Episode 589: John George Haigh: The Acid Bath Murderer
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Hey weirdos, I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. Woo! This is Morbid! I've had a ma-ha-ha blast. So I am cuckoo crazy. I almost said ah. It's affecting her too, folks. I almost said ah-sh. Ash.

Please do. Please go for it. Has become a Baja Blast at this moment. I'm always a Baja Blast. She's on a Baja Blast level. Because I had a chai, which had caffeine, and then I had eccentric migraine, which also has caffeine, and then I had a Baja Blast. So I might explode during this episode. My heart might explode. We might have to call an ambulance.

But that's fine. So, hey, everybody. Hi. This is just like a fun thing we just wanted to mention to you. We have another podcast, you know Scream. And you know the rewatcher, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's our favorite. It's so fun to do. And we have a blast with it. And we got a big get.

A big get. Huge. We got Juliet Landau to be a guest in the last episode. She's Drusilla. She's one of my favorite characters on the show, and it was a fucking huge get because 14, 15-year-old me would have never thought in a million years that I was going to be talking to Drusilla. No. Like, never. She was just on your wall. She was a...

Like a true treat. She is a delight of a human being. And I'm saying this to one, just be like, guys, because you're like my friends. So I'm like, friends, I got to talk to Drew. And also because Drusilla herself, Juliet Landau, has a podcast where she is going through Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And as a cast member, that's like a totally different experience. Yeah, and she has like her own Scoobies, she calls them. And it's called Slaying It. So go check it out.

Because, you know, like, game see game, you know? Hell yeah. Let's all support each other. So...

Go listen to it. It's awesome. She's awesome. I'm sure she's going to have some kick-ass guests. Oh, yeah. So it's definitely worth a listen and listen to the rewatcher because we love it and it's so much fun. And if you haven't watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it's a real fun time. Yeah, you can watch along with me. That's the whole premise of the show. Yeah, because Ash has never watched it. So this is her first time going through it and it's my like 5,500th time. We're already on season five. It's nuts.

Yeah. So let's go party. But that was just like a fun little thing I wanted you guys to go check out. After you listen to this episode, go listen to...

The rewatcher. Either slaying it or the rewatcher. Both. Like first and then third. You know what I mean? Well, second and then third. Hit one of them. Yeah. I mean, and then hit the other one third. I haven't had enough caffeine. Just listen to all the podcasts. Simultaneously. You guys know how to add to the queue. Just add it to your queue. Add it to your queue. Add it to your queue. Just swipe.

swipe i don't know which way you're like just swipe man just swipe man swipe swipe it swipe your hand on the screen of yours and see what happens i don't know if that's a commercial or like an actual song i don't know also sorry if you heard a it was my hair clip yeah back to the old days of ash fucking around with things that are in sorry i my my like fidgeting lately has been cuckoo nuts probably anxiety yep and stress

Yes. Yes and yes. I was like, I can diagnose those. Yeah, because actually I had to skip therapy last week because Drew got sick when we got back from D.C. And then I had tummy trouble. So I said, I cannot come in today, sister. I don't even have to go anywhere. I just threw it on my computer. But I said, I can't do it, babe. I cannot log on today. I said it way more professionally than that. And then she was out this week. Oh, no. So I'm two weeks raw dogging life.

Two weeks raw talking life. And it's not going well, bitch. It's not great. And life has been raw talking us. Honey, I thought that I was raw talking life. And life said, turn around, baby. Shit got me.

so real. My therapist doesn't even know. I hope she's enjoying vacation because honey, you got a big storm coming. She's going to be like, I'm going to tell her I need a two hour session. She's going to need therapy after

therapy session with you. She needs therapy after all my sessions, I think. She's also, let me just tell you, she's the kindest lady ever. Oh, I love that. I would give you her name, but HIPAA. Yeah, but HIPAA. She's so good. You know, therapists. Because to deal with my ass. Therapists out there, hell yeah. Yeah. You rule. I don't know how you do it. Thanks for existing, because damn. Because life just rocks. Where would we all be without you? Anyway. So, on that note.

We're okay. Don't worry about it. Sips Baja Blast. Wait, I'm sorry. That's how you know I'm in a bad place. When you're sipping your Baja Blast. When you're sipping a blue drink in the middle of a work day. A what? A blue drink in the middle of a work day. When I'm sipping on nuclear horse pee on a work day. That's when you know things are awry. Woo!

So speaking of a rye and somebody who could have benefited from therapy. That was a great transition. We're going to talk about John George Hay, who is the acid bath murderer. How about John George Nay? Yeah. John George Hay. Bye. John George bye. You got to make a gross face like, ooh. Uh-oh.

So let's talk about John George Hay, huh? He had quite a childhood. You said acid bath? Yep, I sure did. All right, I just needed to clarify. I love that like 10 minutes later, you're like, wait a second. Yeah. Acid bath, you say? Sometimes that doesn't penetrate like past the cranium. Yeah, that one was rough. All right. Rough childhood. But John George Hay had not a great childhood. Probably not. A tough childhood. Again, I'm...

I think you guys know by now, six years in, I'm not validating what he did by saying this. For a second, I was like, I'm not saying he should have done this. No, no, no, no. No. So John George Hay was born July 24th. That was yesterday. Whoa. Yeah.

He's a Leo. That's weird. I didn't even mean to do that. Yeah, you did. Why does that happen so often? You meant to. I'm just fucking with you. Why does that happen so often? That's weird. No, it actually, that's something that has happened since like the beginning of this pod. It really has. Or even like, like we would cover something and then like a major thing about it would break. Yeah, and it was always after. I was like, wow. Cause we're witches. Yeah, something's up with that. Or we just have bad timing. I don't know. But he was born in 1909, which it is not.

And he was born in Lincolnshire, England. I want to make sure I say it right for you guys. To John Sr. and Emily Hay.

Yikes.

Emily Hay, his mother, would say that, quote, the financial and emotional instability this caused at the time affected her son in the womb and twisted his mind. Wait, the financial instability did that? Yeah. The financial instability twisted a baby in utero's mind, and that's why he became what he became. I will say I've heard crazier shit than that, but that's high on the list. That one's pretty high up.

Forget it. If you were born during a recession, you're fucked. Yeah, your mind's twisted. I'm going to go ahead and say probably not. Yeah. But I'm not a doctor. Fortunately, John J. Sr. or John Hay Sr., excuse me, managed to find work with a mining company in West Yorkshire a few months after the birth of John Hay Jr. But it was too late. His mind was already twisted. Already twisted from the financial strain. Of it all. And the family relocated to nearby Wakefield. Now...

Here's where we're going to learn about, like, what his childhood was like, because above all else, this family was defined and ruled by religion.

They were devout followers of the Plymouth Brethren, which was a non-ritualistic and anti-clerical branch of Protestantism. They adhered to an incredibly strict, because I wasn't saying like religion, that's the problem. No. No, it's just this in particular is a wild way for a kid to grow up. More like a cult. It is a very strict set of inflexible rules from the Old Testament.

And this was also not the norm in England. It's not like everybody was going for this. And, you know, like this particular flavor of religious fervor and piety. You didn't call it a flavor. What did I call it? No, you did. Oh, I was like, what did I call it? You didn't call it a flavor. I didn't. Like, oh, no, she did not. This flavor of religious fervor and piety made them like oddballs to their neighbors. Like this was not accepted. This was not a thing that everybody was doing.

In fact, they were very disconnected from their neighbors because of it. And they considered their neighbors, quote, sinners and dangerous to their souls. So this is where I say this is the dangerous thing because this isn't like their set of rules that they're only keeping for themselves. This is them breeding an idea in that household that people around you are evil and demonic and that they are going to be the reason you don't get to...

