The Acid Bath Murderer

Modus Operandi / Motive

Name John George Haigh
Aliases "The Acid Bath Murderer"
Location UK Born 1910
Died 10th August 1949 (Death by hanging, Wandsworth prison)
Status Deceased

No Victims: 4

MO

John George Haigh methodically planned each of his murders, with all three stages carefully though out to prevent untidy, or messy finishes to his activities.

The first stage was to isolate the victim from any familiarity around them. In all of the above cases, his victims were always led under a pretence of discovery, which was based upon his initial friendship established with each of them. Put quite simply, they had absolutely no reason to suspect Haigh of performing anything unusual, until it was too late.

The next stage was to cleanly render his target incapable of responding to his attack (via the use of a .38 Webley revolver). He concealed the gun upon his person once he had coaxed his intended target inside his workshop. Then Haigh would seize any opportune moment to kill the victim with as little effort as possible on his part.

Finally, and probably most difficult of all, was the traceless disposal of the body (vats of industrial acid). It was Haigh's mistaken (and arrogant) belief that a corpse could be completely disposed of via the acid. Unfortunately for Haigh, certain parts of the human body are more resilient to attack than most people realise, either by their very nature (such as teeth and bone) and artificial items (such as dentures) and are usually picked up as trace evidence by forensic experts. Haigh's false assumption that murder could not be proved without the body was to have lead to his downfall.

One other key element in all the murders is the violations performed on the victims in the consumption of blood. Though the murders were very important to Haigh, he also saw the need to sustain himself financially, and would thus strip the body of any valuables that he could use himself (things such as jewelry, and ration cards which he later used for himself). These would later be found at his home, which provided further damning evidence against him.
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Motive

The initial explanation that Haigh supplied was that he was a vampire, and as such required the life blood of the living to sustain himself. The elaborate disposal methods he used on the bodies afterwards was merely a systematic way of ensuring that he would not be caught. Whatever the decision, the jury were convinced that it was a hasty ruse given by Haigh as part of an insanity plea, to prevent him being hung. It took just 15 minutes for the jury to find Haigh guilty of his crimes, and being very sane when he committed them

It was a mystery how an intelligent boy from a good home could be shaped into the cool, calm and calculating killer which Haigh evolved into. It eventually was left to Haigh himself to define those seminal moments in his childhood which would culminate into life shaping events.

His father was intensely religious, and as a young child was embedded deeply into his upbringing, with a focus on the more negative references in the Bible involving "Satan", "Thou shall not..", "Thy will not..." etc. This was also coupled with very vivid dreams involving crucifixes transforming into trees that wept blood (a possible reference to the crucifixion of Christ at Golgotha).

An important point to note at this stage is that whilst his childhood experiences may have had a profound effect in his actions, he kept detailed accounts of his murders, possibly as a form of recollecting the events when he needed to "re-live" the experience (as a form of "trophy"). These records make for a very disturbing, yet fascinating reading into the mind of a serial killer.
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