The Two Killers of Rillington Place

by John Eddowes

Timothy Evans; Reginald Christie

Genres: True Crime

218 pages, Paperback

First published January 19, 1995

Reviews

[Martin McDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 10 Rillington Place murders are among the most notorious in British legal history, not least because of the complications involving conflicting confessions, witness statements and interpretations of the evidence. For a summary of the events see my review of The Man on Your Conscience by Michael Eddowes. In brief, it all revolves around which of the two male residents of 10 Rillington Place were responsible for the murders of fellow resident Beryl Evans and her daughter Geraldine, her husband Timothy, who was hanged for his daughter's murder, or their downstairs neighbour John Reginald Christie, who turned out to be a serial killer.

John Eddowes (son of the author of The Man on Your Conscience) takes the now minority view that, despite Evans being given a posthumous pardon in 1966, he was guilty of both murders. He sets out his case convincingly, pointing out numerous faults in the arguments put by others (chiefly Ludovic Kennedy in his book 10 Rillington Place) in favour of Evans's innocence and Christie's guilt. However, like Kennedy does but from the other side of the argument, I feel he goes a bit too far in condemning those with the view that Christie and not Evans committed the murders, some of his comments were a bit too personal for my taste. Still well worth reading to get a more balanced perspective on the case than reading Kennedy alone gives, but as with the other major books on this case ( The Man on Your Conscience and 10 Rillington Place) don't expect to read this and know what really happened - it's probably to late for that now.

[Deborah C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides an account which is compelling and more likely than the other book of note on this true crime event: 10 Rillington Place by Ludovic Kennedy, which I found interesting and readable, but the facts are unsubstantiated according to this account by John Eddowes.

Eddowes has included interviews verbatim which clearly show that Timothy Evans admitted to the killings of his wife and child. He went on to change his story, as circumstances permitted, in order to try and avoid execution, but did not succeed.

I am more inclined to believe Eddowes's take on events than Kennedy's: The man put to death was not an "innocent", and did kill his wife and baby. John Christie was a serial murderer, killing and burying many victims at this address. Each killed for their own and varying motives and both happened to live at the same address.