Yeah, it's giving Ed Gein's mom. Yeah, so it gives the idea like you got to do what you got to do to make sure that you get to go to heaven. And it's also just creating like a crazy amount of isolation in a young child's life. Wild amount. Like among other things, Plymouth Brethren forbid any forms of entertainment, sports, or celebration. Oh, that's really sad. And reading is strictly limited to the Old Testament Bible and that's it.

Oh my God, how boring. Yeah, in a child, that's it.

No. Kids need other stuff. Your mind has to develop past just like... It's fine if you're religious, obviously. Of course. That can play a part in your life. But religious fervor is dangerous. That's the thing. It's like that can't be your whole life. Yeah, it's when it becomes to this extent that it's... That gets dangerous. Yeah, you have to be allowed to enjoy other things. In fact, John Sr. would frequently say to his son, it's a sin to be happy in this world. What? Yeah. I mean, I guess I'm not... No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, it's like...

I'm just joking. I'm just joshing. No, but he really would say that to his son. Holy shit. And John Jr.'s early life was devoted entirely to trying to avoid the actual, like, the infinite list of sin that was told to him to be in the world around him. Wow.

And he had to make sure he was obsessed with behaving in a way that would please God and ensure his spot in heaven. That's so much pressure. Because that's the whole message. It's like everyone around you is a sinner. Everyone around you is demonic. And they are all doing everything they can to trick you into a path that will lead to you not being allowed to go to heaven. Yikes. And you will displease God. And this is like a child. Yeah. But like the financial strain in the womb, though.

That was really it. I think that's probably. That did the worst damage. Now, believing the modern world to be very wicked and sinful. And happy. That wasn't very happy. That wasn't just like, you know, rhetoric for this family. It was a genuine belief. It was a belief that everyone around them, their neighbors, people they met, family, friends, anybody, they were a true, true threat.

to their eternal souls. Like, that is the idea here. Yikes. And in order to protect his family from this, John Sr. built a 10-foot tall fence around the house.

and would not let John Jr. go out in the yard or leave the yard. That's so dark. Yeah. Instead, John Jr. would just spend all of his free time indoors with his mother or just sitting in the house in a room practicing hymns on the organ for hours and hours. Oh, that could drive you absolutely mad. One reporter said he just sat there and dreamed dreams of a grim world of religious fantasy. Yeah.

Oh, God. But the financial strain in the womb. That's... There it is. It's wild that she pointed to that. I was like, really? That's all you can point to? Not the isolation?

But despite their fears of the outside world and the intense isolation that they put their child through, John's parents did know that a good education was something of value. Okay, that's good. So they encouraged their son to, and they kind of went too hard on this too because they really encouraged perfection at school where he went to Wakefield Grammar School.

He was remembered by his teachers as a good boy and a model scholar. I bet. But some of his teachers did call him a mischievous boy, but I think that's just like little kids. Oh, he was just trying to have fun when he wasn't at home. Exactly. And that said, this like enforced isolation that he was under all the time, especially from his peers and anyone else, that meant that he had no friends and he really didn't ever interact with kids his age. He was always around two adults at all times. Right.

And so he spent a lot of time, like he didn't really, he wasn't good at making friends. Yeah. And he spent a lot of time alone. But he did develop, and this later we're going to find out, like it's weird that he changes, but he developed a real love of animals. Yeah.

He used to really dote on rabbits that he found in the woods and he would feed the neighborhood stray dogs and cats. Like he was very, I think he just wanted friends. Oh, that's really sad. Like you feel sad for the child. Sad for the child, of course. Now, following his graduation from high school in 1926, things started to take a turn. Like he was suddenly seeing that there was a world. So John Jr. went to work for an engineering firm where he trained as a motor mechanic and

His father had worked as an engineer most his life. So John Jr. did have a strong interest in mechanical engineering. And he was actually hoping to follow in his father's footsteps because, again, that's literally all he knew. But within a few months, he found that the pace of the job and like the amount of manual labor involved in it was a little too taxing for him. He was very smart.

but he was a little lazy and he was disinclined towards physical work. And I think that's a lot of the time, I think that's like,

Because was he really doing a whole lot? I'm sure nobody was coming to their house. Their house probably wasn't like, yeah, it wasn't probably doing a ton of chores in that house. You know, like he just sat around all day and read the Old Testament and played hymns on the organ. That's what he was used to. So it's like now that he's being asked to like do work and he's like, I don't know what that is. He's like, that's a lot. He's like, I don't know. Can I just sit and read this Bible though? And they're like, no, you can't. They're like, that's not the job title at all. So he wasn't

loving it. So he was not willing to put in the work at the engineering firm and he quit. And afterwards, he took a desk job at an insurance company. And that's where he discovered that he did have quite a knack for numbers and accounting. Because again, he's a smart kid. By 1930, he had moved on to a larger, more specialized insurance company that also had like a focus on advertising. So here he was very successful.

But then his employer suspected that he was the one that had been stealing from the office cash box. Oh. And he got fired. That's a sin. Yeah. Stealing. As we'll see.

He takes a turn away from religion. I guess so. Yeah. So he got fired, but undeterred. And at 21 years old, he started his own advertising company, Northern Electric Newspapers Limited, which actually made a pretty brief appearance on the London Stock Exchange. Wow. Mildly successful. At 21, too. That's crazy. Which, again, sad. Looks like he had some promise here. And just used potential to a point and then...

I'm assuming it goes completely unused. And then he just took it somewhere else. Again, he was very intelligent. He had some skills that he really could have used. And in this moment, like at this time, it gave him the appearance of being successful, even though he wasn't doing like a lot of real work.

And his confidence and ability to persuade others, he was very charming. He somehow gained some charm and charisma through being isolated. I don't really know how. I wonder if he just like watched people for like kind of studied people. I think you are absolutely right with that. I think that's part of his thing is he studies people and takes pieces of other people's personalities because we'll see him do that when he tries to get an insanity defense as well.

So I totally agree with you. But this was also, like you just said, he watches people. This was going to be like a pretty critical thing in his criminal development as well. I had a feeling. Yeah. In the next couple of years, he started running a number of petty scams in the Leeds area. Because again, he doesn't really want to work for his money. Yeah. He just wants it easy. Yeah. So he started defrauding local businesses of like small amounts of money.

or he would just skip out on bills for services and see what he could get away with. Oh, that's shitty. Yeah. That's like H.H. Holmes. Yeah, it's fucked up.

Now, four years after starting his company, the first big thing occurred in John's life, a big major event. On July 6th, I don't know why I said July. And then you said sixth. July 6th, 1934. I need a speech pathologist. Yes. He married his girlfriend, 21-year-old Beatrice Hammer. Okay, cool. What a sick fucking name. Beatrice Hammer.

This marriage was like a shock to everyone. Yeah. Because they were like, who? What? It happened really fast. You're dating someone? Like, everyone was just like, what are you talking about? Very much so in Beatrice's family, because the couple had been dating like almost no time at all. And they knew nothing about him, her family. So they were like, what? Her sister, Rose Williams, told a reporter, Beatrice was married without our family knowing after a very quick courtship.

Oh, no. So they were like, yeah, super kind man. Yeah.

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Now, after experimenting with some small con jobs in the early 1930s, he started ramping it up. He's doing these little petty things. He's defrauding some businesses. Seeing what he can get away with. Seeing what he can get away with. Totally rebelling against that religious upbringing. Evidently. But it seems to have occurred to him at some point during this that there was easier ways of making money than putting in any kind of hard work because he's seeing it work. Yeah. Like he's seeing these frauds and these cons actually pay off. Right.

