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The-biggest-legal-F-CK-up-in-history-MATURE-AUDIENCES-ONLY · Crime and Horror

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty three, a man had just moved into
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: a new apartment in London, and as soon as he
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: went inside, he decided he wanted to renovate, and so
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: he started by pulling down all the wallpaper in the kitchen.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: And as he's doing it, he makes his way into
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  Speaker 1: the kitchen pantry and he pulls off one particular strip
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of wallpaper and he sees behind the wallpaper, towards the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: bottom of the wall is a door.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: There is a secret door behind the wallpaper.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: So he gets down, he rips off more of the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: wallpaper and then he grabs a little handle and he
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: pulls the door open. And what he sees inside of
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: this little room was not only horrifying and would scar
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: him for life, but the contents of this secret room
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: would change the legal system in the United Kingdom forever.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: But before we get into today's story, if you're a
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: then you've come to the right place, because that's all
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  Speaker 1: we do, and we upload once a week, so if
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  Speaker 1: you to spray sunscreen on their back, gladly agree, but
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• 1:08
  Speaker 1: into today's story. The crime that would eventually put Timothy
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Evans on death row was horrific, but when you take
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: a look at Timothy Evans's past, it's not really a
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  Speaker 1: shocker that his life played out the way that it did.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Before Timothy was even born in nineteen twenty four in
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  Speaker 1: the southern end of Wales, his father had abandoned him
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: and his siblings and his mother, and because Timothy's mother
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: made almost no money when Timothy was born, he was
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: effectively born into poverty. As a young child, Timothy really
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: struggled to learn how to speak properly, and then in
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: school he just really struggled to keep up with his peers.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: To make matters worse, when Timothy was eight years old,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: he contracted tuberculosis of the skin on the underside of
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: his right foot. This condition is not necessarily fatal, but
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: it causes these large, painful blisters that take a really
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: long time to go away even with treatment. And because
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Timothy's outbreak was on the underside of his foot, it
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: made walking nearly impossible, and so for a few years,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: starting when he was eight years old and he was
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: diagnosed with tuberculosis of the skin, Timothy had to miss
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: huge chunks of his schooling to get medical treatment, and
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: then other times he was missing school simply because he
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: couldn't walk, and considering how poorly Timothy was already doing
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: in school, these huge extended absences were.
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  Speaker 2: Totally catastrophic for his education.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: In fact, later in life, it would be determined that
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Timothy's IQ, which is a way to measure people's intelligence,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: was somewhere between sixty and seventy, which is very low
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and put him in the range of having an intellectual disability.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Not long after his tuberculosis of the skin diagnosis. Timothy
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: would remain in school despite all of these absences and
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: despite how difficult it was for him, but his real
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: focus would shift from getting an education to trying to
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: find work in order to help provide for his family,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: who were very poor, and Timothy was willing to do
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: just about anything for money. For example, when he was
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: only thirteen years old, he became a coal miner, one
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: of the most dangerous jobs on the planet at the time.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: And still today.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: But despite Timothy's willingness to do these really challenging jobs
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: that often paid very little, he would always eventually get fired,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: or he just would not get the job in the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: first place. He would be rejected, and always it was
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: because either one he had a flare up of his
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: tuberculosis on his foot, which made it impossible to walk
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: and so he couldn't go to and from his job
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: and so he'd be let go, or it would be
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: because of his illiteracy and the job just could not
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: take someone in that could not read, write, or really.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: And speak very well.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Or in some cases, like when Timothy tried to join
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: the military when he was eighteen years old and World
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: War two was raging and all of his peers are
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: going off to.
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  Speaker 2: Fight the war.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Well, when he tried to enlist, the military said, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we can't take you because you are illiterate, in because
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: of your foot. This constant cycle of rejection and embarrassment
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: really made Timothy quite cynical. He felt like he just
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: didn't belong anywhere, and so at some point, perhaps as
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: a coping mechanism, Timothy.
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  Speaker 2: Began to lie.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: He'd make up tall tales about the adventures he'd been on,
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  Speaker 1: and all the influential people he knew and the superhuman
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: skills he possessed.
