All language subtitles for The Terrifying Acid Bath Murderer (True Crime Documentary) - Real Stories

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John George ha was the serial killer

from middle England who killed the

middle class he had no compunction and

no conscience whatsoever about killing

people to obtain his ends the sludge at

the bottom of the barrels in which he's

dissolved these poor people is poured

down the drains you know he's literally

obliterating an entire family I was just

a young boy in the late 194 40s but I

can remember the name John George hay as

if it were yesterday the newspaper

headlines were sensationalist from

Vampire horror to modernday Dracula but

the one that was to stick was the Acid

Bath murderer so was John George ha a

callous fraudster or a killer Out For

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Blood

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I'm Fred Dage and I've been reporting

serious crimes for more than 40 years

now as a journalist and a television

reporter as the official biographer to

the cray twins I know that when it comes

to Crime the myth can actually take over

from the reality of what actually

happened John George ha's crimes were

some of the most shocking ever seen in

Britain driven by greed he killed six

people disposing of their bodies in an

appalling manner plunging the victims

into Vats of acid he left no trace of

their

remains John George ha was born in 1909

in Stanford Lincolnshire he was well-

loved by his parents and was an only

child child he had a relatively isolated

upbringing well I'm Keen to talk to

experts and key Witnesses with an

in-depth knowledge of the hate case

sadly of course many of the key

characters have now passed away but I

have managed to track down a man with a

keen interest in hag David briffett in

the 1980s David spent a lot of time

interviewing key Witnesses and wrote a

book about hag's atrocities

David this is amazing because this is

the very court room in which hag was

tried and convicted what turn this

apparently well educated and religious

man do you think to

Crime well I have a theory about Mr hag

and I'm pretty sure that he wanted to

assume the lifestyle of other people

that he admired and the reason for that

can be traced right back to his very

strange childhood um his parents were

members of the Plymouth Brethren um and

he was deprived of many things they

didn't celebrate Christmas and

eventually when he discovered the

outside world he rather liked it and he

wanted to be part of it and he was

prepared to go to more or less any

lengths to obtain that better

lifestyle at the age of 10 hay won a

musical scholarship to a Catholic School

in Wakefield even at such a young age he

was described by his teachers as

mischievous what led him then into a

life of

crime well um there's evidence to show

that when he was at school um he was

very

secretive um he enjoyed playing tricks

on people and he learned very early that

he could Forge people's signatures and

he used to forge the the signatures of

teachers and he got a lot of pleasure

out of that having these secrets and

then he gradually moved into Petty crime

and into

forgery I want to know how hag's early

life of crime led him to become a

killer Professor David Wilson is a

leading criminologist and he's taken an

in-depth look at the crimes ha

committed so tell us about the fraud I

mean how did he get into that what what

what was his motivation there well he

left school uh age 17 and worked for a

little while in a blue collar job but

very quickly transferred into white

collar work and he first comes to the

attention of the court or to the police

because he tries to fraudulently sell

cars that don't belong to him so the

motivation psychologist criminologist

would say his motivations were extrinsic

they were outside of his own personality

his motivation in other words was simply

to make money but of course he had the

most convincing Manner and he could talk

anyone around to do anything he was a

wonderful salesman he could charm the

birds out of the trees he always dressed

very well he liked the best

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suits uh he had BR creamed hair that was