Later, he would say, I did not ask myself whether I was doing right or wrong. That seemed to me to be irrelevant, which is shocking.

And very against what he had drilled into him his entire life. Which it's like, that just went backfired. You wonder though if he just, I mean, it must have been really tough to grow up in the household that he did. So he probably has some kind of like disassociative personality where he can just turn it on and turn it off. Or something where he like compartmentalizes pieces of things. You know what I mean? Where it's just like...

Yeah, I didn't even think about that. Like something that could be used as a coping mechanism, but on its head could be used as something not so great. Yeah, it's very strange. Very interesting. But because of this, because he didn't really care if it was right or wrong, John began running a scam on local car dealerships.

He would buy cars under fake names, and then he would arrange to pay them on an installment plan, but then turned around and sold those cars to himself to someone else to make a profit. And when the dealership would inevitably start looking for the payments on these vehicles, they only had fake names and fake phone numbers.

So they couldn't find whoever bought it. How do you even think of that? Yeah. And the scam worked for a few months, but then he was caught in November 1934 and he was sentenced to 15 months in jail for forgery and fraud. Yeah. Now, not long before he went to jail for that, John and Beatrice had learned that she was pregnant. Oh, no. The forgery and fraud charge, along with the prison sentence, had apparently changed Beatrice's opinion of her new husband, which

And not long after he started serving his sentence, she decided they should be separated. Oh, that's really sad. The shame of this whole arrest business very deeply affected Beatrice, and she actually ultimately decided to put the baby, Pauline, up for adoption as well. Oh, wow. She told her family she, quote, did not want to bring her up as the daughter of a jailbird. Aw.

You could bring her up differently. Yeah, like you could take care of her. She'd be like, you're my daughter. Yeah. I'm bringing you up as my kid. Yeah. But John was released from prison after serving little more than a year of his sentence. And then he moved back in with his parents. And his parents lent him money to start a dry cleaning company.

But the company fell apart after his business partner was killed in a car accident. Oh, wow. And John was forced to close the whole thing. That's sad. Now, Hayes' jail time and his tendency to not be able to keep jobs didn't really seem to have much of an effect on his reputation, surprisingly. And he kept making contacts in the business world. Wow. Like, he was able to charm people.

He must be very adept at being charming. Yeah. Because those are the kind of guys where you go, how did no one fucking catch on? Yeah. But then you're like, he's got that thing like he just did. He's a Leo man. There you go.

One Leeds area lawyer told a reporter after Hay was arrested, I could not help liking him because of his charm. He seemed to be a harmless type with an amazing imagination. His manner of speech was almost entrancing, but a person of ordinary intelligence soon realized that beneath his charm and personality, he was a shallow individual. Yikes. But like on the surface, people are saying like he was almost entrancing.

Which is like shocking. It's like fascinating. But then you think he probably grew up watching like a priest or whoever led the services speak and studied that behavior. And their whole thing is they have to be – And then applied that. That you have to keep an attention of a large group of people. Yeah. And also he just had nothing but time. Right. Nothing but time to work these things out and to –

Now, no longer bound to leads by, you know, a job, a wife, anything. Anything.

He spent nearly two years just drifting around northern England and Scotland, going through several scams, like several little fraud things, and just getting money along the way. And during this time, he would pose as a solicitor, calling himself William Adamson. And as this alias, he would offer to handle business transactions for wealthy clients, right?

But when the time came to actually hand over the money, he would just disappear with their investments. Oh, that's so fucked up. Yeah. And this brief period of transience eventually led him to London. And there in 1936, he found work as a chauffeur to a man named William McSwan, who was the owner of several successful amusement parks and arcades. Oh, that's cool. So a very wealthy man.

Now, John spent several months working for the McSwan family and became very close friends with their son Donald's McSwan.

Then he left the job and returned to his criminal ways because, like, why have a job? Ew. You know? And John once again tried the solicitor fraud scheme, this time in Surrey, but he was quickly arrested for defrauding someone of 3,000 pounds, which is about $50,000 American in 2024. In November 1937, he was sentenced to four years in prison for fraud.

So John was released from prison in August 1940, just before the German army started their blitz campaign in England during World War II. And quickly, he found work as a fire warden in Victoria, London. Which is like, to me, that seems like what a job. Like you just come out of prison, you're like fire warden. Yeah. Like what? That seems like an important job. It does. How did that happen?

But a few months later, in February 1941, Hay, along with many other young men in the country, registered for military service. Yeah. At the height of the war, it's likely John would have been sent to fight. At this time, like, it's interesting to think of what would have happened if he did. But in June 1941, just six months after he left prison, he was arrested for stealing household goods. Right.

He was still on parole from his earlier conviction, so he was sent back to Lincoln Prison to serve the remaining 21 months of his sentence. Oh, wow. So he failed to attend the scheduled medical review for military service in 1943, and he avoided serving in the military. Wow. It is crazy to think, like, what could have happened. So many people could still, you know, could have lived. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, once again, he seems to have ignored any moral or religious training that he had growing up just in favor of quick, easy money. Yeah. Like he doesn't seem to be looking back on any kind of lessons that he learned, good, bad or otherwise. No. And he's just going his own way at this point.

He told several prisoners at one point, if you're going to go wrong, go wrong in a big way like me. Go after women, rich, old women who like a bit of flattery. That's your market if you're after big money.

I'm like, how did you learn that? I'm just fascinated by how he came to learn all of this. I am very fascinated by that. But as he had done so many other times in his life, he charmed the prisoners, he charmed the guards in prison, and eventually he got an easy job in the prison's tinsmith shop. And that's where he learned to work with acid and...

and other chemicals for the first time. The fuck were they giving prisoners acid to work with for? Yes, I'm saying. Here, just use this. And during this time, he managed to convince the inmates working in the field to bring, and this is like a trigger warning for animal cruelty, to bring him any field mice that they captured. Field mice are the cutest things you have ever seen in your life. They are so cute. And he would kill those field mice and then he would dissolve them in sulfuric acid that was kept in the shop.

And people were just like, yeah, sounds good. Yeah, they were just like, sure, I'll bring you some. Like, what? Who the fuck was out there collecting field mice for this dude? And what was he saying was his reason for this? Like, was he being like, I just want to dissolve them in acid? And they were like, sure. I wonder if he said that he was like experimenting or something. Yeah, it's...

Truly bonkers. According to Neil Root, who wrote Frenzy, the first great tabloid murders, New York, who will link the source in the show notes. He said he found that within 10 minutes, the acid darkened and the temperature rose to 100 degrees Celsius. After 30 minutes, only black sludge remained of the mice.

That's important for later. I don't want to know that. So John was released from Lincoln Prison in mid-September 1943, and he moved back in with his parents for a brief period of time. Oh, how lucky for them. Yeah, and then he ended up renting a small room in London, and while he was there, he got another job, like actual job. He got a job as a bookkeeper for Hirstlia Products.

If Hay had any plans for starting up another fraud scheme at this point, I'm sure he did. They were derailed pretty early in 1944 because he was in a car accident himself. Oh, shit. He did receive a bad cut to his head. The accident itself was minor, but this event would go on to play an important role in Hay's criminal evolution. At least he would claim later that it did, that he got, like, a head injury. Huh.

But it wasn't that bad. Okay. Yeah. So it was just convenient. He used a lot of things later. Now, in the summer of 1944, while drinking at the Goat on High Street, a bar in Kensington. That's fun. The Goat.