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  Speaker 2: Now, most people who knew Timothy didn't.
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  Speaker 1: Believe any of the stories he told, but every now
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: and again some people actually did. And for Timothy, that
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: little sliver of respect he would get in that moment,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: even though it was built on a lie, on an illusion,
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  Speaker 1: it was incredible for him. He didn't get that anywhere
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: else in his life, and so he kind of became
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: addicted to telling these lies. Fast forward to nineteen forty seven,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Timothy was twenty three years old and he was still
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: living with his family, who had left Wales and had
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: moved to London, and they were living in a very,
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  Speaker 1: very poor and dangerous neighborhood.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: At the time, Timothy had managed to get a.
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  Speaker 1: Job as a delivery driver and had yet to be
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  Speaker 1: fired from it, and on one of his daily routes
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  Speaker 1: around the city, he wound up meeting an eighteen.
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  Speaker 2: Year old girl named Beryl Thoroughly, who he really took
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: a liking to.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Now, according to people who knew Beryl, she apparently liked
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Timothy had a very low IQ and so Beryl and
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Timothy they meet on one of Timothy's routes, and they
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  Speaker 1: immediately hit it off and they start dating, and by
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  Speaker 1: the end of that year they were married. They initially
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: lived inside of Timothy's family's apartment, but when Beryl became
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: pregnant in early nineteen forty eight, she and Timothy pooled
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: what little money they had and they got an apartment
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  Speaker 1: of their own.
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  Speaker 2: Their new apartment was terrible.
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  Speaker 1: It was tiny, it was dirty, it was located in
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  Speaker 1: an even more dangerous neighborhood than where Timothy's family lived,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: but it was good enough for them, at least at first.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Once Beryl gave birth to their daughter, Geraldine, suddenly their
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: cramped living quarters seemed impossibly small for a family of three,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: and they were already extremely tight on money, and now
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: adding a baby to the mix, they really just did
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: not have enough money to survive. Timothy immediately tried picking
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: up extra work wherever he could, but once again, his
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: illiteracy and his foot or a combination of the two,
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  Speaker 1: held him back, and so it wasn't long before the
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  Speaker 1: couple was forced to start taking out these awful high
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  Speaker 1: interest loans that they knew they would never be able
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  Speaker 1: to pay back. So they are permanently saddled with debt,
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  Speaker 1: they know it, and these loans are only enough to
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  Speaker 1: barely get by. This is not enough to move out,
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  Speaker 1: This is only enough to stay in their squalid.
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  Speaker 2: And awful conditions. And so as their debt piled up
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  Speaker 2: in conjunction with all.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: The stresses of being new parents and living in this
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  Speaker 1: really cramped space, it wasn't long before Beryl and Timothy's
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  Speaker 1: marriage just totally started to erode. It started with daily
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  Speaker 1: arguing over one of their many hardships, but it quickly
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  Speaker 1: escalated to full blown physical confrontation that often was so
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  Speaker 1: loud that passerby outside in the very busy street would
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: hear coming from the third floor Timothy and Beryl screaming
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: and yelling and punching each other, to the point where
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  Speaker 1: people outside literally stopped and just looked up, wondering what
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  Speaker 1: was going on up there. As Timothy's world seemed to
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  Speaker 1: just kind of crumble all around him, he at first
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  Speaker 1: turned to a coping mechanism he had used for most
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  Speaker 1: of his life, and that was just to lie about
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  Speaker 1: his current situation. He would tell people who would listen
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  Speaker 1: that he and his wife and his kid were doing great,
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  Speaker 1: and everything was fine, but you know, behind closed doors,
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  Speaker 1: that wasn't true at all, and so that coping mechanism
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  Speaker 1: really didn't do a lot for him, and so Timothy
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  Speaker 1: eventually turned to alcohol to cope with his misery. But
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: the alcohol would only make the situation worse because it
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: was yet another thing for his wife to be mad
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  Speaker 1: at him about, and he was depressed all the time,
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  Speaker 1: and it was eating away at their non existent budget
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  Speaker 1: to pay for all this alcohol. And so Timothy would
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: turn to yet another source for comfort, but it would
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: be a very unlikely source of comfort. It would be
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  Speaker 1: his downstairs neighbor, John Christy. And the reason his downstairs
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: neighbor was so unlikely was because John could not have
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: been more different from Timothy. John was nearly double Timothy's age,
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  Speaker 1: he was incredibly smart, and he was respected not only
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: by his peers but really by the community. And that
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: respect came from the fact that John had served during
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  Speaker 1: World War One and been right on the front lines
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  Speaker 1: and had nearly been killed during a mustard gas attack
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  Speaker 1: when he was fighting in the trenches.