flat but he had the most penetrating

sparkling blue eyes which many many

people noticed in

1934 hag used his Charming manner to

persuade people to purchase V vehicles

that didn't exist it wasn't long before

the money was rolling in hag wrote many

letters documenting his early life and

his atrocities he said I discovered

there were easier ways to make a living

than to work long hours in an office I

did not ask myself whether I was doing

right or wrong that seemed to be

irrelevant I merely said this is what I

wish to do he always I I think reading

through the lines felt slightly outside

of the culture to which he belonged and

so a lot of his life it would seem was

about playing a part so he always wanted

to had drive fast cars to Loop the part

to be fashionable to have money he often

gives the impression of trying to live

above his means ha quickly discovered

that crime didn't pay his car scam was

uncovered he was imprisoned for 15

months at Leeds as sizes on his release

he was soon back to what he considered

to be his profession fraud one of his

major frauds was committed in s and in

Sussex in fact he opened three offices

as a solicitor he never was a solicitor

of course but he opened three offices

one in Chantry Lane in London one in

Guilford in s and one in Hastings in

Sussex and he called himself William cat

Adamson and he had some wonderful headed

Note Paper printed and then he began

placing advertisements in local

newspapers offering uh shares for sale

shares that supposedly had come from the

Estates of deceased persons and he was

offering them at slightly below the

market rate and of course people were

very attracted to that and began sending

in checks to this solicitor uh HG lived

very well off the checks however he was

caught out because on one of his headed

note papers he had misspelled the word

Guilford and he had left out the D in

the middle and one of the prospective

purchasers spotted that went to the

police didn't think a solicitor would

make a basic error like that and hag was

arrested as a result of that error well

according to court records hag was

imprison three times between 1934 and

1943 for theft and fraud but prison life

didn't dampen his desire to make money

he knew if he was to become a part of

high societ Society then he'd have to

learn how to commit the perfect

crime hag's time in prison was far

removed from the lavish lifestyle he

aspired to he thought himself a class

above the petty criminals that he was

now rubbing shoulders

with I'm about to meet a man who knows

what life is like in Britain's toughest

prisons Bobby cumins was convicted of

armed robbery and manslaughter he now

runs a charity called unlock which helps

ex offenders and he knows at firsthand

the experiences you pick up from being

around hardened criminals if you're in

prison and you want to leave crime

behind it can be a great place for

rehabilitation if like H um you were a

prolific offender if you like you you

had it in you you wanted to learn about

crime greatest University in the world

is prison because there you can Network

there's there people there with

different skills so he would have been

planning um his next move in prison hag

learned about the crimes committed in

France in

1925 by the double murderer Sur to avoid

capture Sur disposed of the bodies ins

sufuri acid ha learned a great deal

about the the British legal system while

he was in prison thanks to books from

the prison Library brought to him by the

Padre but more importantly he learned

about the uses of sulfuric acid from the

prison library books too so he learned a

great deal about crime and a great deal

about assets he would have been told the

weakest link is your victim cuz in

especially in fraud your face is going

up it's not like if you're an arm robber

and you're putting a mask over your face

or anything like that with fraud its

front on so therefore the victim can

identify you in ID parades in

photographs that sort of thing so if

you're at the fraud game there's nine

out of 10 odds that you're actually

going to get nicked for the offense so

they what have said to him the weakest

link is is is your victims and in any

criminality what you you got to do is

eliminate the weakest link ha began

formulating a Sinister plan one he would

put into action on the day of his

release but to prepare he needed the

assistance of fellow prisoners and

access to sulfuric

acid it was during his time in Lincoln

prison that he was given a position in

the tinsmith factory there he gained

access to sulfuric acid he wanted to

discover if like suray he could dissolve

bone and tissue he used to bribe other

prisoners with small amounts of tobacco

these prisoners were allowed outside the

Prison Walls during the day and they

would bring dead field mice back into

the prison for hag and hag also stole

small amounts of sulfuric acid from the

stores and obviously while the waters

weren't watching he would line up the

jars on a workbench fill each jar with a

small amount of acid and then drop a

mouse into each jar and then very

patiently would sit and watch to see how

long it would take a mouse to

disintegrate in a certain amount of

sulfuric acid so in other words he

worked out a scientific formula which he

thought maybe later he could apply to a

human being and all he wanted was the

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opportunity I think that's an

