The Gas Killer. The Story of the Maniac John Christie

In March 1953, London police discovered the bodies of three young women walled up in the house at 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill. During a search of the building, another body was found under the floorboards and numerous bones in the garden. The tenant was a quiet former policeman, John Reginald Christie. But three years earlier, a double murder had already been investigated at this address, and the murderer was hanged. Did they catch the wrong person back then?

This story instantly became a sensation. Star reporters vied for exclusives, trying to understand the nature and motives of the killer. Christie seemed like a new type of maniac: empty, emotionless, a product of a brutal post-war world. He loved watching women—and loved killing them with gas. What drove him to murder? And how did he manage to outsmart the investigation to continue killing? "The Gas Killer" by Kate Summerscale details this chilling case.