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  Speaker 2: And then after the war was over.
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  Speaker 1: John would come back to London and he would become
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: a police constable for quite a while, and then after
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: retiring from the four, he became a post office clerk.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: But despite John and Timothy's vast differences, there was one
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: thing they had in common, marital problems.
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  Speaker 2: John and his wife Ethel.
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  Speaker 1: Had gotten married back in nineteen twenty, so four years
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  Speaker 1: before Timothy had even been born, but at some point
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: early on in their marriage, the couple.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Had split up.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't get divorced, but they separated and they lived
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  Speaker 1: totally apart for a while.
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  Speaker 2: But in nineteen thirty four.
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  Speaker 1: The couple would finally reconcile, and that's when they moved
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: into the ground floor apartment of the apartment building that
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Timothy and Beryl would move into years later. So years later,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: when John is sitting in his apartment and he can hear,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: coming from the third floor, like everybody else in the
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: general vicinity, the sound of Timothy and Beryl fighting like
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: crazy up in their apartment, John decided, you know, with
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: his experience with reconciling with his wife, that he ought
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  Speaker 1: to reach out to that young man Timothy and offer
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  Speaker 1: him some advice or very least be a friendly sounding board.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: So John would eventually strike up a conversation with Timothy
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  Speaker 1: one day when they were passing each other, and Timothy
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: was at a place in his life where he was
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  Speaker 1: looking for friends.
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  Speaker 2: He didn't have any friends, and.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: So John to come into his life at this point
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  Speaker 1: was really good for Timothy, and so very quickly those
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: two struck up a friendship. But this friendship was not
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: really peer to peer. It was more like father to
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: son or mentor to mentee, where Timothy really looked up
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: to John. I mean, Timothy had never had a father
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: in his life, and so John kind of became that.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And John looked at Timothy with a lot of empathy.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: He could tell this was a man who was, you know,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: not very bright, and he was in way over his
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: head with debt, with this marriage, with parenthood, everything, and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: so John tried hard to kind of coach and guide
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Timothy as he navigated this very rough time in his life,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: and their relationship likely could have had a really positive
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: effect not only on just Timothy's mental health, but also
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: perhaps on this state of Timothy and Beryl's marriage. But
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it was not long after John met Timothy that Timothy
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: found out Beryl was pregnant with a second child. This
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: was terrible news for Timothy. He knew they absolutely could
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: not afford another child as it was, they couldn't afford
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: the current child they had. They couldn't afford anything, and
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom abortions were illegal, so there was
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: no way to terminate this pregnancy. And so, totally desperate
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: and terrified, Timothy turned to John for guidance, and John
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: would later recall on the witness stand during Timothy's trial that,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: you know, John did his best to try to console
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: and comfort and tell Timothy that everything was going to
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: be okay. You'll get another job, you'll take out another loan,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: it'll all work out. But as John would say on
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: the witness stand, his words didn't have any effect on Timothy.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Timothy by the time he came to John was totally inconsolable.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: He was desperate, and he was unhinged.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: And so John started to suspect that Timothy might do
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: something really drastic to make his troubles go away.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: And John would be correct.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: While you lay in bed at night and you're looking
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: up at your plastic glow and the dark stars that
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: line your ceiling, do you ever pull the blankets up
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: to your chin and snuggle down and secretly wish to yourself, Man,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: if I could just one time see the world famous
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: traditional Chinese chime belt player post Malone clock As Fellas
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: live in concert, just once.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: My life would be made.