Hay ran into the son of his old employer, one Donald McSwan. Oh, yes. So the meeting was like a total chance occurrence, like nobody planned this. Yeah. But the two had spent many nights drinking there years earlier when Hay was employed by the McSwans. So Neil Root, who I just mentioned, suggests that Hay had maybe been staking out the location in order to run into him again, but it does seem like

It could go either way. Yeah. Like, we can't really prove that he was because it's very likely he could have run into him at this place. Yeah. But either way, weird. Who knows? Now, at the time, John Hay was jobless and honestly was on the brink of being homeless at the time. So it would have made sense for him to look up his former boss to maybe ask for his job back. Right.

But why he would need to do so in secret is the thing that's a little unclear. Like, why wouldn't you just go and ask him? Unless he pissed somebody off there. Yeah, you never know. But whatever it was, he did manage to run into Donald McSwan. And he seemed happy to see him and they seemed happy to see each other after so many years. It was a good meeting. All right.

And Donald McSwan, despite his family's vast wealth and privilege, he didn't really have a lot of close friends or relationships. Like, I think he was a little isolated, not intentionally or anything. Yeah. But according to author Gordon Lowe, the only people who appeared to have any real interest in him were his parents. That's...

I mean, it makes sense, but it's sad. Yeah. So Donald McSwan quickly found work for Hay, collecting rents from the renters of the McSwans' many properties around the place. And the two men rekindled their friendship. So he helped John get work. Yeah. Like right away. It was like, oh, I'll help you out. A good guy. Work for us.

So they spent a few months in a pretty close new rekindled friendship, which is nice. And during that time, Hay got to enjoy the benefits of having a very wealthy friend. And this wealthy friend never hesitated to spend his money on those closest to him. Like Donald McSwan would treat his friends like he used his money for good. I'm very nervous for Donald McSwan. Then in early September 1944, Donald McSwan disappeared without a trace.

Now, why do you have to tell me these things? I'm sorry. His parents were very surprised. He had some close relationships with like, you know, the men that he casually socialized with in bars around Kensington. Yeah. Who were also very surprised that he was just nowhere to be found. Right. In mid-September, like I said, he didn't have a lot of close friends, but he did have acquaintances. In mid-September, John Hay contacted Donald's parents, Amy and Donald Sr.,

And he told them their son had, quote, gone up to Scotland to disappear. And he implied that he had done so to avoid the military draft. Uh-huh. So since their son had a recent history of draft dodging and no real interest in joining the military and had repeatedly expressed this disinterest to them... They believed it. They readily accepted this explanation without question. And it was probably easier to accept than anything else. Yeah, of course. But the truth...

Was something pretty unimaginable. In his confession given to police later following his arrest, John Hay claimed that one night in early September, after Donald and he had been drinking for several hours, they returned to the workshop that John Hay had been renting and he, quote, experienced a sudden need for blood.

What? So he struck Donald McSwan over the head with a piano leg and then slit his throat. His friend who had been so good to him, taking care of him and giving him a job. John then left Donald's body in the workshop overnight and returned the following day. And then he put his body into a 40 gallon metal drum and poured sulfuric acid over it until he was fully submerged.

Two days later, he said that the body had been reduced to a foul-smelling blackish porridge streaked with blood. My God. He said he was then able to dump that blackish porridge streaked with blood into a nearby manhole drain and he was gone. Just to think that he could do that to somebody who he had known for so many years and bonded with. Yep. Like, just make them completely disappear. Yep.

Because you wanted to? You just needed, you quote unquote needed to? Yeah. What the fuck? Yeah. And now that Donald is dead, murdered, and his disappearance is explained away to his parents right now, Hay then continued writing several letters to Donald's parents posing as him.

Oh, that's sick. Yep. In the letters where, and he posted them from Scotland to keep up the whole ruse that he was in Scotland, he explained that he wanted to transfer his properties to his friend John Hay. Stop it. And he wanted John Hay to look after them until he could return to England. With no reason to doubt this, because he was a good friend. Uh-huh. Donald's parents didn't object to this. This is like salt burn. It really is. It truly is, actually. Yes. Yes.

Now, in the summer of the following year, the war had started to wind down and was kind of coming to an end. And the McSwans assumed their son would be coming back from Scotland because he wouldn't be worried about the draft anymore. But fearing that his murder might finally be discovered, John called the McSwans and told them that Donald was finally coming home and wanted to get together with them as soon as he arrived.

And in a letter sent from Scotland, he posed as Donald, their son, and arranged to have Donald Sr. and Amy, Donald's parents, come to his basement workshop on Gloucester Street on July 2nd. And they were so excited to see their son again. Of course they were. So they were like, of course we'll meet you. Yeah. On the night of the 2nd, they arrived at the workshop and they were met by John Hay.

And he said, oh, of course, Donald's inside. But he said, you should come inside separately, not at the same time, because we don't want to arouse any suspicions because, you know, like Donald's still technically on the lam here. He's a draft dodger. So like we don't want to make anybody think that you're coming to see them. And it's not going to be suspicious if one of us just hangs out outside. Yeah, no, no, no.

This made sense to them at the time. And again, they have no reason to not trust John Hay, who is a friend and a previous employee. Yeah. So Hay led Donald Sr. inside and down into the basement workshop.

And after they went into the basement, John Hay closed the door behind them. And before anything else happened, Hay struck him on the back of the head with an iron bar and killed him instantly. Holy shit. He then hid his body somewhere out of view. Oh, my God. And then escorted Amy McSwan into the same basement and did the exact same thing to her. Oh, that's so sad. Both of them were dead within minutes. Yeah.

With them both dead, he stripped them of all their valuables, any objects that he thought either he could sell, he could keep, or objects that he believed would survive dissolving in the acid. What the fuck? And he kept them all. And then he dissected their bodies, cut them into pieces, piled them into a large steel bathtub together that he had placed in the corner of this basement.

And over the next three days, the remains of the McSwans were left to dissolve in a solution of sulfuric and hydrochloric acid. Holy shit. And once they were completely dissolved, he dumped their remains down the drain in the center of the same floor in the basement. Oh my god. Yeah. All just for some properties. Yep. For money. Now...

During a later interrogation, detectives asked John Hay if the McSwans had like easily and readily accepted your story about their son's disappearance, why would you kill them?

Like they weren't even asking you. Yeah. Like they weren't suspecting you. They just thought he was alive and in Scotland. Like they accepted what you said and now it was like you could have just got away with that and they would have thought he just ran to Scotland and they couldn't get a hold of him again. Yeah. And he said, for the same reason I got rid of Mac, which he was referring to Donald Jr. Okay. That's a nickname. Okay. He said, I needed the money and they had a few properties between them. So you just wanted more property. Yeah, I just wanted more. And more money. Yeah.

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Okay. And yes, in the days that followed, he forged a power of attorney document. The fuck? Giving himself full control of all the McSwan's assets. And then he sold them all.

Whoa. And he sold all their belongings, all their valuables. And he also left a note for the couple's landlady. Why do I say that every time? It always happens. Every time. It's actually very funny. I think it's better. I mean, it is. Landlady. No, the couple's landlady. And let her know that they had, quote, gone away to America and didn't know when they'd be back. All right. Yep. Now...

Amy and Donald McSwan also had very few close friends and no close relations around. And I'm sure he knew that. Yeah, of course. He admits that later. So no one really noticed when they disappeared. And honestly, they left a note saying that they went to America. So everyone was just like, okay. Yeah, if you're not super close with people. The profits from the sale of the family's properties and valuables let John Hay quit his job.

I mean, yeah, I bet. He got to quit his job and it really funded a very increasingly lavish lifestyle over the next two years. And he was not going to be willing to give up, I'm sure. Nope.

