John haigh
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Who Is… John George Haigh?
The Acid Bath Vampire
In the halls of vampiric crime, few names stand out like that of John George Haigh. Half a century ago, England's newspapers screamed, "Vampire!" The trial of "The Acid Bath Vampire", one of England's most infamous serial killers, was about to begin.
Haigh grew up in Wakefield, England. His parents were deeply religious members of a faith called the "Plymouth Brethren". In order to rebel against the strict teachings of his parents and their faith, Haigh joined the Church of England while he was still a boy. He was a devout follower and spent a great deal of time there as a youngster.
Throughout his life, Haigh suffered from a recurring dream. He spoke of a forest of crucifixes in the dream that would gradually turn into trees that dripped blood. He would see a man collecting the blood into a cup. The man would offer the cup to Haigh, but he always awakened before he could take a drink.
It was the dream, Haigh would confess to the police after his arrest, that made him believe he needed blood in order to live.
Early adulthood was a problematic time at best for Haigh. He was imprisoned several times for fraud and forgery. But his true criminal nature began to manifest in middle adulthood, just after World War II had ended.
In 1944 Haigh rented a basement in London to use as a workshop. It would soon become the grisly testament to his growing need for blood. He killed his first victim in that basement on September 9, 1944. He drained the fresh corpse (William Donald McSwan) of enough blood to fill a cup, and drank it. To dispose of the body, Haigh placed it in a tub and proceeded to pour buckets of acid over it. When the remains had been reduced to sludge, he poured the rest down a manhole in the workshop floor.
That night set the pattern for the future. Victim after victim was killed for blood (and profit, as Haigh tended to commandeer what he could of his victims' wealth) and disposed of in an acid bath. His ever increasing orders for acid and acid bath tanks grew large enough for suppliers to grow curious.
After an extraordinary amount of time, some of Haigh's victims were missed by their friends and family, and the police began an investigation. Eventually, he was arrested by the police. Once in custody he confessed to everything, including his need for blood and why he had killed his many victims.
The press took the idea and ran with it. The words "Acid Bath Vampire" screamed from all the headlines as Haigh was brought to trial. After only 15 minutes of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. His sentence of death by hanging was carried out on August 10, 1949.