interesting thing this one piece will

make 52 layers watch on mobile devices

or the big screen all for free no

subscription

required I'm Fred Dage and I'm examining

the life of John George ha he was known

as the Acid Bath murderer because of the

horrific way he disposed of his

victims in 1941 John George ha was

serving a sentence for theft in Lincoln

prison it was his third spell in prison

but hay was determined that when he was

released he would make money from a life

of crime no one would stand in his way

but it's still quite a leap isn't it

from from fraud to murder it is a big

leap but again the motivation for hag

simply seems to be an extension of the

frauds that he committed earlier uh in

the 1930s and earlier in the 1940s but

essentially he wants to make money ha

left prison and began looking for a

wealthy victim to exploit a chance

meeting at the goat Pub in Kensington

presented him with the opportunity he'd

been looking for William mwan had

employed hag as his chauffer back in the

1930s they'd become friends but lost

touch when hag went looking for other

work how close was hag then to mawan and

vice versa well John hag and William

mawan were both the same age and they

got on very well and for a period they

became quite close friends uh hag

certainly uh admired young M Swan's

lifestyle because he used to collect the

rents of the six mwan properties in West

London and I think Hy watched him do

this job and realized that he was

obtaining quite a nice sum of money

every week that his family lived on and

he wanted that lifestyle hay regaled his

old boss with Tales of his own recent

business ventures although he'd actually

been in prison over the next few days

they would meet several more times hag

was just waiting for the perfect moment

to put the plans he'd hatched in prison

into action ha said he had an

engineering Workshop mwan said he had

some pinball machines that he wanted

repaired and hag said he would do the

work and he invited mwan down to the

basement no one truly knows what

happened to William mawan hag's own

account calls that his old friend asked

him to look at a pinball machine with

his head bent hay pulled out a metal bar

and killed William mawan with several

heavy

blows hay was left with the body of his

murdered friend using the skills he'd

learned in prison he dumped his first

victim in acid it sto an an old drum

from an old wartime bomb site and he got

the body of MW into the oil drum and

then he began the ma business of filling

it with acids in order to protect Hag

from the acids he uh developed a very

sophisticated uniform which consisted of

a of a large rubber rain coat um rubber

gloves that came up to his elbows uh

long thigh length wer boots and on top

of that he had an old Leathers butcher's

apron and to protect his nose and his

eyes and his mouth from the fumes of the

acid he stole a wartime gas mask so you

can imagine this figure must have been a

very very Sinister sight indeed not easy

to lift people and put them in Vats of

of acid is it no it it isn't easy at all

and so there's obviously some

physiological strength that he needs as

well as the psychological strength to be

able to go through the process that he

would go through and that does seem to

me to take a certain type of mentality a

certain type of psychology to be able to

do so that ability to

compartmentalize his life seems to me to

be quite extraordinary and in hag's case

is one of the consistent features of his

behavior the first

murder how momentous would that have

been for him how difficult what you're

talking about now is a Comm man who's

glib tonged sve sophisticated knows his

trade now you're going into murder

totally different Bull game killing

another human being is one thing being

able to dispose of the body as another

and be able to come to terms with that

now if you can come to terms with that

once you've done one half a dozen ain't

too many hag had successfully killed and

disposed of his friend's body the

problem he now faced was covering up M

Swan's disappearance he went and saw his

victim's parents and told them their son

had fled to Scotland to avoid

conscription naturally they were upset

but they had no reason to disbelieve

hag's story it was a mistake which was

to cost them their lives hey began to

befriend William M Swan's parents his

trusting manner Charmed the couple into

employing him as a rent collector it was

the job that their son had been doing

before his disappearance the money he

made from them afforded him a good life

hag's intention was to get hold of the

mwan properties and he obviously

discovered that the Deeds of all the

properties were in the names of the two

senior M wans and it was in

1945 that he invited Donald mwan to come

down to the basement and the story was

that their son was making a surprise

visit back from Scotland and would be

reunited with the father in the

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basement it was a dreadful trick to play

