How a dry cleaning receipt caught a 1940s serial killer

To his friends in London, John George Haigh seemed like a perfectly respectable English gentleman.

He mingled with the upper class, was a regular at concerts and sported the very best suits from Savile Row. The businessman claimed to have profitable links to the nylon industry and rented a small workshop in Crawley.

Wealthy clients were occasionally invited there to discuss investment opportunities. 

However, once they passed through the door of the workshop, they never left. 

A religious upbringing 

John Haigh, an only child, was born in Stamford in Lincolnshire on July 24, 1909 to strict parents John and Emily; they were both members of the Plymouth Brethren religion.

Haigh worked in insurance until his first brush with the law, which came when he stole a cash box from the office and got fired. He married 23-year-old Beatrice Harmer in 1934 but, just months after the wedding, was jailed after he forged car documents. His young wife swiftly divorced him and gave up their baby daughter for adoption.

In 1936, newly-released Haigh moved to London and began to sell fraudulent stock shares. That was until an eagle-eyed client noticed he’d spelled ‘Guildford’ in Surrey incorrectly as ‘Guilford’ on his letterhead. The conman spent the early years of the Second World War behind bars for low level crime. Upon his release, he moved to Crawley in 1943. 

Speaking about Haigh, Joel Griggs, curator of the True Crime Museum in Hastings, explains that he ‘talked the talk’.

‘Like any good con man, Haigh punched above his weight. He wore suits from Savile Row, jewelry from Hatton Gardens and frequented the most expensive hotel bars in Mayfair. He was a good actor and convinced people he was something special,’ Joel tells Metro.

But Haigh’s charm was a mask, he had money on his mind. In the post-war years, even the most wealthy individuals in London had seen their fortunes knocked. When the confident Haigh sidled up to them and spoke of investment opportunities, they jumped at the chance to get involved. 

‘Haigh befriended elderly couples, preferably widows, in posh hotels across London like Knightsbridge, Mayfair, Belgravia or Kesington,’ Joel explains.

‘He’d listen to their various woes, about money or family life. He’d nod, smile and ingrain himself into their lives. Then he’d strike with some fake business opportunity.’

Wealthy victims and ‘liquid sludge’

Haigh lured his victims to his Crawley workshop or to his home, where he had a basement, to talk ‘business.’ Then, when they were bent over papers or documents, he would shoot them in the back of the head. 

Next, the depraved killer would don protective gear and drop their corpses in a vat of bubbling sulphuric acid. Their bodies became ‘liquid sludge’, which Haigh would pour onto the ground outside his workshop. 

He would sell any belongings they’d left behind and forge documents which would give him immediate ownership of their assets.

For Joel, Haigh simply ‘worked with what he had’ to woo his wealthy victims. 

‘He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box by any stretch,’ he adds. ‘But he was very confident. Some people have remarkable talents, remarkable intellects, remarkable ambition or drive. He didn’t have any of those things really. He certainly wasn’t a master criminal. But what he did have was charm and patience.’

Theme park owner William Swann became Haigh’s first target and was murdered on September 9, 1944. After stealing his belongings, the murderer befriended the businessman’s parents – Donald and Amy. Less than a year later, on July 2, 1945, the couple were lured to Haigh’s workshop and suffered the same fate as their son. 

Haigh sold the Swann’s vast network of properties and belongings to make (in today’s money) around a quarter of a million pounds. Emboldened, he continued his killing spree.

Archibald Henderson, a rich doctor, was lured to Haigh’s workshop on February 23, 1948 and shot in the head. So the alarm wouldn’t be raised about the missing medical professional, Henderson’s wife Rosalie was then invited over – under the pretence her husband had fallen ill – and killed there the same day. Haigh sold the Henderson’s possessions but kept their pet dog for himself.

A year later, on February 18, 1949, Haigh then turned his attention to Olive Durand-Deacon, the wealthy widow of a war hero and solicitor John Durand-Deacon. The 69-year-old former Suffragette was a millionaire by today’s standards and lived full time at the Onslow Court Hotel in Kensington.

Olive had dreams of creating her own company which would sell false nails. When she met Haigh, who by this point claimed to be an inventor, he invited her to his Crawley workshop to look at ‘blueprints’. There, she met an untimely end. Haigh pocketed her jewellery and got her Persian lamb fur coat dry-cleaned in anticipation of selling it.

By dissolving his victims in acid, Haigh thought he had committed the perfect crime. There was no trace of their bodies to be found and no evidence which could prove he was a murderer. Or, so he thought…

18 human bones in the dirt

Once the alarm was raised about Olive Durand-Deacon’s disappearance, a cocky Haigh offered to help the search. He soon attracted suspicions of the police and Scotland Yard detectives decided to run a background check and visit his workshop. 

They discovered forged papers with the names of Haigh’s previous victims, an apron stained with acid and an old service revolver. But the most telling clue was a dry cleaning ticket for Durand-Deacon’s fur coat which proved she had been there. During excavations of the yard outside Haigh’s workshop, police pathologist Dr Keith Simpson discovered the missing widow’s gallstones and dentures, as well as the fragments of 18 human bones in the dirt. 

In a five-hour confession with police, Haigh claimed vampire-like urges to drink his victim’s blood had led to the killings.

The serial killer also told police about a dream he’d had where blood had ‘oozed’ from trees in a forest. Haigh, 40 by this point, explained: ‘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.’ 

Former News of the World journalist Stafford Somerfield visited Haigh in prison where he asked how much of the vampire tale was true. ‘All of it,’ he replied.’ In letters written to his parents from his cell, the serial killer referred to his victims as ‘sacrifices.’

Haigh was put to trial at Sussex Assizes in Lewes, where the jury dismissed his vampire claims and deemed him sane. He was sentenced to death at Lewes Crown Court in May the following year. The serial killer was hanged by executioner Albert Pierrepoint at Wandsworth prison on August 10, 1949 while a crowd of around 500 watched on. 

The ‘Acid Bath murderer’

At the True Crime Museum, Joel has an exhibition which features the actual vats used by Haigh during his murder spree.

Today, Haigh is widely known as the ‘Acid Bath Murderer’ with the crates which held his vats of acid on display at the True Crime museum in Hastings. In 2002, TV docudrama ‘A for Acid’, which starred Martin Clunes as John Haigh, was released which brought the case to a new light. 

Haigh’s crimes cast a dark shadow over Crawley for many years. There had been a sense of post-war optimism in the area; people had picked themself up after years of tragedy and conflict.

Yet with the actions of Haigh, they were reminded that evil very much still existed – and it was closer than they realised.

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