And this included taking a room at the Onslow Court Hotel, which was like expensive. Big deal. Now, despite this big sum of money from the McSwan estate that he literally just stole after he murdered them all, the entire family, John Hay continued to experiment with different scams and fraud schemes during this whole period, including one where he posed as a fake patent liaison officer and even opened up an office in Kensington under this fake name.

The fuck? Whole thing. But none of his fraud schemes really, like, they gave him some money, but they weren't lucrative enough to keep up the lifestyle that he was becoming used to. Right. And by 1947, he found himself pretty desperately in need of money again to keep it going. And he had absolutely no intention of earning it the right way. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah.

So in the fall of 1947, he came across a property listing for a property in Ladbroke Square. And he was like, you know what? I want to buy that.

So he couldn't come up with the money at the time, but like whatever. Yeah, money's money. Yeah, who needs that? But he kept in touch with the owners, Dr. Archibald Archie Henderson and his wife Rose. Oh, Archibald and Rose. Archibald and Rose. At the time, John Hay did still have some money left from the McSwan estate, but...

So he wasn't like super desperate at this time. He just knew it was going to come to a point where he would be desperate. Yeah. But, and he just, he was like, I don't want to get to that point. So I'm going to try to come up with a scheme this time. Right. So he kept, he built a very close relationship with the wealthy Hendersons, Rosen Archibald, and he kept it going, kept it going. Shortly after meeting though,

Rose wrote a letter to her brother, and in it she said, of the scores of stupid people I've met, I've just been introduced to the stupidest of them all. I offered him 22 Ladbroke Square lock, stock, and barrel for 8,750 pounds, and he said, that's too cheap, but if you'll accept 10,500, it's a deal.

Like he wanted, he was like, I'll pay more. Meanwhile, he didn't have that. What the fuck? And in the response to that, her brother wrote, and this is chilling, because her brother wrote, when you meet a man who talks like that, you should run for your life. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah.

Now, like Donald McSwan Jr., the Hendersons were very generous with people they cared about. They didn't hoard their wealth with their friends. They're very generous hosts, you know, happy to spend money on anybody, including their newest, like, kind of acquaintance, John Hay. And like Hay, Archie Henderson liked to drink and gamble on the horses, so they got along together. They had fun. Yeah. And so John Hay spent several months...

getting super close to this couple, gambling, betting on the horses with Archie, like spending time with him. Knowing the whole time what he's going to do. And by February 1948, none of his other schemes had managed to bring in enough money like he was hoping. Yeah.

So he was now behind on his rent and he was desperate. Oh no. So after moving from his tiny room after the McSwan murders, John Hay had also moved his workshop and its contents to a new space in nearby Crawley.

In mid-February, he told Archie that he had some samples of a new product he wanted to show him and thought maybe it would be a good investment venture for Archie. And Archie loved an investment venture. So he was eager to hear about this. And Archie agreed to go with John Hay to his workshop. He was like, hell yeah. And he brought with him several hundred dollars in cash.

Don't go there. Given how accustomed he was to the finer things in life, one would assume the messy and unkempt state of this workshop and the surrounding land might have triggered something of a little bit of a confusion for Henderson. But he was just too excited about an investment opportunity. And he was like, whatever. Yeah. You just bought it. It's fine. Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal.

Once inside, John Hay didn't waste any time. From his pocket, he pulled out a revolver that he had stolen from the Henderson house a few days earlier, and he shot Archie in the back of the head before the door had even closed behind him. His own revolver. With Archie now dead,

He stripped him of all the valuables on his body and anything that he thought wouldn't dissolve in acid and things he could sell. And he loaded his body into one of the drums of acid that had arrived at the workshop a few days earlier. So he had planned this all out. Now, before this, this whole method of disposing of his victims had been very crude and very sloppy and very...

Like chaotic. Yeah. But this time he had prepared. Okay. He had ordered the barrel ahead of time. He had gotten the proper safety attire. So while he's doing this, he's wearing an army issue gas mask to protect himself from the noxious fumes. But how fucking terrifying is that visual? Very. Of him loading this man's body into an acid bath while wearing an army issue gas mask. Sounds like a horror film. It really does.

It like makes me think of like Repo the Genetic Opera. Yeah. But once Archie Henderson's body was fully submerged in the acid, he sealed the lid and removed everything that he was wearing. And then he padlocked to the workshop and just left, returned to town. All right. So John went back to the Henderson's residence where Rose was waiting for her husband. Panicking, I'm sure. And he said, Rose, I'm so sorry. Archie had a heart attack.

Okay. And it's not looking good for him. And she said, he literally said, you're not to worry, dear, but I think it's best you come now. And so she was very concerned and she trusted this man. So she agreed and left and they went to the workshop. They got there very quickly. And once they were in the workshop, John Hay pulled the gun out and shot her in the back of the head as well and disposed of her remains the exact same way that he disposed of her husband. Oh. Yeah. Yeah.

I wasn't expecting that. Yep. When detectives asked if they would find any evidence of the Hendersons when they searched the workshop, John Hay said, just a bit of sludge. Oh, and possibly a left foot. I had a bit of trouble with him. That's so fucking gross and crude and dark. So dark. Like beyond dark. Sinister.

And these are people who he had spent months cozying up to and spending time with and like having leisure time with and getting to know. That's wild. Yeah.

It was during that same interview that John Hay continued to push this whole like vampire killer mythos that he did where he said like I needed blood. Oh, God. And he told the detectives, I should have added that I took a glass of blood from each of them as I did with each of the McSwans. Doubt it. Nobody knows if he really did that or if he was just pushing the – Insanity. What the press started doing once they found out that he had said he needed – he had like a lust for blood. It also makes him sound insane. Exactly. Exactly.

But like the McSwans, the Hendersons were, like we said, very wealthy and had very little close relatives and close friends. And after putting Rose Henderson's body in the acid barrel, John Hay returned to the Hotel Metropole where the three of them had been staying and paid the bill for all three of them using money he'd received from pawning Rose's jewelry right away. Wow. And cash that he had taken from Archie's body before putting him into the barrel.

Once those things were all covered, because he took care of all the immediate stuff, he started working on, you know, the longer thing. He forged a power of attorney. You gotta. Transferring their assets all over to him. And then he quickly sold all of them.

He also wrote a few letters explaining their disappearances, and he sent those from various posts up and down the British coast. This guy is fucked. Yeah. He would pose as either Archie or Rose in these letters, and he explained that the couple had decided to do some traveling. They were going as far as South Africa, and they were going to be gone for several months. And in fact, that summer, John Hay used the money that he got from killing them to

To take a trip to Vienna and South Africa himself. What the fuck? Yep. And while he was there, he made sure to send some postcards to Rose's brother to keep up the whole thing. He sent them as Rose. And he must figure out how to make his handwriting at least look similar to these people's. Yep. And somebody mentions it later. One of, I believe, Rose's friends.

It's either Rose or the next woman. They say that when they got the handwriting, it looked similar, but it was bigger. And it did strike them as a little off, but it wasn't off enough for them. So he studies their handwriting, which is wild. Yeah. So the money from the Henderson murders kept John Hay going for another two years. Two years? He didn't have to work.