on this old man

uh within a few minutes of Donald mwan

arriving in the basement he was killed

with an iron bar across the back of the

head and only uh an hour or so so later

he then invites Amy mwan to come down to

the basement and he kills her in the

same fashion and he had two oil drum

standing side by side ready to dispose

of a husband and wife in a single

weekend no one knows just what Amy M

Swan saw when she walked into hag's Lair

did she see her husband dead in front of

her perhaps she never made it that far

whatever happened hay left that

Workshop

alone we never ever discover what

happens to the MC swans because the

sludge at the bottom of the barrels in

which he's dissolved these poor people

is poured down the drains of London and

goes into the toms you know he's

literally oblit ating an entire family I

find it hard to imagine just how one man

could not only kill a whole family but

then also make them disappear Professor

David Wilson has invited me to witness a

simple experiment to replicate just how

effective hag's process

was David tell us what we're seeing here

well for any murderer to be successful

he's got to get rid of the body and in

controlled circumstances and using the

lovely we're going to replicate the

kinds of behavior that hag showed with

his victims which we're going to use

concentrated sulfuric acid not the body

of a person but a piece of chicken and

see how long it's going to take to

dissolve which is of course what hay did

with his

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victims now of course remember it's a

microcosm so we've only got 2 lers of

concentrated sulfuric acid

hey had three carboys of sulfuric acid

which literally a Carboy is 40 Gall so

he has 12 gallons of this stuff uh

because of course he's trying to get rid

of a much bigger body than our small

piece of chicken the process of

purchasing sulfuric acid is the same

today as it was in the 1940s you can

only buy it from a licensed supplier and

you need to give a clear reason for its

use not a problem for a fraudster like

hay he set himself up uh a bogus

business uh called Union group

engineering he hired a basement in the

Gloucester Road in London which was

supposedly his Workshop but he began to

stockpile quantities of acids he bought

these acids um by sending off letters

and when he signed a letter it was from

liaison officer John George ha and no

questions were asked the delivery took

place well the piece of chicken's been

in there what five minutes and already

it's appearing to if you like cook yes

well it's going to burn this is the this

is the process of how the the body fat

will disappear how difficult would it

have been for him do you imagine to do

this for the first time with a with a

human body oh incredibly difficult um

most murderers when they start if you

think of murder almost as a skill you

well when you pick up a skill for the

first time you're not very good at it

and of course most murder are dealing

with a range of emotions that they're

going through when they have the control

over their victim some of them might be

excited some of them might be frightened

some of them might be anxious but of

course they're learning how to deal with

somebody they've got in their complete

and utter power as ha did the only

people that kill on the SP of the moment

are the sort of people that are domestic

killers and we call that the Red Mist

it's it's done in Anger they lose their

faculties and they kill when you playing

murder is is the systematic shutting

down of your own Humanity if you like

you know the same as when you're doing

violence when you're doing violence for

money what you've got to do you got to

shut down every emotion every feeling

everything about it's just that bit of

work to be done and that's what he would

have practiced while he was in prison is

shutting off emotion you've got to be

able to shut off emotion otherwise you

couldn't do it after murdering the M

swans hay forged their signatures and

made people believe they immigrated to

America America he then successfully

sold off their assets allowing him to

lead the lifestyle he aspired to nobody

questioned the young charmer and he made

himself just over

£100,000 in today's money so now he's a

wealthy

man he he was for a period of some three

years he lived off the mwan money uh and

it amounted to several thousands of

pounds which in today's money we think

was probably about £100,000

and he had a wonderful life for about 3

years this was just what he was aiming

at this was the lifestyle he'd been

seeking from the beginning and he had

achieved it ha was finally living the

lifestyle he craved staying in exclusive

hotels buying expensive cars and

entertaining the upper classes with no

other income his fortune quickly began

to disappear he should have been able to

survive comfortably on the money that