• 12:34
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• 13:40
  Speaker 1: A few weeks later, on November thirtieth, nineteen forty nine,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: a very disheveled looking Timothy wandered into a local police
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: station in Wales, not far from where he had grown up,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: and he would confess to the police that he had
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: killed his wife. He would tell the police that he
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: had given Beryl a poison that was apparently designed to
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: her fetus, but this poison was too strong and it
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: had killed Beryl. And then after she was dead, Timothy
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: said he panicked and so he took her body and
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: he dumped her down the sewer that was outside of
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: their apartment building, and then he arranged for his daughter,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Geraldine to go stay with some people in London while
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Timothy fled to Wales. But after getting to Wales, Timothy
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: said his guilty conscience was just too much, and so
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: he turned himself in. The police immediately arrested Timothy and
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: they brought him back to London, and then once he
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: was in a cell in London, London detectives went out
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: to Timothy's apartment building and they went to the manhole
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: cover that led down into the sewer that was right
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: outside of the apartment building, and right away they noticed
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: something odd. They were not able to get the lid
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: off of the sewer.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: It was just too heavy. It would move, but one
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: man couldn't do it.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: And so after three police officers they all got down.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: They were barely able.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: To get this lid up and off of the top
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: of the sewer. And then when they went down into
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: the sewer, there was no body down there. And so
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: when detectives went back to Timothy in the London jail
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: cell and they confronted him with this revelation that no,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: she's not in there, Timothy would kind of squirm a
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: little bit, and then he would totally change his story.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: He would tell police that it was not he who
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: gave Beryl this poison that ended.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Up killing her.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: It was his friend and mentor and fatherlike figure in
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: his life, John Christy. Timothy also told police that he
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: left his daughter, Geraldine in the care of Police are
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: skeptical of Timothy, but because there's a child involved, they
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: just immediately take his story at face value and they
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: rush back to the apartment building and they knock on
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: John's door, and.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: John opens the door and he's standing there with his wife.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Ethel, and he's totally shocked at these accusations that have
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: been lodged against him by who he thought was a
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: very close friend of his. And John and Ethel would
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: tell police that not only did they have no clue
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: what happened to Beryl, but Geraldine had never been in
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: their care, and so the police are immediately very concerned
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: for Geraldine's well being.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: You know, who has Geraldine? Where is she?
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: But while they were there, they just did a thorough
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: search of John and Ethel's property to make sure they
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: weren't lying, And then after searching their property, there was
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: nothing inside. But when police left John and Ethel's apartment
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and began searching the outside of the property, an area
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: that they had briefly searched when they were there earlier,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: looking in the sewer, but now they're doing a much.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: More thorough search.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: And during this thorough search, they'd find this shed that
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: was located in the backyard of this big apartment building.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: And inside of the shed, wrapped in blankets, are the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: bodies of Beryl and her thirteen month.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Old daughter, Geraldine. They had both been strangled to death.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: After processing the crime scene, the police went back to
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the jail where Timothy was being held and they would
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: tell him what they discovered at the property, and Timothy
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: had a very muted response to it. And then when
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: one of the detectives asked Timothy point blank, are you
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: responsible for both your wife and your daughter's deaths?