By the end of 1948, he found himself running a little low because he was, it's not like he was using that money wisely. But he immediately started thinking about his next victim because now it works. That being the case, it was definitely in his benefit that Oslo Court Hotel, where he was staying, had a

A ton of older wealthy people that were residents there. And they loved him there. Of course, because he's a charmer. Yeah, he's younger relatively to them. He's charismatic. He's got it all. They love him. And he's sucking up to them. He's good at it. In fact, by the end of 1948, John Hay had already been spending considerable time with 69-year-old widow Olive Durand Deacon. No. She was a woman with...

tons of money. I mean, she had more money than all of his victims combined. Oh, God. So Olive had been married for many years to a military colonel, but he died unexpectedly in 1938 and she was a widow much earlier than she'd expected to be. Yeah. And she was struggling with his loss. I'm sure. Like, she was genuinely grieving him. Yeah. And she had a

massive wealth, mostly from like stock holdings. So she's lonely and wealthy. Yeah, she's very wealthy. She would be financially secure for the rest of her life. Like she didn't have to worry about anything, but she was grieving. Yeah. So after moving into the Onslow in 1943, she mostly just spent her days like socializing with the other residents, like just trying to like live her life. Yeah, fill it with some happiness. A lot of her husband. Yeah.

And recently, Olive had started spending her lunches with John Hay. No. She thought he was well-mannered, very courteous, and she described him at one point as having a glint in his eye that makes him interesting.

By February 1949, John Hay had once again found himself right at that desperation's door. Yep. He had made a lot of money from murdering the Hendersons, but he had also developed a very serious gambling habit in the years since that. Okay. And unfortunately for him, he would lose a lot more than he would win. He was a bad gambler as well.

And also his bank account had been overdrawn for several days at this point and he had fallen behind in rent. So there we are. On the afternoon of February 14th, yes, Valentine's Day, Hay found Olive and a friend eating lunch in the Onslow's dining room and walked up to them. A few days earlier, they had actually, him and Olive, had been discussing an idea that Olive had, that Olive had come up with for artificial fingernails.

Oh, shit. Like she had like come up with this idea and she had brought him a prototype. Wow. Like she was like. Oh, because also she probably thinks he could have given her a patent. Yeah.

Exactly. And she's sitting here thinking like, you know what? I know I'm like super wealthy, but like I'm going to keep thinking of ways to just like get through this grieving process. And if using my brain does that, then why not? And she's 69 and just like coming up with inventions. That's amazing. And she gave him the prototype in a small tin box. And this was exactly the opportunity he needed to lure her to the workshop that he had rented. Yep.

So he wasted no time. He told her he could be of great value in this new venture, and they made a plan to get together at the end of the week. Later, after his arrest, he told police she was inveigled into going to Crawley by me in view of her interest in artificial fingernails. It's like tempted. And that's like inveigled is a very interesting word for like...

Being led. Yeah, like deceived. Now, on the morning of February 18th, John drove with Olive to his workshop in Crawley. And as always, Olive was very impeccably and...

you know, probably overdressed for the occasion. But for her. She was wearing a Persian lamb coat and loaded with diamond and gold jewelry. Queen. And along the way, they talked about Olive's business idea and John Hay told her he had actually developed a special kind of paper that he thinks could be used in this whole process and the development. So they're like buddies here. Yeah. Once they got to the workshop, he led Olive inside and this time though, he didn't just immediately kill her.

Instead, he pulled two pieces of red paper from his briefcase and put them in front of Olive and kept the ruse going like, this is the paper. Take a look at it. See if this is the kind of thing you're looking for. So she bent down to get a closer look at the paper and he reached into a hat box that he brought from the car, pulled out the revolver that he'd stolen and used on the Hendersons. And just as Olive was about to turn around and say something, he raised the gun to the back of her head and pulled the trigger.

And she died instantly. So Olive has now been murdered. And John Hay started his routine of removing every valuable piece that is on her. And that was a lot. Yeah. Once he'd removed it all, he decided he didn't actually, he was so excited that, yeah, so excited that he just couldn't wait to find out what the total would be when he pawned all this stuff. So he left Olive's body in the workshop.

And then took everything to the pawn shop in Crawley and sold all the jewelry in the coat while her body still lay in his workshop. How fucked is this, dude? Wasted no time. My God. And I'm assuming these are like, some of these things are like one of a kind pieces. Oh, I'm sure. So it's like. So he's getting shit tons of money too. And I'm just like waiting for the pawn person to be like, why do you keep coming in here? Where'd you get this? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They don't care. They don't ask questions. Just here's the money. Ugh.

So he's got a ton of cash now and he goes back to the workshop and he puts Olive's body into a 40-gallon barrel he'd purchased a few days earlier. And he covered her body with sulfuric and hydrochloric acid mixture and then sealed the barrel and headed back to London.

Now, in the past, John Hay, like you had mentioned, he had chosen victims with very few social connections. Right. Or people that wouldn't, like, you could make up a good story to say where they had gone. Yeah. Any questions that remained for those people of, like, where they were, even if time had gone by or the ruse had gone, like, you know, fiddled on?

He would still be able to avoid any of those questions or dismiss them for like a long time, especially with some well-timed and well-placed forged letters to distant family members. This time, though...

He was too desperate and he acted too impulsively. Because it was true that Olive was a widow and had no children, but she had lived for years at Onslow. She had made several close friends. And they're all wondering where she is. Exactly. And one of those very close friends was Constance Lane.

Another great name. Yeah, Constance Lane. That sounds like a great summer beach read. It does, actually. Or a good pen name. Oh, my God, yes. Now, on Saturday, February 19th, Constance was eating breakfast at the Onslow, and she was like, why hasn't Olive come down for breakfast? Olive was very routine. She was very predictable. She liked to be on her schedule. So this was very out of character.

And as far as Constance knew, her friend hadn't been planning to go away on any trip. She would have let her know. Yeah. So she could only assume that Olive was sick. So she was worried. So after finishing her breakfast, she went up to Olive's room and found a chambermaid to open the door. But she found that no one was inside and that it also looked like no one had slept in the room the previous night.

So Constance waited another day to see if Olive would show up, but she didn't show up. And on the 20th, she reported her missing. And all her things are just still in this room at the hotel. Exactly.

Now, under normal circumstances here, the disappearance of an adult without any signs of foul play would probably be low priority. But Olive was a very wealthy woman. Yeah. And Constance was a very wealthy woman. So she was going to get done. She's getting the double time here. So police went to the Onslow immediately and started questioning the residents. But it seems that none of the residents had a lot of information on where Olive could be.

But the hotel's manager mentioned to Officer Sergeant Lamborn that one of their other residents, John Hay, had been late with his rent recently. And that was unusual. Uh-huh. And Lamborn had encountered John Hay during this whole thing at one point and actually immediately disliked him, which was not unusual.

the normal reaction to John Hay. Somebody had an intuition. Later, she would tell a reporter, she quote, and maybe because she's a lady detective, she said she instantly distrusted the smug and spivvy Hay. I love it. Yeah, she was like, I don't like him right from the jump. And this new information only made her more suspicious of him. Like, oh, okay, so he's late on his rent? Yeah.

So while police kept quietly investigating Olive's disappearance, a few days after her murder, the story actually made it to the London newspapers. Oh, wow. One article said, last night, an official at Scotland Yard state that the police had been unable to trace a single person who had seen Mrs. Duran Deacon since she left the hotel. The paper also noted that Olive rarely left the hotel at all. Right. But on this occasion, she, quote, was going with Mr. Hay to visit a factory in Crawley.

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While it was true that detectives at Scotland Yard hadn't zeroed in on any suspect...

Thanks to Sergeant Lamborn, our girl there, they had now been informed of the officer's suspicions about Hay. Amazing. So they had started investigating him. Yes. And they paid him a visit at the Onslow. Oh, let's go. So for Sergeant Lamborn and the detectives at Scotland Yard, a theory had started to develop within a few days of the missing report.

