The Acid Bath Murders

The Acid Bath Murders

Author: Gordon Lowe

Publisher: The History Press

Published: 2015-11-02

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 075096670X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

John George Haigh committed five perfect murders – by dissolving his wealthy victims in sulphuric acid. Then he tipped away the resultant soup to avoid detection on a ‘no body, no murder’ principle and used his victims’ property to fund his luxury lifestyle of silk ties and flashy cars.Murder number six was less than perfect. When a guest in Haigh’s hotel disappeared, the police found half-dissolved body parts carelessly thrown into the yard outside his secluded workshop. But was the urbane Mr Haigh, the man brought up by strict Plymouth Brethren parents in Yorkshire and dressed like a city stockbroker, really the monster he said he was? Did he really kill six innocent people just so he could drink their blood? Using unpublished archive papers, including recently released letters Haigh wrote from prison while awaiting execution, author Gordon Lowe sheds light on whether Haigh’s claims were a cynical ploy for a ticket into Broadmoor Hospital, or if he was a psychopathic vampire with a penchant for disposing of his victims in acid.


John George Haigh, the Acid-Bath Murderer

John George Haigh, the Acid-Bath Murderer

Author: Jonathan Oates

Publisher: Wharncliffe

Published: 2014-10-30

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1473841232

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What motivated John George Haigh to murder at least six people, then dissolve their corpses in concentrated sulphuric acid? How did this intelligent, well-educated man from a loving, strongly religious family of Plymouth Brethren become a fraudster, a thief, then a serial killer? In the latest of his best-selling studies of criminal history, Jonathan Oates reinvestigates this sensational case of the late 1940s. He delves into Haigh's Yorkshire background, his reputation as a loner, a bully and a forger during his years at Wakefield Grammar School, and his growing appetite for the good life which his modest employment in insurance and advertising could not sustain. Then came his move to London and a rapid, apparently remorseless descent into the depths of crime, from deceit and theft to cold-blooded killing. As he follows the course of Haigh's crimes in graphic, forensic detail, Jonathan Oates gives a fascinating inside view of Haigh's attempt to carry through a series of perfect murders. For Haigh intended not only cut off his victims' lives but, by destroying their bodies with acid, literally to remove all traces that they had ever existed.


The Acid Bath Murderer

The Acid Bath Murderer

Author: Jack Rosewood

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2016-11-07

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 9781540308153

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

One of the more unique British serial killers, John George Haigh killed simply because he wanted more. He had an exaggerated sense of entitlement, and would seek out victims who could support his lavish lifestyle. What is most abhorrent in this true crime murder story is not that he killed six people, but rather what he did with them after they were dead. Newspapers and tabloids would shout out headlines of John being a 'vampire', a man with a blood lust who drank the blood of those he killed. But was he really a vampire? Or was John just a very clever man? The undoing of John Haigh came about when a missing person case quickly progressed to a homicide investigation. The police officers involved stumbled across a scene so horrific, it would stay in their minds forever. You see John had learned an interesting skill while incarcerated for fraud - how to dissolve a body in sulfuric acid. Of all the true crime serial killers, John was different because he didn't kill out of some need to hurt people. He murdered to gain access to his victims bank accounts. A man from a deeply religious home, John grew up to want more money, the flash cars and the fancy clothing. When he started to run out of money, he sought out his next victim to bankroll his lifestyle. A cold-hearted ruthless man with no thought or care for others, does John's motive make classify him as one of the worst serial killers of all time? Read about the Acid Bath Murderer and decide for yourself.


Mr Crippen, Cora and the Body in the Basement

Mr Crippen, Cora and the Body in the Basement

Author: Matthew Coniam

Publisher: Pen and Sword True Crime

Published: 2021-11-01

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1399009737

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

It was an 'open and shut' case. Hawley Harvey Crippen, an American quack doctor, had murdered his wife, the music hall performer Belle Elmore, and buried parts of her body in the coal cellar of their North London home. But by the time the remains were discovered he had fled the country with his mistress disguised as his son. After a thrilling chase across the ocean he was caught, returned to England, tried and hanged, remembered forever after as the quintessential domestic murderer. But if it was as straightforward as the prosecution alleged, why did he leave only some of the body in his house, when he had successfully disposed of the head, limbs and bones elsewhere? Why did he stick so doggedly to a plea of complete innocence, when he might have made a sympathetic case for manslaughter? Why did he make no effort to cover his tracks if he really had been planning a murder? These and other questions remained tantalising mysteries for almost a century, until new DNA tests conducted in America exploded everything we thought we knew for sure about the story. This book, the first to make full use of this astonishing new evidence, considers its implications for our understanding of the case, and suggests where the real truth might lie.


Bombers, Rioters and Police Killers

Bombers, Rioters and Police Killers

Author: Simon Webb

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2015-11-30

Total Pages: 139

ISBN-13: 1473878489

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“Fascinating and enlightening . . . Historical true crime books can often fall victim to being very dry . . . [This book], however, is quite the opposite” (Crime Traveler). Despite the Victorian period’s reputation for stability and social order, there was plenty of civil disorder during this time—violent crime and terrorism were considerably worse than they are today. This book recounts a time when citizens faced problems eerily similar to those with which we have to contend in modern times. Whether a rise in armed robberies and muggings; debates about the arming of the police; bag searches due to fears about terrorists planting bombs in museums and railway stations; or anxiety about rioting on the streets of our cities; our Victorian ancestors faced precisely the same difficulties well over a century ago. With stories of police officers shot, stabbed, or beaten to death, and of bombs exploding in the London Underground, this is an enlightening look at how the good old days were not always so good.


John Christie of Rillington Place

John Christie of Rillington Place

Author: Jonathan Oates

Publisher: Wharncliffe

Published: 2013-01-19

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 178340891X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The bestselling criminal history author provides “compelling insight” into the life and crimes of one of England’s most notorious serial killers (Buckinghamshire Life). Sixty years ago, the discovery of bodies at 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill, London, led to one of the most sensational, shocking, and controversial serial murder cases in British criminal history: the case of John Christie. Much has been written about the Christie killings and the fate of Timothy Evans who was executed for murders Christie later confessed to; the story still provokes strong feeling and speculation. However, most of the books on the case have been compiled without the benefit of all the sources that are open to researchers, and they tend to focus on Evans in an attempt to clear him of guilt. In addition, many simply repeat what has been said before. Therefore, a painstaking, scholarly reassessment of the evidence—and of Christie’s life—is overdue, and that is what Jonathan Oates provides in this gripping biography of a serial killer.


Unwanted

Unwanted

Author: Andrew Young

Publisher:

Published: 2020-03-25

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781594163463

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

On the foggy, cold morning of February 1, 1896, a boy came upon what he thought was a pile of clothes. It was soon discovered to be the headless body of a young woman, brutally butchered and discarded. It would take the hard work of a sheriff, two detectives, and the unlikely dedication of a shoe dealer to find out who the girl was; and once she had been identified, the case came together. Centering his riveting new book, Unwanted: A Murder Mystery of the Gilded Age, around this shocking case and how it was solved, historian Andrew Young re-creates late nineteenth- century America, where Coca-Cola in bottles, newfangled movie houses, the Gibson Girl, and ragtime music played alongside prostitution, temperance, racism, homelessness, the rise of corporations, and the women's rights movement. While the case inspired the sensationalized pulp novel Headless Horror, songs warning girls against falling in love with dangerous men, ghost stories, and the eerie practice of random pennies left heads up on a worn gravestone, the story of an unwanted young woman captures the contradictions of the Gilded Age as America stepped into a new century, and toward a modern age.