Books
Jonathan Oates

John George Haigh, the Acid-Bath Murderer

What motivated John George Haigh to murder at least six people, then dissolve their corpses in concentrated sulphuric acid? How did this intelligent, well-educated man from a loving, strongly religious family of Plymouth Brethren become a fraudster, a thief, then a serial killer? In the latest of his best-selling studies of criminal history, Jonathan Oates reinvestigates this sensational case of the late 1940s. He delves into Haigh's Yorkshire background, his reputation as a loner, a bully and a forger during his years at Wakefield Grammar School, and his growing appetite for the good life which his modest employment in insurance and advertising could not sustain. Then came his move to London and a rapid, apparently remorseless descent into the depths of crime, from deceit and theft to cold-blooded killing. As he follows the course of Haigh's crimes in graphic, forensic detail, Jonathan Oates gives a fascinating inside view of Haigh's attempt to carry through a series of perfect murders. For Haigh intended not only cut off his victims' lives but, by destroying their bodies with acid, literally to remove all traces that they had ever existed.
334 printed pages
Original publication
2014
Publication year
2014
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Quotes

  • b4887897968has quoted3 years ago
    He has been portrayed variously as an enigmatic man of contrasts, a man scarred by his parents’ religion, or simply a calculating murderer.
  • b4887897968has quoted3 years ago
    It is true that he was not a sadist like Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, Peter Sutcliffe and Fred and Rosemary West; nor did he kill on the industrial scale of doctors such as John Bodkin Adams or Harold Shipman. There was no sexual dimension to his crimes, as with Christie, and no children were involved as in the Moors Murders.
  • b4887897968has quoted3 years ago
    which seemed to put him in a different sphere from the run-of-the-mill murderer.
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