John George Haigh - Definition and Overview

John George Haigh was a serial killer who admitted to killing eight people (but was only charged with six murders) in England in the 1940s.

He claimed to have drunk a cup of their blood after killing them and prior to placing the bodies in a container of sulphuric acid. He forged papers allowing him to sell their possessions and collect substantial sums of money; he also believed that the police needed a body before they could bring a charge of murder, and boasted about this to the police. Pathologist Keith Simpson spotted a human gallstone in the yard of Haigh's workshop. By sifting the surrounding earth he later recovered several pounds of human fat and a set of false teeth. Haigh was nicknamed the Vampire of London and the Acid Bath Murderer. There is no evidence for the "cup of blood" claim, and it seems to have been an attempt to plead insanity. A jury refused to accept this plea and convicted him of murder. He was sentenced to death and hanged (by Britain's Chief Executioner Albert Pierrepoint) in August 1949.

In 2002, Martin Clunes played Haigh in an ITV drama, A is for Acid. [[Category:Serial killers|Haigh, John George.