VIDEO: The Acid Bath Murderer

One of the most bizarre and disturbing cases of mass murder is that committed by John Haigh, a respectable, well dressed, middle-class man who, in the late 1940s, disposed of at least six victims in a manner that led some to label him a vampire.

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His crimes involved luring his prey to a fate where their blood was consumed before being dissolved in acid.

According to Crime and Investigation Channel, John George Haigh was born on 24 July 1909 in Stamford, Lincolnshire.

Haigh’s parents belonged to a religious sect known as the Plymouth Brethren, who were purist and anticlerical. Bible stories were the only form of entertainment. Even participating in sports of any kind was forbidden.

The world was ‘evil’ and the family needed to keep themselves separate. As his father had also told him that the blue blemish on his own head had been the result of him ‘sinning’ in his youth, it is perhaps not surprising that the young Haigh became obsessed and terrified by developing a similar ‘sign of the devil’ due to the slightest misdemeanour. He was told that his mother had no ‘mark’ as she was an angel.

It is said that a turning point in the boy’s developing psyche came when Haigh realised that no such blemish would appear, despite having lied or committed some other questionable behaviour. He then started to believe that he was invincible and could get away with anything.

Claims of being afflicted by dreams of Gothic, nightmarish proportions, where trees would turn into crucifixes weeping blood, have to be viewed with caution. Haigh was later known to be manipulative and a compulsive liar, prone to saying anything to extricate himself from a compromising position.

At the time of his arrest for murder, his personal enquiries into what may befall him if he was found to be insane, is an indication that Haigh was aware that appearing ‘bonkers’ and damaged by his childhood would possibly work in his favour when it came to court.

In 1934 Haigh stopped attending his parents’ church and married Beatrice Hammer, a 21-year-old woman he barely knew. Despite having been impressed by Haigh’s manners and charm, she was uncertain about his character but still went ahead with the marriage on 6 July 1934.

Haigh’s parents allowed the couple to live with them although the marriage lasted only about four months, ending when Haigh was arrested in October 1934 and sent to prison for fraud. While he was incarcerated, Beatrice gave birth to a baby daughter, whom she gave up for adoption.

His next project, involving setting up a false solicitor’s office, earned him four years in prison. It was while he was incarcerated that he thought up a new scheme to become rich quickly, instead of toiling for a living. His plan was simply to go after rich, older women. Haigh had also convinced himself that if there was no corpse, then there could be no conviction.

Such a belief no doubt prompted him into working with sulphuric acid in the prison’s tin shop where he experimented on mice and made studies of the effects of acid on animal tissue.