What motivated John George Haigh to murder at least six people, then
dissolve their corpses in concentrated sulfuric acid? How did this
intelligent, well-educated man from a loving, strongly religious family
of Plymouth Brethren become a fraudster, a thief, then a serial killer?
In the latest of his best-selling studies of criminal history, Jonathan
Oates reinvestigates this sensational case of the late 1940s. He delves
into Haigh's Yorkshire background, his reputation as a loner, a bully
and a forger during his years at Wakefield Grammar School, and his
growing appetite for the good life which his modest employment in
insurance and advertising could not sustain. Then came his move to
London and a rapid, apparently remorseless descent into the depths of
crime, from deceit and theft to cold-blooded killing. As he follows the
course of Haigh's crimes in graphic, forensic detail, Jonathan Oates
gives a fascinating inside view of Haigh's attempt to carry through a
series of perfect murders. For Haigh intended not only cut off his
victims' lives but, by destroying their bodies with acid, literally to
remove all traces that they had ever existed.