In that time, they learned that Hay had an extensive criminal history and a prison record. He'd literally been in jail multiple times. And the fact that Olive had last been seen in his company before she disappeared is a pretty big deal. And then they learned that he had been late with his rent several times recently, but that that wasn't the norm before this.

And then suddenly, he had paid all his back rent with one large check. Huh. Imagine that. So when they first interviewed John Hay at the hotel, he explained that he had gone with Olive that day, but he had dropped her off in town, and then they'd planned to meet a few hours later in front of the Army Navy store, but she just never showed up. Okay. Okay.

So after uncovering this lengthy criminal record of his, detectives returned to John Hay, but he just repeated the same story about her not showing up and that he was so concerned when she didn't show up.

And in fact, after he was arrested, detectives would comment about how unusually eager he seemed to locate her. And that only made them more suspicious of him. They were like, you're overacting it. This is bizarre, sir. This isn't genuine. Despite his story, investigators traced Hay to the rented workshop in Crawley and they forced their way inside. And

And there they discovered a bizarre setup of barrels and chemicals. But it would be some time after that that they would learn what the purpose of these were. They just thought it was weird. Among the belongings at the shop, they also discovered a revolver, the same one he had used to kill the Hendersons and Olive. And most importantly, they discovered a receipt from cottage cleaners for one Persian lamb coat.

He had it cleaned before he pawned it. Based on the evidence collected at the workshop, police arrested John Hay on February 28th, 1949 and charged him with the murder of Olive Duran Deacon. By that time, they had the receipt for the coat. They had a bunch of other compelling evidence, including the receipts from the pawn shop where John Hay had sold his victim's belongings. Dude. But when they asked Hay about the items found in the workshop and all the other evidence against him, he was like, I don't know.

I don't know anything. I feel like you, dude. Luckily, that didn't last long. Little by little, they were able to pull it all out of him. At first, he claimed to be a victim of blackmail. And he said he hadn't said anything about that because, quote, he knew other people would be dragged into the investigation. Sure. But that story just fell the fuck apart because he was unable to come with literally any details about that. Yeah. Like, he said that?

hoped it would fly. And then they were like, give me one more piece of information about that. And he's like, don't have it. Like, I don't know. I don't, I don't have it. I didn't mean it. So then seemingly aware that he had been caught in a lie, he turned to one of the detectives and said, tell me frankly, what are the chances of anyone being released from Broadmoor, which is an institution? Yes. So he was like,

Could I potentially be released out of there if I got put there? Like he just asks. Just out of the blue. Just want to know before he says anything else. Totally unrelated question. Hey, I was thinking the other day. Hypothetically, would anybody be released there? So recognizing that he was trapped, he seemingly gave up the charade and started confessing.

While laying the groundwork for an insanity defense. Of course. When asked directly about what happened to Olive, he said, I've destroyed her with acid. You'll find the sludge that remains at Leopold Road. Every trace has gone. How can you prove murder if there's no body? Oh, that's so sad. Yeah. I've destroyed her with acid, is what he said. And just when you really think about what he did with all these people, like there's no part of them. There's nothing left of them. Like that's so... And he poured them down sewer drains. Yeah.

That's so sad. So gnarly. So sad. It's so dark. It's unthinkable. Yeah. John Hay had spent most of his life, like he's very much a narcissist, and he spent most of his life with a belief that he was

the most intelligent in the room at any given time. And he demonstrated that in every single con job he pulled off, every single fraud he pulled off, and with the murders of the McSwans, Hendersons, and all of Duran Deacon. I mean, Rollo has proved to him multiple times that he wasn't as smart as he thought because he got caught in almost every... Actually, all of the schemes that he did. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

But he thought with these murders, he got away with the perfect crime because he figured out a way to get rid of the bodies. Yes. But like most narcissists, he overplayed his hand.

He assumed that they'd never build a case against him because, again, no bodies. What are you going to do? But John Hay became surprisingly eager to aid in the investigation because, again, he's very confident that he's going to get away with this. But also, like many killers, he misunderstood the law. Great. He misunderstood corpus delecti, the provision of the law that stipulates there must be evidence in order to prove a crime has been committed. Right.

It doesn't require a body to prove a murder. Yes. It only requires evidence that the murder occurred. In this case, there was shit tons of biological material that could be traced back to Olive and would conclusively confirm that she died in that workshop. Yep.

Also, there was a growing number of circumstantial evidence that tied Hay to the murder, including receipts and eyewitness accounts. Receipts, proof, screenshots, timelines. There you go. There's all of it.

So in order to build an airtight case, investigators brought in Dr. Keith Sampson, which was one of Scotland Yard's most highly regarded pathologists. While examining one of the barrels in the workshop, he said he, quote, unearthed with a stick from a mass of whitish material just inside the factory gates, a piece of red plastic material.

Later, this material would be confirmed to be a piece of Olive's red leather handbag. Oh, that's so sad. Kay had thrown it into the barrel along with Olive's body, assuming it would be destroyed by acid. It did not. Aww.

Eventually, investigators would haul away more than 475 pounds of material. Holy shit. Two additional barrels, 28 pounds of fat, 18 pieces of bone, and one set of dentures that would be a match of those created for all of Duran Deacon. Wow.

Wow, that's incredible. Years later in his autobiography, Keith Sampson, the pathologist, wrote, "...despite whatever John Hay might have thought, Hay's labors had been in vain. The remains of Mrs. Duran Deacon were identified as surely as if her body had never been in that acid bath."

And I was like, wow. Hell yeah, they were. That was all of working from beyond with all the other victims. I totally believe it. And also like Keith motherfucking Sampson. That pathologist did his motherfucking job. That's incredible. He made sure every piece of biological material that they could trace back was found. Like he was like, oh, you think you're smart? Yeah.

You think you can fuck with me? Like, you can't actually make people disappear. Get out of here. Like, I love that. I love that he was like, you think you have bested me with this bullshit? You think you're the smartest guy in the room? You can't get rid of that. You can't get rid of all of it. You idiot.

So within days of his arrest, investigators had been working through Hay's belongings at the workshop and his room at the Onslow. And they started finding evidence of Hay's other murders. Oh, no. Neither the Hendersons nor the McSwans had been reported missing to the police. Right. But when detectives followed up on the latest leads, they learned that all five of them had connections to John Hay and none of them had been seen or heard from in a long time.

Also, friends and family members of the Hendersons started coming forward with the letters and postcards that they got. This was the one I was talking about before. Rose Henderson's friend, Daisy Roundtree, told a reporter she kept the correspondence because, quote, the handwriting is bigger than that in which Mrs. Henderson wrote. Boom. She thought it was unusual.

As the evidence against him kept growing, John Hay finally confessed to the additional murders of the McSwans and the Hendersons, and this set the stage for one of the most sensational trials England had seen in several years. Oh, I bet. So...

It's clear from his confession that John Hay had intended to pursue an insanity defense once it went to trial. Yeah. He basically came out and said it. Yeah. And once that confession was leaked to the press, the case blew up in the media. And it was in large part because of the very macabre details that he would later elaborate on and use in aid of his defense. Among other things, the admission that he had drained his victims of their blood, which he later drank, he said...

led to his being labeled a vampire killer in the press. I don't believe it. I don't think I believe it. In order to build his own lore and mythology, too, he added to that legend and claimed, quote, he had been drinking his own urine since he was a boy. No. Which I was like, maybe he was. You're like, no. It should be noted, though, that despite what was written about him in the papers and what he told reporters...

There's a lot of skepticism when it comes to these claims. Like a lot of people don't believe this. It's never been proven. And in fact, during the trial, he was examined by several medical and mental health professionals and quote, all of them stated that Hay was probably malingering. In other words, the general consensus was that he was a consummate liar who twisted the truth whenever it benefited him. And there was no reason to believe that this was any different than what he did his whole life.