he' got but he squandered it didn't he

yeah because easy come easy go he's got

£8,000 this time and he's spent that

well next time he'll get 12,000 there's

a recklessness to his behavior it's not

that he's complacent it's more that um

once he hasn't being caught once that

metaphoric hand on the shoulder didn't

appear he begins to feel himself quite

Invincible I suppose once you've got

away with one murder and then a second

then a third how do you reverse how do

you stop that behavior living the High

Life hag's greed meant he needed to find

another victim and kill

again I'm Fred Dage and I'm

investigating the crimes of John George

ha The Man known as the Acid Bath

murderer in 1946 he killed the three

members of the mawan family and disposed

of their bodies in acid their murders

had netted him a small fortune but the

money began to disappear almost as

quickly as his victims had he's very

interesting as a serial killer he's not

typical by any means for one he's

killing a very different group of people

he's killing wealthy middle class upper

middle class people people who are going

to be missed because that's not the

common pattern of Serial killing in

Britain by 1947 the thousands hag had

made from killing the maans had been

blown on on his lavish lifestyle

overdrawn and being chased by creditors

he knew what he had to do he needed to

find new victims but he had another

problem to deal with first he no longer

rented the workshop in London where he

carried out his previous killings he was

looking for a new quiet location that's

exactly what he found here at Leopold

Road in Crawley he rented the workshop

and moved his acid raincoat gloves and

gas mask into to his new center of

operations now heg needed to find

particular types of victims to charm

they had to be wealthy and crucially the

sort of people who wouldn't be missed I

mean you've done time with fraudsters

you've known a lot of frauders what's

the technique that someone like hey uses

to if you like con is

victims it's

charm um also it's I talked to a famous

fraudster once man and he was probably

one of the best in the world when I was

in in prison and he millions of pounds

was involved and he said you can only

kind a greedy person he fed their ego

and and when you're talking about

comment comment they got massive egos

their s they really think that that they

can con the world and so to him he was

feeding them the food they wanted I he

was stroking their ego and in return he

was robbing him he answered an ad for

the sale of a house in London he offered

the wealthy owners the Henderson more

than the asking price telling them it

was

undervalued he he managed to get himself

into the company of a very fashionable

London couple named the Hendersons

Archie Henderson and Rose Henderson they

were quite wealthy they owned a block of

flats and they owned a small shop called

the dolls Hospital in West London and

hag considered these to be ideal victims

uh for for the Acid Bath and for him to

take over their Lifestyles he simply is

very good at trying to identify suitable

victims to bump off whom he will be able

to use to gain more and more income hey

LED Archie Henderson to believe that he

was a successful businessman with an

engineering company in Crawley he

proposed a joint venture and Henderson

agreed to visit hag's site on Leopold

road on the 12th of February 1948 John

he he bought Archie Henderson to see his

new workshop here in Crawley they went

inside the workshop and when the

unsuspecting Henderson turned his back

hay produced a revolver and shot him in

the head the revolver had actually

belonged to Henderson himself and hag

had stolen it from the Henderson's flat

uh he taught himself how to use it and

within a second or two he had shot

Henderson dead he then went back to the

Metropol Hotel to tell Rose Henderson

that her husband had been taken early in

Crawley and would she come up to see him

and without any question at all she

jumped into the car and was brought up

to Crawley supposedly to have a reunion

with her husband uh but within a few

seconds of her walking into the workshop

she was shot dead too and for the second

time in his career he had two oil drums

standing side by side ready to get rid

of a husband and

wife as with his other victims hay

placed the bodies in the oil drums he

then pumped in sulfuric acid he went

away for the weekend and when he

returned he was going to pour away the

sludge that had formed but there was a

problem the basement in London had a

convenient drain down which he could

dispose of the uh the residue of the

bodies when he moved to leopo Road in

Crawley there was no drain and he had to

wheel the drums out of the Workshop into

the the yard and it was a builder's yard

but it was full of rubble and he found a

nice corner where he could empty the

drums into the

