Evans and his wife were lodgers in the house of John Reginald Christie.
Three years later Christie was hanged for the murders of several women whose bodies were found in the house after he moved out. One of them was his own wife.
Even though he confessed to killing Beryl Evans, Timothy's wife, the authorities found it easier to believe there were two multiple murderers operating separately in one house at the same time, than that they had made a mistake and Evans was innocent. He had confessed, after all, but he was easily manipulated by Christie and by the police. Christie made him believe that he would be held equally liable for the death, having persuaded him that she died as a result of an abortion Evans had agreed Christie could perform. (In fact she had been strangled.) The police took advantage of his suggestibility and weak-mindedness to get him to sign a series of confessions. But Evans had given himself up, thus opening up the original investigation that resulted in his execution.
Timothy Evans
John Hurt as Timothy Evans in the film. Quite an amazing resemblance.
John Reginald Christie
Richard Attenborough as Christie. Doesn't he do a great line in slimey villains?It took the powers that be years to pardon Evans for the murder of his daughter, but they maintained that he had actually killed his wife, even though he had not been charged with it, and had therefore been legitimately executed. He was not granted a full pardon till 1966. The case is extrememly involved, and I may not have done justice to the facts. But after reading about it or seeing the film, no-one could ever support the death penalty again. What use is a pardon to a dead person?
There's quite a detailed account at this address: http://www.parmaq.com/truecrime/Rillington.htm
"10 Rillington Place" is showing in TCM in the UK at various times over the next week or two.
Rillington Place was later demolished and the new development renamed, probably Bartle Road, and is tucked alongside the A40(M) in west London.
5 comments:
That's a horrible story. I've always been against the death penalty for reasons like this.
This is ONE of the reasons I am also against the death penalty. It's not that I don't believe that there are some convicted killers who deserve it, because I do. But in a judicial system that is as vastly imperfect as ours here in the U.S. or the U.K. or anywhere for that matter, how can anyone, in good conscience, be in favor of it?
No, no death penalty but life imprisonment should be just that.
I've always been on the fence about the death penalty. On one hand, do we kill people to show that killing people is wrong? But on the other, if one of my loved ones was murdered, I'd want an eye for an eye.
DNA testing is going a long way to proving & disproving guilt. But god forbid that any prosecutor admit that they are wrong when someone is exonerated.
We need Dexter to administer justice after providing the death penalty acid test. Serial killers and pedophiles still deserve to be killed. But I'd want to be 100% sure.
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