're like, okay, this dude is clearly suspicious. Let's get him down. And the first thing he does is admit to robbing Olive. Like, he's saying that he stole her coat and her jewelry. Basically, they had searched and found, like, the dry cleaning slip for the coat. They collected the coat, and then they found her jewelry and a bunch of other stuff in his attache case along with, and I shit you not, papers regarding the hendersons and the McSwans. Their investigation also leads them to the Crawley storeroom, which, lest we forget, did not have a drain or a manhole. So instead of disposing of the remains in a semi reasonable fashion, like, instead of actually disposing, what Haig did was just pour the corpse goo onto rubble in the construction yard. And so as they are, you know, searching, they find, like, on the rubble 28 pounds of body fat, human body fat, a partial foot, a hat pin, some gallstones and dentures. Dentures that Olive's dentist is able to identify as hers. So he ends up confessing, right? He confesses to the whole thing because he doesn't understand the law. Like, they basically misunderstood law and body evidence. He's like, no body, no crime. Corpus delicti. So corpus delicti, what it means is, like, the body of the crime. It's like the basic proof that a crime actually happened. It does not mean a literal dead body. Except for those times where there is in fact a literal dead body body. It's basically just about the evidence that ties you to the crime. And so Haig confesses to the whole thing. Names, places, dates. Because he thinks they cannot prosecute him without an actual whole human corpse. As if he doesn't have a whole ass paper trail behind him. When it clicks that he can be convicted of the crimes that he committed, he starts asking about Broadmoor, the infamous mental institution or lunatic asylum, depending on the era we're talking about. Like the famous English mental institution. He's like, how often do people get released from there? And then he starts acting a little bit crazy. He starts, like rewriting his own history. He's like, he was killing his victims and drinking their blood, that he was full of bloodlust and he just needed his blood thirst quenched. Like he's the vampire of red riding up there. And he's like, oh, no, the South Kensington vampire. Getty Fuck Po. He says that this was his motivation for murder. A thirst for blood, not his greed. That's such a lazy trick as well, though. He's like, oh, no, I'm. I'm crazy now. No. So he goes to court at Lewes Assizes and it took the jury a grand total of 17 minutes to find him guilty. And the judge, Mr. Justice Humphries, sentenced him to death. And he was hanged on 10th August, 1949 by famous executioner Albert Pierpont. So before we go, John George Haig claimed that he had three more victims. Now, there is not enough info to confirm this, but he confessed to killing a girl from Eastbourne in Sussex, killing a woman from Hammersmith in London, and killing a young man named Max. He doesn't say from where. Like, he doesn't say like this is maybe like the body with the car. Like, he just says he's killed them, but there's nothing really. It was there. Now, he could have confessed to killing these as a sort of oh my bloodlust, but also he could have stolen from them if they had something of value to him. But yeah, he is hanged by the neck until dead on the 10th of August, 1949. And then his body. Yeah, well, yeah. So when it came to executions in England, especially in sort of the mid 20th century, like, their bodies were handled in this sort of standardized manner and it was basically part of the Capital Punishment Amendment act of 1868, so they would not be returned to families. Like, if you were an executed criminal, your body would not be returned. And like in Wandsworth Prison, where John George Haig was executed, like, his body would have been buried in an unmarked grave, like, in the present. Like, that's what they did. And so that was sort of very common there. So I know what happened in Wandsworth, Pentonville, and strange ways. Now, there is a thing that happened after 1949, which was, like, in 1949, the royal commission on Capital Punishment was set up. And so this ran between, like, 49 and 53, so over the next four years. And it recommended that cremation should be considered, like, instead of, like, being buried within the prison walls, because now this didn't come into play till later. So he would have just been executed and then buried in an unmarked grave, which is, like, I think, fine, if you've been convicted and are definitely guilty of murdering six people, you know, at least. But, yeah. So ends the story of John George Haig, a murderer with surprisingly three names. Most of them do, like, three names. If they're a junior, it's even worse. Just one of those things. Now, one of the reasons why I wanted to cover this story for 1940s crime is that the last, like, two terrible tales of 1940s crime that we've covered, they had no resolution. There was no person caught for the crime. Nobody sort of faced that judgment. And I think it's good to know that sometimes the villain does get their comeuppance, and it's nice to have something finished and sealed and closed, you know, and it's just there. And I think that's very good. Now, I want everyone to appreciate how many jokes I didn't make during this episode because I have such gallows humor and I listen to true crime and to relax. But says me, who, when I was doing the Texarkana Moonlight Mortars, was very aware of just how large my kitchen windows are. And I'm here at night going, I don't like the sound of that. When it's probably just like, the neighborhood cat that likes to hang out outside. I started feeding it. So I feel like it's a rod off my own back at this point. Point. But, yeah, if you've made it this far, I'm feeding a cat that isn't mine. Get tickets to the Belfast show. Come and see me. It'll be fun. And, yeah, there's gonna be. There's gonna be a jabber jabber happening. Just some jibber jabber fun. And I think. I think you're gonna be into it. But you know what? It's time for is recommendations time for reading. You're gonna be shocked. I'm gonna recommend the talented Mistell Ripley for watching the Seven Dials mystery. I love me some Agatha Christie. I was eating my world's originals. I was watching my Agatha Christie. I was. I had a great time. It's something I actually really love is when they do that little flip where they change the story enough, just enough. Because if you've read the books and you've, like, seen all of the stuff for years, it's good to have just a little flip. I don't need it to be the most, like, correct adaptation at this point because there's been so many. I don't mind a little creativity as long as it stays true to, like, you know, the core of Christ.

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8.

Katie Charlwood (84:28)

You know what I mean? Anyway, so listening. I've been listening to Blondie this week. I don't know why I've decided that one of Blondie songs is going to be my karaoke song just because it should short. But that's that. So with that, I am going to bed you. Good night. Adios. Au revoir. Au vuit a zene, my friends. Bye bye.

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Raj (85:44)

And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.

Noah (85:51)

Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.

Raj (85:53)

But who isn't? That's why each week we're talking about the topics that we could all use a little helping hit with. Whether it's making new friends as an adult, managing our emotions, or even dreaming.

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We'Ll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right. So the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.

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Subscribe now and listen to new episodes of Am I Doing It Wrong? Dropping every Thursday starting January 1st. Wherever you get your podcasts.

Noah (86:18)

And for the first time ever, we're going to have full video episodes on YouTube because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you do them better.

Katie Charlwood (86:26)

Love y'.

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All.

Katie Charlwood (86:28)

Lunch was great, but this traffic is awful.

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