rubble it's been an hour since Professor

Wilson began his experiment to replicate

how hag used sulfuric acid to liquefy

his victim's

bodies a murderer if he's organized and

successful gets rid of the body he hides

the body body he buries the body in

hag's case he wants to completely

obliterate the body now that's partly

because heg misunderstands This legal

term called Corpus dele which means the

body of evidence heg misunderstands this

and thinks if there's no body as in the

body of evidence he can't be charged but

of course that's his misunder

understanding of that phrase Corpus Dei

which simply means that there is

evidence a body of evidence to be able

to convict the culprit and what should

happen to this piece of chicken is what

did happen to hag's victims yes well

it's going to burn this is the this is

the process of how the the body fight

will disappear but remember this is part

of ha's misunderstanding of the

experiment ha thinks everything is going

to disappear there's going to be

literally nothing left whereas in fact

there is going to be a residue and it's

that residue that's going to be very

important in bring bringing hag to

justice for now hag was still at large

he' pocketed over £200,000 in today's

money from the Henderson murders making

people believe they'd immigrated to

South

Africa once again he's in the money and

once again he managed to spend the money

yes he made another nice nest egg out of

the the Henderson's money but whereas

the mwan money lasted three years years

the Henderson money only lasted a year

as if his spending had accelerated at

quite a rate and he's in the red yet

again in 1949 and looking for another

victim for the Acid Bath at Crawley heg

had been a permanent resident at the

enlo court hotel in Kensington for

several years surrounded by a variety of

wealthy targets he just had to choose

his next victim flossy Franklin and her

friend Sally were regular visit visitors

to the hotel their nephew Richard

Franklin remembers how they came face to

face with the killer tell us about your

aunts and their relationship with the

onsl

called well my Aunt Irene known as

flossy and Sally were very typical uh

country women they would come up to

London once a fortnite to do their

shopping at harro's as you do and have

their hair done and they would spend the

weekend at the onow court hotel which

was very comfortable they could feel at

home and the sort of people who went

there were similar people probably

people who were living on family trusts

but um I mean it is significant this

because the money that they would have

was probably not as much as they would

like to have had so I think it if a very

smooth Operator comes along and uh chats

them up and tells him about his uh

wonderful business opportunity and I

think they might have been thought it

was that's rather rather exciting

perhaps we can improve our income a

little bit did your aunt ever say to you

that she'd had conversations with oh yes

yes he used to sit down and have tea

with them he was Charming he would go

around and obviously he was susing out

the field if serial killers had horns on

their heads if they looked like the

devil you would avoid them but of course

if they're Charming if they're plausible

if they're

entertaining then of course you're going

to trust them a lot more more and they

can gain access to you to potentially

become their next victim your aunt could

easily have been for all we know his

next victim oh I think she undoubtedly

was on the list I don't think there's

any question about that I mean if he'd

had tea with her once with them once and

thought they were sort of not what he

was looking for he wouldn't have

bothered to have tea with him again um

and I think they had quite a lot of

truck with him would your aunt you think

had he persisted in for want of a better

word chatting her up yes had he

persisted would she have been gullible

enough do you think to oh yes oh yes I

think so my aunt would rush into

anything and she would be easily duped I

think if it had got

to an actual invitation to go to Sussex

I think my aunt said oh how lovely yes

shall we drive in your car or mine bless

her she was well named as flossy I think

she she would have um been you know sort

of upended into into the barrel of of

acid

straightway Richard Franklin's Aunt

appears to have had a lucky Escape but

the same can't be said for another

Resident of the enlo hotel Mrs Olive

Duran Deacon even these names sound

wonderful don't they Fred the honors L

Court hotel Mrs Duran Deacon you can

tell the kind of character that hag is

uh attacking ha managed to sit at the

same table t as her in the dining room

and they got chatting about all sorts of

things um he must have discovered that

she had quite a nice little uh Nest Egg

tucked away in the bank in fact she had

£36,000 worth of stocks and shears hey

