Timothy Evans

•Timothy Evans, 25• A Welsh van driver with an IQ of 70 • Boasted that he was the son of an Italian count, •Executed in 1950 for strangling his wife Beryl and his 14-month-old daughter, Geraldine,

                                                   

As an adult, he drank a lot and had a violent temper. 

He grew to only five-foot-five, weighing just under 140 pounds, which may have fuelled his volatile temper. 

He was described as a runt and for the rest of his life his intellect remained that of a boy of eleven. 

He met Beryl Thorley through a mutual friend who arranged a blind date. 

Within weeks, they were engaged and just as quickly were married. 

They lived for a while with Evans' mother, and Beryl developed a close relationship with his two sisters. 

They thought she was almost as immature as their brother, so they helped her however they could. 

Beryl turned out to be a poor housekeeper and cook.  She even neglected the baby at times.  They frequently fought, even striking one another.

The bodies of the mother and child were found buried in a washroom at their flat in Nottinghill, west London,

shortly after Beryl had told friends that she wanted to undergo an illegal

abortion.

Three years after Evans was hanged,

John Christie, a neighbour in the

house at 10 Rillington Place,

confessed to strangling eight female victims -

including Beryl. He too was executed.

Christie was abused by his father and dominated by his mother and sisters.

His one happy childhood memory, at the age of eight, was seeing his grandfather's corpse as it lay at rest in the family home; he felt powerful in front of the dead, helpless body of a man he had once feared

By the time he reached puberty, he already associated sex with death, dominance and violent aggression, rendering him impotent unless in complete control.

His first attempts at sex were failures, branding him as "Reggie-No-Dick" and "Can't-Do-It-Christie" throughout adolescence. He was a hypochondriac and hysteric however, and often exaggerated or feigned illness as a ploy to get attention.

Christie enlisted as a signalman in World War I, during which he was hospitalised after a mustard gas

attack, claiming to have been blinded. No record of his supposed blindness

exists however

                                                   

Christie married 22-year-old Ethel Simpson from Sheffield, on May 10, 1920. It was a dysfunctional union, as Christie was impotent and frequented prostitutes. Friends and neighbours gossiped that she stayed with him out of fear.

Over the next decade, Christie was convicted for many petty criminal offences.

He continued to seek out prostitutes to relieve his increasingly violent sexual urges, which included necrophilia.

Issues - The Timothy Evans Case

• Police interrogation went on much longer than admitted by the police, which indicates the possibility of forced false confession from a mentally-impaired man. 

• Christie was questioned, but apparently coached for the trial• There is an accusation that the police brainwashed Evans and beat

him until he made a false confession.  That made him so confused that he made a poor showing at his trial. 

• Should someone who is “mentally impaired” be punished with Capital punishment?

Forensic Evidence ?