John Haigh: The Vampire Killer

Donald McSwann entered a den of death when he followed his friend John Haigh into his basement workshop. McSwann operated a pinball arcade in London where Haigh sometimes worked as a mechanic. Haigh boasted about his workshop and it was, indeed, a basement to be proud of. There was equipment for every kind of craftsman…for the carpenter, the welder, the sheet metal worker- and the murderer.

McSwann stared at the 40 gallon vat of sulphuric acid in one corner. His curiosity drove him to ask about the need for such a strange array of equipment. His questions were never answered. Crouching behind him, Haigh swung the hammer in a deadly arc… and he slaughtered his first victim.

According to Haigh, when he confessed later of his crime, he drank some of McSwann’s blood. Then he spent the rest of the night methodically dismembering his body and feeding it into the vat. The sulphuric acid bubbled and smoked, occasionally forcing him to escape outdoors for a breath of fresh air. By the next afternoon, McSwann’s remains had dissolved into a mass of sludge. Haigh disposed of it, bucket by bucket, sloshing the ghastly residue into a basement manhole connected to the sewer system.

It was September 1944 and no one thought anything of McSwann’s disappearance. Haigh’s murder for profit scheme was succeeding to perfection. He assured McSwann’s aging parents that their son was hiding out in Scotland until the end of the year. Haigh even went to Scotland once a week to post a letter to them signing McSwann’s name.

In between the trips, he ran the pinball arcade business that had belonged to his victim. Wartime crowds poured into the arcade and Haigh was taking in money hand over fist. But it was still not enough to buy the lifestyle that he wanted, and greed drove him to his next murder for profit.

His victims were to be McSwann’s parents. He wrote to them, again forging his son’s name, and begged them to meet him at the home of his dear friend, John Haigh.

On the night of 10th July 1945, Haigh bludgeoned them to death in his workshop. After he dissolved their bodies in the vat of acid and poured the reeking sludge down the drain.

Using forged documents Haigh helped himself to the entire estate-five houses and a fortune in securities and later transferred it to his own name.

Because of his inveterate gambling, self-indulgence and a string of bad investments, he was broke again by February 1948. He decided to invite a young married couple, Rosalie and Dr. Archie Henderson, to look at his new workshop at Crawley, south of London. Both went into the acid bath.

Although the Henderson’s estate had been profitably disposed of in 1949 Haigh found that he needed one more victim. Still convinced he was living a charmed life, he chose this one with little caution.

She was Mrs. Olive Durand-Deacon, a 69-year-old widow whose husband had left her 40,000 pounds. She lived at the same London residential hotel as Haigh, who had not paid his bills for months and who was desperate for money.

Mrs. Durand Deacon believed that, apart from having a private income, Haigh had made money by patenting inventions. She put to him an idea for false plastic fingernails. Haigh showed interest, invited her to visit his Crawley workshop and in February 1949 drove her down there.

What happened next was described by Haigh in a statement he made to police and which was read at his trail:

"She was inveigled by me into going to Crawley in view of her interest in artificial fingernails. Having taken her into the storeroom, I shot her through the back of her head while she was examining some materials.

Then I went out to the car and fetched a drinking glass and made an incision- I think with a penknife- in the side of her throat. I collected a glass of blood, which I drank.

I removed her coat and jewellery (rings, necklace, earrings and crucifix) and put her in a 45-gallon tank. Before I put her handbag into the tank, I took from it about 30 shillings and a fountain pen. I then filled the tank with sulphuric acid, by means of a stirrup-pump. I then left it to react.

As an afterthought, Haigh added: ‘I should have said that, in between having her in the tank and pumping the acid, I went round to the Ancient Priors [a local teashop] for a cup of tea.’

It took some days and two further trips to Crawley’s to check on the acid tank before Mrs. Durand-Deacon’s body appeared to have been entirely dissolved. Meantime, the police had questioned her fellow guests at the hotel, including Haigh.

The killers glib, over helpful manner made one detective particularly suspicious and he checked on the 39 year old suspect’s background. He unearthed a prison record for minor frauds and arrested Haigh. The murderer confessed, but claimed that he could never be proven guilty because police could never find any of his victim’s remains.

He was wrong. Forensic scientists examined the foul sludge that had been emptied from the tank onto the ground into the yard of the Crawley workshop. They were able to identify a gallstone, a part of the foot, and remains of a handbag and an almost complete set of false teeth. These were shown to Mrs. Duran Deacon’s dentist, who confirmed that they had belonged to the trusting widow.

In court Haigh’s lawyers claimed that the killer was insane. They pointed to a strict and unhappy childhood- his parents belonged to the Plymouth Brethren- and to his claimed habit of drinking his victim’s blood. But although the British press labeled him the Vampire killer, the judge and jury failed to accept this bloody trait as evidence of insanity. After a trail of only two days, he was found guilty of murdering Mrs. Durand Deacon and sentenced to death.

Asked if he had anything to say, Haigh replied airily: ‘Nothing at all.’

On 6th August 1949, he was hanged at Wandsworth Prison.

Thus ended the life of the life of the Vampire Killer.

References:-

1) http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/haigh/index_1.html

2) http://www.angelfire.com/me/girlsparadise/vamp26.html