In the garden of the decaying and bleakly narrow terrace house at number 10 Rillington Place Notting Hill rest a drain with a heavy manhole cover. When a trio of burly police combined their effort to remove the man hole cover they did not find a body, as they had been told they would by the short van driver who walked with a limp and presented in a way not at all deceiving of his disadvantaged life.
Timothy Evans then changed his story, telling police that his downstairs neighbour Reggie Christie had caused the death of Mrs Beryl Evans while attempting to procure an illegal and highly risky backyard abortion on his wife to prevent an unwanted second child joining the Evans family. Evans claimed that Christie then disposed of her body and arranged temporary child-care for their first child, baby Geraldine.
The subsequent search of number 10 when police returned to the address has been described as one of the most farcically inept searches on record.
For whatever reason, the prop wedged under the fence of the 4.8m by 4.3m rear garden of the address did not draw their attention despite being a human thigh bone. It would not have taken many turns of the sod to discover more human remains nestled within the topsoil.
This second version of the story would prove to be true, but for reasons known only to Evans, the original – and quickly disproven – story he felt compelled to offer voluntarily upon spontaneous attendance at a police station when he was supposed to be leaving town on the advice of Christie who thought it best to sell the momentos of the marriage and leave given the death of Beryl while Christie was ‘taking care of things’ for Evans, ultimately did him no favours at all.
None of the stories Timothy Evans had been telling for the majority of his brutish life had rung true with their audience; no one believed he was the son of an Italian count and after discovering an empty drain, Police didn’t believe Evans when he implicated Christie.
Instead, they brought Evans back to London after their fruitless search of number 10 but their fruitful search of Evans’ flat, where they found a stolen briefcase. The downstairs resident of the Victorian terrace slum advised police that Evans was a known liar and probably mad. Having been a ‘special’ constable during the war years, it’s likely the police ascribed far greater credence to the words of Christie than Evans from this point forward.
When Evans’ story-telling compulsion struck again, his claim that he had helped Christie carry Beryl’s body upstairs to the Evans’ family flat prompted police to again attend Number 10. On this occasion, within the small ‘wash house’ situated in the small garden which served as the only toilet facility for all tenants of the derelict building, the body of Beryl Evans was discovered wrapped in several clothes with baby Geraldine located close by within the 1.5m2 space, but under stacked pieces of wood.
During Evans’ fourth interview with police, he learned for the first time of his baby daughter’s death. Christie had not arranged temporary child-care for her after all. When Evans discovered that both his wife and baby daughter had been strangled, he apparently responded ‘yes, yes’ when asked if he was responsible.
In the months and years following, much speculation circulated as to the capacity of an illiterate man with an IQ of approximately 70 to have the presence of mind to genuinely confess to a brutal crime of his dependents so soon after learning of their true fate and without any professional or emotional support or legal advice.
Speculation was further fueled by his signature appearing on the bottom of a version of events comprising his ‘confession’ when the extent of his known literary skill for his whole life was signing his name.
If Evans’ confession was genuine, how could the bodies have gone unnoticed in such a small area housing the only toilet facilities for the entire building? How could the stench of human remains not made their presence known in the most unmistakable way?
Mrs Christie herself confirmed she had been in and out of the washroom on two dozen or so occasions since Evans departed. Notably, this evidence had been ‘adjusted’ by the date of the trial claiming she had not been near the wash house at all during the relevant time. This being the case, one must really wonder how Mrs Christie answered the call of nature during this time and what prompted her sudden departure from her previous pattern of using the washroom regularly.
The story surrounding Evans’ confession appears to unravel more when you consider that carpenters and workmen used the washroom all day on the date Evans supposedly left the bodies of his nearest and dearest there. And the wood that concealed the body of baby Geraldine had been given to Christie by one of the carpenters who had pulled the floorboards of his own flat. The same carpenter mysteriously claimed to have left for Wales shortly after confirming this. The carpenter was not called as a witness in the trial of Evans.
Christie served as star witness for the prosecution who it is rumoured got wind of a possible strategy to be led by the defense and changed their indictments from two counts of murder to one count of manslaughter by provocation with respect to Beryl and one count of murder with respect to baby Geraldine. Christie provided evidence of frequent & occasionally violent quarrels between the Evans’ and the Crown was allowed to lead evidence regarding the discovery of both bodies, at the same place on the same day because the two deaths were so closely connected.
Christie emphatically denied having offered to procure Beryl’s abortion and claimed to have reformed in the time since his previous convictions for violence and honesty based offences, having held responsible clerical and administrative positions in addition to serving in the wartime ‘specials’.
Evans’ poor performance as a witness may be explainable today on the basis of his illiteracy, low IQ, disadvantaged life, lack of access to legal advice and trauma arising from losing his closest loved ones and attempting to navigate the situation he found himself in. In 1950 however, his poor performance compounded the incriminatory effect of his three difference versions told to police and his ultimate ‘confession’.
After 40 minutes deliberation the Jury returned a verdict finding Timothy Evans guilty of the murder of his baby daughter Geraldine.
When Evans met with the experienced public executioner on 9 March 1950, he told him the same thing he had been telling anyone who would listen: ‘Christie done it’.
The True Justice 