befriended Mrs Jan Deacon and over

several dinners she explained about her

ambition to start a Cosmetics business

producing false

nails it was music to the fraudsters

ears they agreed to become business

partners and hag suggested she visited

his premises in Leopold

Road what do you suppose her reaction

would have been when she opened the door

to this ramshackle premises she must

have been pretty horrified and very

surprised because on that day it was a

Friday in February 1949 she was dressed

in her best fur coat she had her best

jewelry on a lovely handbag rings on her

fingers and a pearl necklace around her

neck and hay led her to this very grimy

Workshop in a builder's yard in Crawley

and it was a very Stark Place Mrs Jiran

Deacon didn't have much time to take in

the surroundings hag led her to a

workbench to show her some plans with

her head lowered he pulled his revolver

from under the counter and placed it on

the back of her head he shot her dead

with one single

bullet I'm Fred Dage and I'm

investigating the real motive behind the

horrific murders carried out by John

George hay the Acid Bath

murderer his thirst for money compelled

him to kill six people he thought he'd

never be caught if he disposed of his

victim's bodies in acid hag's sixth

victim had been a wealthy Widow Olive

Jan Deacon a fellow resident of the

luxurious enlo Court hotel he's running

out of control Fred he doesn't know how

to put the brakes on nor does he I think

want to put the brakes on he once he's

on this journey he's going to continue

on this journey until he's actually

stopped ha had to dispose of Mrs Jan

Deacon's body as with his previous

victims he placed her corpse into a bath

of acid once she was in the drum um he

took a tea break he came out of the yard

he walked up the efield road and he went

to a Cafe called the ancient priors and

he ordered himself poached eggs on toast

um and he had a long friendly chat with

the proprietor of the cafe as if nothing

had happened um and then within half an

hour he had strolled back to the

workshop to carry out the disposal of

Mrs Duran

Deacon hay poured the remains of the

acid into a corner of his yard he then

returned to the enlo Court hotel to

cover his tracks however he hadn't

accounted for the fact that unlike his

previous victims Mrs Jan Deacon would be

missed for a couple of days he looked as

though he'd got away with it but in fact

whereas no one had reported the other

five people missing uh two days after

Mrs Duran Deacon had failed to return to

the enow court Hotel her best friend

Miss constant Lane decided that she

would go to Chelsea Police to report as

a missing person the police visited the

enlo Court hotel to conduct inqu quiries

one officer felt that 39-year-old hag

was out of place amongst the elderly

residents checks revealed that hag had a

criminal record for fraud and the police

started to look into the business

activities of this supposed

gentleman the police quickly discovered

hag's Workshop here in Crawley but

nothing could have prepared them for

what they found it was like a scene from

a hammer horror movie on the huntt to

find evidence that would in Criminal ha

detective Sergeant Pat heslin forced

entry into the leapold road

Workshop heslin walked straight into

hag's Workshop of death and discovered

all his implements heslin recovered the

revolver and the bullets he also

recovered a small little bit of paper it

was the receipt for a dry cleaning shop

in rygate he went there on the Sunday

and he recovered a fur coat it was the

fur coat belonging to Mrs Duran Deacon

hay realized that the game was up that

point so he changed his T completely and

he decided to make a confession he

confessed to killing Mrs Jen Deacon but

then to the the astonishment of the

police he began telling them all about

the other five killings and the

disposals but he thought that they

couldn't touch him ha believed the acid

had dissolved his victims and if the

police couldn't find a body then there

were no legal grounds to convict him he

was wrong on both counts our experiment

with Professor Wilson reveals the error

that brought hag to justice so David is

our chicken after just 2 hours in the

sulfuric acid we can see that the

chicken is obviously diluted inside some

of the body fats have been burnt off

there's a change in color and we used

another piece of chicken in sulfuric

acid which has been diluting for uh one

day and here's the result it's this

sludge this type of sludge though that's

going to be the beginning of his down

fall in relation to Mrs Durand Deacon

one of Britain's leading forensic

Pathologists Professor Keith Simpson was

brought in to examine hag's premises in

the corner of the yard he discovered 28

lbs of human body fat part of a human

foot and a set of Dentures which were

shown to belong to Mrs Jan

Deacon hag became desperate he had one