Now, in the months following his arrest, investigators spent a ton of time and effort building their case against him. And Hay himself kept fueling the speculation of journalists with his crazy, outrageous claims of insatiable bloodlust. And in his private letters, though, he

He was showing the real motives for his murders. In a letter to his friend Barbara Stevens, he responded to her question about why he never tried to kill her. Yeah. By calling her foolish for asking and then ensuring her he could never harm her.

She probably just didn't have enough money. Which, of course, the Hendersons had also been Hayes' friends, very close to him, and so had the McSwans, and so had all of Duran-Deacon. But the only difference here was those people were incredibly wealthy, and Stevens had nothing more than friendship. Exactly. That's it. She had nothing. She couldn't give him anything. Exactly. And there it is. That's the difference. Of course I would never hurt you. You can't offer me anything. You don't have anything.

Now, John Hay's grand jury trial began April 1st, 1949, April Fool's Day, during which the prosecution, on behalf of the Crown, E.G. Robey, gave his opening statement. He said, could there be any doubt that on February 18th, John Hay killed Mrs. Duran Deacon with a revolver and disposed of her body in acid? And that was a rhetorical question that he asked the jury, but then ensured them that he would demonstrate his guilt was beyond reasonable doubt.

Following these opening remarks, Roby began laying out the evidence against Hay and showing his connection to the missing widow and emphasized the whole financial part of this thing that she was incredibly wealthy. He was going through vast financial troubles and was in dire straits motive. Yup. And was like, oh, there's also this confession that he gave.

So speaking on Hayes' behalf, though, his attorney declined to enter a plea and instead requested that a speedy trial be held at the Old Bailey, which we've seen the Old Bailey a few times on this show. He said the view taken is that this is such an exceptional case that no objection would be raised if the magistrates committed for trial at the Old Bailey. And the magistrates didn't object to the request, and the trial date was set for mid-July at the Old Bailey.

So the trial opened on Old Bailey. I just love Old Bailey. That's why I'm laughing. I love Old Bailey. Old Bailey. Yeah, you know, Old Bailey.

So Hayes' trial started on July 18th, 1949 at Old Bailey. In his opening statement to the prosecution, Sir Hartley Shawcross told the jury this was a clear case of carefully premeditated murder for gain. Correct. And he explained that contrary to the sensational details reported in the press, John Hayes' crimes had been motivated purely by greed.

Yes. Because he's a piece of shit. It has nothing to do with bloodlust. No. So Hay's defense attorney, David Fry, rejected the Crown's theory that Hay had killed purely because of financial gain.

He said in a statement, at the proper time, evidence will be led with the intention of showing that the accused was insane so as not to be responsible for his act. Spoiler alert, they will not show that. To support their claims, the defense brought in Dr. Henry Yellowlees, a quote-unquote mental specialist. Quote-unquote. Who had examined Hay on at least five occasions. According to Dr. Henry here, for most of his life, John Hay had been having a recurring dream.

He called this dream the dream of the bleeding Christ. And in this dream, Hay could see the head and sometimes the body of Christ on the cross, crossed, uncrossed, with blood pouring from his wounds. This, Dr. Henry Yellowlees argued, was the beginning of a paranoid delusion that would eventually lead Hay to develop a secret double life and thirst for blood. I think that's just a nightmare.

It's like he grew up—we all have them—very stringently and strictly and isolatingly religious. He might have one of those dreams every once in a while. Exactly. But when asked directly about whether this particular delusion would render the accused completely incapable of recognizing that his actions, you know, murder and dissolving bodies in action were acid, were illegal, he said—

No. No. OK. No. He said, quote, he knew quite well that to kill a person was a crime. I would say, cool, cool, cool. Then what are you doing here? And so the judge said, so he did. He knew quite well that to kill a person was a crime. And the doctor said, yes, I think he used the phrase punishable by law. All right. So he was like, yeah, he actually told me he did.

Then you can go now, sir. He knew that it was a crime punishable by law. Thank you for your time, I guess. Thank you, Dr. Henry. So Hayes' defense of insanity depended largely on the rumors about his supposed vampirism.

that had been circulating all around the press. But they were aided by the fact that Hay did in fact exhibit signs of mental illness or maybe a personality disorder that allowed him to kill without hesitation and seemingly for very petty reasons with not a lot of remorse. But as is often the case, mental illness or a personality disorder alone doesn't mean one is incapable of recognizing that this act or behavior is outside the bounds of the law. There's a difference. Right.

In the case of John Hay, forensic psychologist Catherine Ramsland argued that Hay's defense was entirely fabricated and built on lies. She said while there were no real instruments available during Hay's time for the assessment of the lingering, he presents several classic signs.

Among those, she lists that Hay had some exposure to mentally ill people and would have known how to fake certain symptoms. Ah, okay. Because he had watched them. It's exactly what you had said. Look at me. When you said it, I was like, that's going to come back. Hi. And that the symptoms he did fake and the stories he told were also inconsistent. So they didn't even fit with each other. Right.

The judge in this case was of similar opinion. And when none of the psychologists or psychiatrists would confirm that John Hay was insane at the time of Olive's murder, he rejected the insanity plea altogether. There it is. In his jury instructions on July 20th, Justice Humphreys told the jury they were not trying to question whether the man was sane or insane, only whether he had murdered Olive Duran Deacon.

And as to that question, Humphreys reminded the jury that John Hay had confessed to this crime several times. The jury deliberated for less than 20 minutes. I believe that. Before finding John Hay guilty of Olive's murder. Hell yeah. And Justice Humphreys sentenced John Hay to death. Let's go. When he was asked whether he had anything to say on his own behalf,

Oh, what a little bitch. And he did so in a clear, rather high-pitched voice. Ew. So he said, not at all.

And everybody said, fuck off. I don't like it. In the days that followed, Hay would make a lot of use of that journalistic spotlight that he found himself under. Yeah. And he claimed to have killed an additional three people that they didn't even know about. No evidence of those murders was found, but it was in the 1940s at this point. Who knows? Yeah.

On the morning of August 20th, 1949, a crowd of nearly 200 people assembled at the gate of Wandsworth Prison to be present for John Hay's execution. Shortly after 9 a.m., John George Hay was executed by hanging. A few minutes later, a man walked to the gate of Wandsworth, read the notice confirming the death, and the crowd, which was now nearly 500 people, cheered. And that is the end of John George Hay's

The Acid Bath Murderer. That was a cuckoo story. Yeah. He's also known as the Vampire Murderer, although I think that's fake. I also think that's fake. I think the other title is more accurate. But that was really sad and I didn't want any of those people to die. Yeah, the McSwans, the Hendersons. And Olive. Olive. None of them...

The fact that he got close to these people, made friends with them, got to know them, formed a bond with them. That's fucked up. And then did something so heinous and just violated their bodies afterwards in such a way. And disregarded them like you would disregard bacon fat after cooking it. Oh, God. It's disgusting.

unthinkable. Like it really is something. He's a fucked up individual and he's dead. And there's that. There's that. So we hope you keep listening. We do. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you make friends with people and then dissolve them in acid just to take their money because you could just get a job. Don't keep it that weird at all. Thanks. Thank you. ...

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What happens when a hacker uncovers hundreds of murder plots targeting people all over the world? Each of them posted on a Hitman for Hire site on the dark web, with their photos, habits and intimate details all used against them. What happens when they learn that the threat is coming from the person closest to them? Or what is the psychological profile of a father who would murder his own son and wife all to hide a drug addiction and years of embezzlement?

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