Evans spun a cock and ball story about a stranger giving him an abortificant, taking care not to incriminate himself, obviously not realising that disposing of a corpse was a criminal offence.
Having been advised, the local police turned up at 10 Rillington Place and searched, in particular the drain where Evans claimed to have dumped Beryl’s body, but they were unable to open it. Eventually, the bodies of both Beryl and the baby were found in the outdoor wash-house.
Evans was escorted back to London on a train by two detectives; the photograph of them disembarking gives the appearance of a frightened little man, but appearances can be deceptive.
When Evans realised his original story wouldn’t wash, he changed it to implicate Christie, in particular he claimed Christie had agreed to perform an abortion on Beryl. Naturally, Christie denied this, and his wife backed him up when he claimed they had heard a bump in the night that woke them up shortly before Beryl disappeared.
With the tunnel vision a Democrat Congressman would be proud of, Ludovic Kennedy said the police simply took Christie at his word, specifically when they realised he had served as a reserve police officer during the Second World War.
Along with the aforementioned briefcase, the police found a press cutting in the top floor apartment from the Setty case. Of this, Kennedy wrote “As Evans could neither read nor write, this cutting was almost certainly ‘planted’ in his flat by Christie some time during the past few days.”
Let us deal with these two objections. Firstly, as already pointed out, Evans wasn’t illiterate; he was a driver, for Heaven’s sake, and he was street smart. According to Kennedy and his followers, these experienced detectives and the uniformed officers working with them were precursors of Inspector Clouseau, tripping over bodies left, right and centre without a hint of what was really going on. The truth is very different as demonstrated in the aforementioned Setty case, to which we shall return shortly. These officers may not have had computers, CCTV or DNA, and they worked under far less salubrious conditions than today’s pampered plods, but they pulled off some spectacular successes.
Rather than simply take Christie at his word, they separated him from his wife by luring him away to the police station to give a statement. He was there for six hours. In the meantime, Ethel Christie was questioned and their apartment searched. They found no evidence that Christie had been an abortionist, as Evans claimed, only a First Aid manual rather than an abortionist’s manual (if one even existed at that time). The only other thing they did find was a syringe Ethel said she used for women’s issues.
Regarding the Setty case, this is very important, and along with the coincidence of two unconnected murderers living under the same roof, was as big a coincidence as you could hope to find. Stanley Setty was a crooked car dealer who was murdered by his partner-in-crime Donald Hume. Hume was an extraordinary character. Along with one of Christie, the historian and popular author Jonathan Oates has published an exhaustive biography of him.
Although Hume joined the RAF during the Second World War, he soon contracted meningitis which led to him being invalided out, but during that short time he learned to fly. He probably stabbed Setty to death in an argument over a triviality rather than money then dumped his headless torso in the sea from a light aircraft, but it was washed up in the marshes later that month.
Although Setty’s disappearance was reported promptly, when the headless corpse was recovered, the police hadn’t a clue who was the victim, until one of them came up with a brilliant idea. The hands of the torso were amputated and the waterlogged skin came off like a glove. They were thus able to take the fingerprints and determine they belonged to Setty who had a conviction for fraud. Hume was already a suspect in Setty’s disappearance and was promptly arrested.
When Evans was remanded to the hospital wing of Brixton Prison, he met Hume, and if the latter is to be believed, had followed his case. When Setty’s body was found, it was believed initially it had been dumped from a vehicle. The prosecution’s theory was that Evans had intended to dump Beryl’s body in the sea, and probably would have if he hadn’t been sacked from his driving job.
Although he beat the murder rap, Hume was sentenced to 12 years for disposing of Setty’s body. On his release he confessed to the murder, selling his story then fled abroad, but before that he sold another story to the Daily Express. On February 7, 1958, the paper’s Chief Crime Reporter Percy Hoskins said that at Christie’s trial, the Crown accepted the million-to-one theory that two stranglers lived in the same house at the same time. Hume and Evans were together for twelve day. Hume claimed he told him “Don’t stick your head in a noose” adding pick one story and stick to it: “Blame everyone but yourself”.
Evans told Hume that Christie had killed his wife, and Geraldine while he was present: “It was because the kid kept on crying”. Christie strangled the baby with a bit of rag.
Hume said he didn’t believe Evans and neither did anyone else but concluded “I am convinced that he and Christie together arranged to murder the child. IN THIS EVANS WAS GUILTY”.
It remains to be seen if Hume was spinning a tall tale, but he had already told a pack of lies to cheat the hangman. Talking of hangmen, in March 1956, Albert Pierrepoint, who hanged both men, told the EMPIRE NEWS AND Sunday Chronicle he believed Evans to be guilty.
When the police confronted Evans with the evidence, he broke down and confessed. After confessing, he said he felt relieved. On the journey to court, Evans told one detective: “There is something I meant to tell you…After I killed my wife I took her wedding ring from her finger and sold it to Samuels at Merthyr for 6/-”.
This was another significant admission because he didn’t realise the ring had already been recovered by the police. For such an innocent man, Evans confessed to so many crimes.
He didn’t formally retract his confession to the murders until December 15, three weeks after his arrest. By then, the enormity of his predicament had finally sunk in.
Evans stood trial the trial from January 11-3, 1950, his appeal was dismissed February 20, and he was hanged March 9. There things would have ended but for Christie’s mad murder spree.
When he took the stand as the only defence witness, Evans was asked: “Is it true that on five different occasions at different places and to different persons you have confessed to the murder of your wife, and to the murder of your wife and child?”
To Part 3.
Back To Part 1.