last con up his sleeve he believed might

save him from The Gallows a plea of

insanity hay claimed that all his crimes

had been committed to satisfy a Lust For

Blood hag put this Blood drinking claim

into his statement at a very early stage

um so if he was doing it he was acting

very cleverly indeed but I think he was

putting it in to perhaps try and show

that in he was insane and in fact that

was the defense that his was given at

his trial that he was insane and

therefore shouldn't hang in July 1949

hag's trial for murder began at Lewis

Crown Court now such a Sinister set of

killings had generated huge public

interest and the streets outside were

packed with people curious to take a

look at the man the Press had labeled

the vampire Vernon evered remembers the

trial as if it were yesterday if you

hadn't known what he' done was he the

sort of bloke you could have passing the

street yes yes he could could have been

a bank

manager that's what he looked like

Immaculate Vernon was a copy boy working

for the local newspaper he got to

experience the atmosphere of a trial

that remarkably only lasted for 3 days

there was a lot more interest in that

sort of case because bearing in mind

there's no TV it made it a sensational

story and was the was the talk of the

day

people talked about it at work what's

happened today you know they brought the

oil drums in today and all this sort of

business there were 33 Witnesses some of

them virtually only said one or two

words like yes or

no you know did you see Mrs D and Deacon

come back into the hotel

no during the trial hag's defense team

didn't deny the murders instead they

tried to portray their man as being

mentally ill and therefore unable to

fully appreciate the morality of his

acts and his claims hag's claims that

there were other victims who he killed

because he wanted to drink their blood

yeah there was no there was no other

circumstantial evidence and the police

never followed those up anyway blood

drinking was um another part of the ploy

because of the the fact that one of the

doctors said in between the disposed of

Mrs Duran Deacon he went to the Jord

hotel and crawling had poached eggs on

toast and then came back and had appli

the blood a doctor said there's no way

that would be possible without him

absolutely um you know vomiting and

being ill and you know this was another

sort of figment of his imagination well

he was a psychopath wasn't he he was he

was cleverly

Criminal

it took the jury just 15 minutes to come

to a conclusion ha was found guilty and

sentenced to death there was almost a

sort of I can't remember clapping or

anything but there was a a sense of um

just Justice will be done you know when

uh when the sentence of death was

pronounced they said to him after he was

sentenced have you anything to say and

all he said was nothing at all the

feeling was he deserved all he was going

to get from wesworth prison ha wrote

letters to his family there were no

signs of remorse for his

victims well in fact The insan Plea was

never going to be really successful was

it because we know that he killed for

money he was quite careful about trying

to cover his tracks indeed we never

discovered the Hendersons that he

murdered we never discovered the MC

swans whom he murdered and clearly he

was benefiting financially from what he

was doing on the 10th of August

1949 John George hay was marched the 15

Steps to The Hangman's noose in the time

it's taken me to recount this story The

Acid Bath murderer was dead in the eyes

of the law Justice had been

served if he could look down now that he

might be and see us talking about him

how would he feel about that he'd love

it every serial killer I've worked with

loves their Public Image loves their

media the media attention they're able

to generate I think he'd be glorying in

in all the agulation that still

surrounds him I mean we're talking about

a case now that happened in 1949 and yet

here we are still talking about this

extraordinary man and I think he would

take a great deal of delight about that

even though we're talking about hag

we're also talking about the

circumstances that allows hag to kill

we're talking about the victims of hag

we're talking about those people who

really matter we're talking about the

circumstances that some people can use

to commit murder and that to me is far

more important rather than giving

celebrity to the likes of hag even

though hag would have loved the

celebrity I set out to discover what

could make a man murder six people and

dispose of their bodies in such a

callous manner from the evidence I've

heard he was a cold-hearted killer a man

with no conscience who would do whatever

it took to make money and satisfy his

aspirations to live the high life for

John George hag though his crimes didn't

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