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Timothy would say yes.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: And then during a follow on interrogation, Timothy would confess
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: that he had been in a heated argument with his
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: wife over money, and at some point during this fight,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: which got very physical, he strangled Beryl to death, and
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: then two days later he strangled his daughter to death,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: and then after dumping their bodies in that shed outside,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: he fled to Wales. Timothy would actually recant that final confession,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: but it really didn't matter because when he went to
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: trial a little over a month later, the jury just
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: did not believe that Timothy did not do it, and
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: so very quickly they convicted him of murder and they
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: sentenced him to death just three months after his conviction.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: So on March ninth, nineteen fifty, Timothy would find himself
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: sitting inside of the so called condemned suite at Pentonville
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Prison in London. He was shackled to this table with
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: guards sitting on either side of him in this very
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: small cell. And then right next to him was this
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: wall that kind of ran down the side of the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and on the other side of that wall was the
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: execution chamber. And so as Timothy would have been sitting
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: at this table, suddenly the cell door that led into
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the holding area would have flung open. The execution team
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: would have rushed in and grabbed Timothy and stood him
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: up before he could run or fight back, and then
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: before he knew it, he'd be pushed over to the
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: door that went through that wall into the execution chamber.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Once that door was open, Timothy only would have had
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: maybe a couple of seconds to take in what he saw,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: and it would have been this pale, green, square room
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: with a noose dangling down from the ceiling, and right
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: below it was an obvious mechanical trap door, and off
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: to the side of the room was a lever that
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the executioner would actually pull to open up that floor
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: and send the prisoner falling down into the pit below.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: So Timothy, he would have taken this in just for
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: a second. His heart would have been racing, and before
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: long he would have been standing on this trap door.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: The noose would have come down, they would have tightened
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: it to his neck, a bag would have been placed
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: over his head. All the guards would have pushed to
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the walls. And then before Timothy he could even say
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: or do anything, the level was pulled and he dropped
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: down into a twelve foot deep bricklined pit, where he
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: would dangle by his neck until he died.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: This gruesome ending should have been the end of an
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: already very gruesome story, but it wasn't. Not even close.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Three years after Timothy's execution, a man named Beresford Brown
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: moved into the same ground floor apartment that John, Christy
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and Ethel had shared.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: John had moved.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Out just a couple of days earlier, and so Beresford
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: he moves into this apartment. It's totally dirty, it's not
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: well kept, and so Beresford decides that he's going to
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: fix the place up. And the first thing he's going
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: to do is he's going to tear down all of
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the old wallpaper.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: In the kitchen and replace it.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: And so he goes into the kitchen, he starts tearing
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: down the wallpaper he makes his way into the kitchen pantry.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: He starts pulling the wallpaper down in there, and at
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: some point, when he pulls one strip of paper all
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the way to the ground, he sees towards the bottom
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: of this wall inside of his pantry, where there are
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: no shelves over it, behind the wallpaper, there is obviously
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: a door, just a small door. It almost looks like
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the entrance to a crawl space. And so Beresford is
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: totally intrigued. You know, why would there be this door
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: behind the wallpaper in the pantry, And so he rips
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: off the remaining wallpaper over this little door. He finds
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the handle and forces it open, and what he sees
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: inside of that little room would haunt him for the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: rest of his life. Three years and four months earlier,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: when Timothy discovered that his wife Beryl was pregnant with
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: their second child, Timothy really did go to his friend
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: John for guidance. However, this is where the story takes
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: a turn. When tim came to John, John, who was
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: medically trained from his time in the military, he would
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: tell tim hey, I can perform an abortion on Beryl
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: if you want me to. Timothy immediately thought this was
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: a great idea, and so totally relieved, thinking his problems
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: are now all solved, he left John's apartment and ran
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: upstairs to his own. He told Beryl about how John
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: could perform this procedure for them. Did she want to
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: do it? And Beryl said, yeah, let's do it now.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: We don't know exactly what happened next, but the running
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: theory is that sometime in November of nineteen forty nine,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Beryl and Geraldine left their apartment on the third floor
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: and went down to the first floor John's apartment, and
