TRUE CRIME FRIDAY: THE CASE OF JOHN HAIGH

Ninetoes goes back eighty years for a serial killer who operated during WWII in England, the Acid Bath Killer!

Hey there, true crime lovers! It is your favorite investigator, Ninetoes, and I am on the beat with the Case of John Haigh. I have my notebook in hand and coffee in my system, so let’s get to it!

John George Haigh (1909-49) was born to John Robert Haigh and his wife Emily. They were members of The Plymouth Brethren, a conservative protestant sect. He was their only child.

He won a scholarship to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield, then to Wakefield Cathedral, where he became a choirboy. He apprenticed with a firm of motor engineers, but quit after a year and took jobs in insurance and advertising. He was eventually fired after being suspected of stealing from a cash box. He was 21 years old at the time.

In 1934, he married Beatrice Hamer. This marriage would not last long. Later that year, he was jailed for fraud, and Beatrice gave birth to a baby girl while he was in prison. She gave the baby up for adoption and left him.

In 1936, Haigh moved to London and became a chauffeur for William McSwan, a well-to-do owner of amusement arcades. Haigh also tended the amusement machines. He then pretended to be a solicitor named William Cato Adamson. He had offices in Chancery Lane, London; Guildford, Surrey; and Hastings, Sussex. He sold fake stock shares, supposedly from the estates of his deceased clients. This scam was uncovered when someone noticed he misspelled Guildford as “Guilford” on his letterhead. He was sentenced to four years. He continued working as a fraudster and spent several more terms in prison.

His only regret in all of this?

He left his victims alive to identify him.

Around this time, he became interested in a French murderer, Georges Alexandre-Sarret, who disposed of his victims by dissolving their bodies in sulfuric acid. So, Haigh experimented on field mice. He discovered that it generally took thirty minutes for the body of a field mouse to dissolve.

Haigh’s “acid bath” murders began in 1943. When he was released from prison, he ran into his former employer, William McSwann, in a pub in Kensington. McSwann introduced Haigh to his parents, Donald and Amy. McSwann worked for his parents, collecting the rents on their London properties. Haigh became jealous of McSwann’s lifestyle. On September 6, 1944, William McSwann disappeared. Haigh lured McSwann into a basement on Gloucester Road, killed him by bludgeoning him with a lead pipe, and put McSwann’s body in a 48-gallon drum of sulfuric acid.

The body took two days to “mostly” dissolve…Haigh emptied the drum down a manhole. He told McSwann’s parents that their son had gone to Scotland to avoid being called up for military service. Haigh took over McSwann’s house and job, collecting rents for the parents. When the war was close to ending, the parents were curious as to why their son had not contacted them. On July 2, 1945, Haigh lured the McSwanns out to the Gloucester Road basement on the pretense that their son wanted to surprise them. Haigh killed them by bludgeoning them and disposing of the bodies in sulfuric acid. He stole their pension checks and sold their properties for £8,000 (approximately £440,000 in 2026).

By 1947, Haigh was starting to run out of money, in part due to his gambling habit. He found two more people to help solve his problem, Archibald and Rose Henderson. He met them by showing interest in a house the Hendersons were selling. Soon, he was invited to play piano at a party the Hendersons were throwing. While at their flat, he stole Archibald’s revolver to use in future crimes.

He rented a workshop at 2 Leopold Road, Crawley, West Sussex, and moved the barrels of acid there. On February 12, 1948, Haigh drove Archibald Henderson to the workshop on the pretense of showing him an invention he was working on. He shot Henderson in the head and dumped him in a barrel of acid. He lured Rose there, saying Archibald was not feeling well, then shot her and dumped her in a barrel as well. After he got rid of the bodies, he wrote a letter and forged their signatures. He sold everything they had, except for their car and dog, which he kept.

Haigh’s final victim was Olive Durand-Deacon, an older, wealthy widow of solicitor John Durand-Deacon. Olive was also a resident of the hotel where Haigh was staying. Haigh overheard her discussing a new idea she had with a friend for fake fingernails. Haigh invited her to his workshop, shot her in the neck stripped her of her valuables, including her Persian lamb coat, and dumped her in the acid bath. It did not take long for Olive’s friends to report her missing.

It also did not take long for investigators to zero in on Haigh, largely because of his arrest records for theft and fraud. The police searched his workshop, found his attaché case, and found a dry cleaning receipt for Olive’s lamb coat, as well as papers related to the McSwanns and Hendersons. This workshop did not have a drain, so Haigh poured out the leftover remains in a rubble pile at the back of the property. Pathologist Keith Simpson searched the pile and found: 28 pounds of human body fat, a partial foot, human gallstones, and part of a denture that belonged to Olive Durrand-Deacon (which her dentist testified to at trial)

Haigh eventually confessed to these murders as well as three others: a young girl from Eastbourne, a woman from Hammersmith, and a young man named Max. These other three murders could not be substantiated.

When Haigh went to trial, he pleaded insanity, claiming he drank the blood of his victims. Attorney General Sir Hartley Shawcross led the prosecution and urged the jury to reject the insanity claim, saying that Haigh acted with malice aforethought. Haigh’s attorney, David Maxwell Fyfe, called many witnesses who could attest to Haigh’s mental state.

It took the jury mere minutes to find him guilty.

He was sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out on August 10, 1049. Haigh was hanged by the neck until dead.

Until the next time, fellow investigators, keep your paper dry and your pencils sharp. I bid you successful investigations.

Darren “Ninetoes” Perdue is a book and media reviewer. When he is not reading, he is watching true crime shows, cooking for his family, or working on a plan for universal domination. If you see him on his porch, say hi. He does not bite…much.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing. Thank you for understanding.