John Christie was born in 1898 into a reportedly affectionless and abusive family. Christie began stealing at a young age and eventually would be jailed and lose several jobs due to his thievery. He served in World War I, where he suffered for years following a gas attack, and was a memeber of the Reserve Police during World War II. It was during this latter was that Christie apparently began to murder.

Christie had moved into the now infamous 10 Rillington Place in London sometime during the year 1938. His first victim, indeed all of his known victims, was killed at the flat. Her name was Ruth Fuerst, and Austrian he lured home while his wife was away. Christie strangled her and buried the corpse in his garden. The same burial place awaited his next victim, Muriel Eddy, after she succumbed to a lethal gassing while visiting the Christie home.

Neighbor Timothy Evans began the most bizarre aspect of the Christie crimes when he confessed out-of-the-blue in Novemeber of 1949 to murdering his own wife, Beryle and child, Geraldine. Their bodies were later found in a shed behind 10 Rillington Place, though Evans had claimed to have stuffed them down a drain. Soon Evans changed his story, claiming Beryle had died during a botched abortion by Christie and that Christie had then strangled the infant Geraldine. Timothy Evans was put on trial for the murders and lost a contest of word-against-word to the more outwardly respectable Christie. He was convicted and executed for his daughter's death.

Christie targeted his own wife, who apparently was cutting down on his opportunities to kill by being around the house to often. He strangled her and stuffed her under the floorboards of the flat. With more freedom Christie got creative and rigged up a sort of gas tent in the home. Three prostitutes fell prey to the contraption in early 1953 and all ended up inside a kitchen cupboard that Christie covered over with wallpaper.

The mild-mannered killer unexpectedly moved out of 10 Rillington Place in March of 1953 and new tenants soon took his place. Renovations quickly revealed the poorly disguised cupboard door and the three bodies concealed behind it. Further searching unearthed the two bodies from the garden and led to the discovery of the former Mrs. Christie under the home's floor. Also found was a human femur that had been pushed into service as a backyard fence post.

Christie was arrested on March 31, 1953, and soon confessed to all the murders except those of Timothy Evans' wife and child. He claimed insanity but was found guilty and hung on July 15, 1953.