March, 1949. Curious onlookers watch as police search an industrial workshop in Crawley, UK for the remains of a Mrs Durand Deacon. The wealthy widow had gone missing shorty after leaving for a business meeting with John G Haigh, who'd in turn been reported to police by Mrs Deacon's friends after she'd failed to return home.
The highlighted man, Dr Simpson, was the Home Office Pathologist who would be key in solving the crime, as Haigh had ghoulishly dissolved Deacon's body in a vat of sulfuric acid and then poured the remaining blackened sludge out into the back yard upon a pile of junk. Simpson's meticulous examination of the macabre liquefied remains would turn up a pair of dentures, part of a human foot, 28 pounds of fat tissue and a meager handful of human gall stones, allowing positive ID of the body that Haigh was certain he'd destroyed.
Haigh himself was a career criminal who'd been in and out of prison numerous times on fraud charges in the 30's and 40's.
Finding it inconvenient that his victims kept turning him in to the police, the conman had decided upon his last release in 1944 that he'd add the extra step of murder when he swindled his next ones. And to make doubly-sure, he'd use acid to dissolve the bodies, confident that without a physical corpse, he'd never be convicted.
Thus was set the pattern of his short, but gristly, life as a serial killer.
He'd befriend wealthy individuals with his not-inconsiderate natural charm by offering to do odd jobs and financial work. Once he'd gained their trust, he'd lure them on false pretenses into his basement or garage whereupon he'd murder them and dispose of their bodies in baths of sulfuric acid, pouring the remains into the storm drains and sewer to get rid of the evidence. He'd then sell their assets with forged papers and live off the proceeds until he'd squandered the lot and have to kill again.
Mrs Duran Deacon would be his sixth and final "official" victim, though it's believed he may have killed up to 9 people in similar fashion, thus earning him the press nickname "The Acid Bath Murderer"
His trial was an exceptionally speedy affair. Despite thinking he'd committed the perfect crime, the forensic evidence provided the means to secure a conviction for murder without an intact body. The trial itself was extremely short, considering the twisted celebrity of the accused. Something that only increased when Haigh realized his errors (he'd arrogantly confessed during police questioning ,believing conviction was impossible without a body) and tried for an insanity defense, claiming he suffered from an irresistible compulsion to drink human blood and it was these vampire-like tendencies and not greed that drove him to kill.
The jury didn't buy it, and a guilty verdict took only a few minutes of deliberation.
In August, only 5 months after the above picture was taken, Haigh was led to the gallows at Wandsworth Prison and hung.