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: when they got there it was just John John's wife Ethel,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: she was gone.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: For the day.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: As for Timothy, he also was not present for this procedure,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: but he likely knew it was happening. So Beryl and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Geraldine they walk inside of John's apartment and pretty quickly
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Beryl finds a place or maybe John finds a place
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to put Geraldine in the apartment where she's saved. And
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: then John ushers Beryl over to this chair, it's like
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: his makeshift medical chair, and he tells her to have
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: a seat, so she sits down and John goes over
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: and gets this device. And now this device it looks
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: like a glass jar filled with clear liquid and then
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: poking out of either side of it are these black,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: thin hollow tubes that come out and connect at this
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: kind of makeshift melt mouthpiece. And so John he walks
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: over with this device and he hands the mouthpiece portion
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: of this device to Beryl and he says, here, put
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: this on your mouth and start breathing it in. There's
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: a gas I produce that kind of numbs the pain
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: as I do this procedure to you. And so Beryl
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: did as she was told. She took this mouthpiece and
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: she put it over her mouth and her nose and
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: she began breathing deeply.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: And as she.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Did that, John grabbed a chemical and he began slowly
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: pouring it into the glass jar where these tubes were
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: coming out of. And as he did that, a white
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: gas began to form above the liquid inside of the jar.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: And there was a cover over the top of this jar,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: so the gas was trapped inside of this jar. And
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: as Beryl is taking these big breaths through those tubes,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: she's sucking that gas into her lungx and very quickly,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: as she's breathing on this apparatus, she didn't start feeling numb,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: she just passed out completely. However, this was John's plan
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: all along. That device he made her put on her
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: face that was only designed to make people pass out,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: It was not to numb any pain. John was not
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: medically trained, He was not performing abortions out of his apartment.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: He was a serial killer.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: So with Beryl now unconscious in front of him, John
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: did the same thing he did to the other two
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: women he had lured into his trap and whose bodies
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: were now buried in his backyard. He began having his
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: way with Beryl, and at some point during this assault,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Beryl woke up and began trying to fight off John,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: but he overpowered her and he strangled her to death.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: And then after she was dead, John just walked into
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the other room where Geraldine was and he used a
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: shirt tie and he wrapped it around Geraldine's neck and
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: he strangled her to death. And then after that he
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: put the mother and daughter together in some sheets and
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: he put them out in the shed in the backyard. Later,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: when Timothy came to John's apartment to see how the
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: procedure had gone on his wife, John would tell Timothy
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: that sorry it didn't work out, and your wife is dead.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Don't worry.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I'll look after your daughter and make sure she's taken
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: care of. You need to flee London and go to
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Wales now. And so Timothy, without really asking any questions,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: would do as he was told and he would flee
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to Wales. But a little while later, when he tried
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: to check in with John about how his daughter was doing,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: because he had no idea where she was or who
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: she was with, John would.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Just not let Timothy see her.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: And so Timothy eventually, just feeling racked with guilt about
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: this whole situation, he went to police, and critically, when
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: he spoke to police, he lied about what happened. He
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: wanted to protect his friend John, who he looked at
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: as a father figure, as a mentor, as a close friend, and.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: So he said, I killed my wife.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: And so this is why Timothy got the location of
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: his wife's body wrong, because he didn't know.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: He just guessed the sewer.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And so that explains why when they got over to
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: the sewer, not only was it empty, but it seemed
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: totally impossible that anybody could have lifted this manhole cover
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: on their own. It was too heavy then after police
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: discovered Beryl and Geraldine's body and they went back to
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: the London jail and told Timothy that was the first
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: time he found out what had happened to his daughter,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: because to that point, Tim really did believe that John
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: had just been taking care of Geraldine or John had
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: handed off his child to somebody else who was taking
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: care of Geraldine. But either way, Geraldine was okay. So
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: he's just been told she's not okay, she's dead as well.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: His whole family is gone, and so Tim was almost
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: certainly in shock, and so he's sitting there with that
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: sort of muted response as detectives are asking him, are
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: you responsible for your wife and your child's death?
