As his trial in 1949 would expose, John George Haigh was a callous killer whose motivation was always money and whose victims were always those he called his ‘friends’.

In February of 1949, Haigh’s gaze fastened on the woman who was to become his sixth victim. With cold calculation he premeditated not only her death but also a foolproof plan to defy detection.

A considered crime

He had known Mrs Durand-Deacon, a fellow resident at the Onslow Court Hotel in London, for four years. He had charmed her and the other elderly guests with his suave appearance, attentiveness and apparent prosperity. Haigh was deep in debt, and Mrs Durand-Deacon, with her expensive clothes and jewellery, became the means by which he sought to escape his creditors.

Haigh lured Mrs Durand-Deacon to his factory in Crawley, thirty miles south of London, to pursue a 'business venture'. Once there Haigh murdered Mrs Durand-Deacon, took her expensive clothes and jewellery to help pay off his debts, then disposed of her body.

The method Haigh used to do this was to manoeuvre Mrs Durand-Deacon's body into a forty gallon steel drum which, wearing his protective outfit of apron, gloves and mask, he later pumped full of neat sulphuric acid.

‘A mess of sludge’

He left her body there for a few days until it became, he boasted, 'A mess of sludge', which he later tipped onto the ground outside his workshop.

At this point, one of the outstanding characters of forensic medicine was called in. Keith Simpson was then a young pathologist, but his work on what became known as the Acid Bath Murder would become legendary.

Entering Haigh’s workshop, Simpson noticed finely scattered red spots above the workbench. The stains were photographed and then the areas of plaster were carefully removed for analysis.

Then, with characteristic flair, he spotted outside the workshop what looked like several small pebbles; about the size of a cherry, with polished facets. Simpson suspected, quite rightly, that they were human gallstones. Later, bones and personal effects were discovered, along with the damning evidence that helped convict Haigh: a set of dentures.

How can false teeth put a man in jail?

Mrs Durand-Deacon’s dentist was approached. She had treated Mrs Durand-Deacon for more that twenty years. During that time she had made her at least five sets of dentures. When presented with those extracted from the sludge she was able to confirm without hesitation that she had fitted her with this set in 1947.

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