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: And so Tim would say yes, But.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: It's unclear if Tim actually understood their question, or if
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: he understood the implications of their question. He might have
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: just been saying, I feel guilty about the fact that
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: my family is dead, not that he literally killed both
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: his wife and daughter. But when Tim finally kind of
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: snapped out of it and really began trying to tell
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the truth that John was responsible, nobody believed him because
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: his credibility was totally destroyed because the first thing he
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: did when he went to police, was lying about what happened.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: And when police dug into Timothy's history a little bit,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: they saw he.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Was a compulsive liar.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Everybody said, oh, Timothy tells tall tales, That's just what
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: he does. And making things even worse for Timothy was
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the fact that he had a very clear motive for
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: why he might harm his family. He was under crippling debt,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: and his relationship with his wife was incredibly toxic and
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: often became physical, and there were lots of witnesses to that.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: During Timothy's trial, despite the fact that Timothy and his
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: lawyers tried everything they could to point the finger at
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: John Christy, saying, no, he's the guy responsible. Because John
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: was constantly on the witness stand and had this impeccable
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: resume as this war hero and this police constable, and
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: he was well respected, and he was well spoken, and
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: he was smart.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: The jury completely believed him.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: He was the epitome of credible, whereas Timothy was the opposite.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: And so it was largely John the real killer's testimony
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: that actually put Timothy, the innocent man, on death row. Also,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: the police totally botched the investigation from the beginning, because
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the police went into the investigation already completely convinced that
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Timothy was guilty. This was an open and shutcase, and
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: us gathering evidence and doing all this didn't really matter
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: because Timothy was the guy. And so because the police
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: were so focused on Timothy, they were blind to really
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: obvious things all around them. For example, during their several
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: searches of the apartment complex, both inside and out, a
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: dog ran into the backyard and actually dug up one
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: of the skeletons from one of those two women that
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: John had killed years earlier and buried out there, and
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: so a human skull and a human leg bone were
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: visible outside as police are walking around.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: John was able to grab the skull and chuck it next.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Door into a burned out building, but the leg bone
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: was literally propped up against the side of the backyard
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: in plain view.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Nobody caught it.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: The police are also believed to have coerced Timothy into
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: signing his final confession, where he says, I not only
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: killed my wife, but I also killed my daughter. There's
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: even some speculation that the police literally signed it for him,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: that they forged the entire document, and so Timothy gets
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: hauled off and executed. Meanwhile, John, the real killer, just
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: keeps on killing. He would murder at least four more women,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: including his wife Ethel, using the.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Same technique, the gas machine, followed by strangulation.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: And it was during the time that he killed these
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: last four victims that we know about that John became
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: increasingly turned on by death itself, and so that was
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: why he stuffed his wife's body right underneath the floorboards
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: in his kitchen, and he stuffed those other three women
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: inside of that tiny little room behind that secret door
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: in the pantry, so that all day long as he
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: was in his apartment, it constantly smelled a decomposing flesh.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: After Beresford Brown opened that secret door in the kitchen
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: pantry and discovered those three women's bodies smashed inside of there,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: he would tell the police, and then ten days later,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: on March thirty first, nineteen fifty three, John Christy would
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: be found and arrested. He would confess to killing all
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: eight victims, but the police only had enough evidence to
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: charge him with one murder, and that was the murder.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Of his wife Ethel.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: But he was found guilty of that and it was
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: enough to warrant a death sentence. On July fifteenth of
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: that year, at about nine am, John Christy found himself
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: sitting in the same condemned suite at Pentonville Prison that
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Timothy Evans had been sitting in three and a half
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: years earlier. Then, moments later, the door behind John opened up.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: The same execution team that killed Timothy Evans came inside
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and grabbed John that hoisted him up. They moved him
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: over to the door that led into the execution chamber.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: The door flung open and John got his first lofe
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: book at the gallows. They rushed him over to the
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: middle of the room. They pulled the noose down, tied
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: it tight around his neck. They put the bag down
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: over his head. All the guards stepped the side, and
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: then right as the executioner is about to pull down
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: the lever, John out of the blue says, wait, my
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: nose itches, to which the executioner just said, it won't
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: bother you for long, and then he pulled the switch.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Due in large part to the massive injustice in this case,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: where an obviously innocent man was carted off and executed,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the UK would suspend the death penalty in nineteen sixty five,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and then in nineteen sixty nine, they would abolish it entirely.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Between those two dates.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty six, Timothy would receive a posthumous pardon
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: for the murder of his family, meaning he is officially
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: an innocent man.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: So that's going to do it.
• 30:51
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• 30:53
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• 31:00
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