Spotlighted : February 2006

 

 

 

On February 20,1949,a man named John Haigh and a woman naemd Constance Lane-came into a police station to report that Deacon had gone missing;Haigh claimed that Deacon was suppose to have met with him at an Army and Navy surplus store,but when he arrived,she never showed.Authorities went to Deacon's apartment building,and after speaking to numerous people,they found out that Haigh lived inside the very same building.Authorities became suspicious of a young man living in a building that contained nearly all widowed-women whom were quite wealthy.With the suspicion,they decided to run a background check on Haigh;they found out that Haigh had been in prison several times before,for various crimes(mostly:swindling,conspiracy to commit defraud,forgery,obtaining money by false pretenses,forgery and theft).With this information,authorities questioned Haigh about Deacon's disappearence more thoroughly,but the only notion that stood out from Haigh's answers was that he was was director of Hurstlea Products in Crawley.Authorities decided to investigate furthur into that and found out that Haigh was lying about being director,and was infact just renting a two-story brick storefront from the Products company.Workers from the company claimed that Haigh had stated he was doing a "conversion job" inside the building(a conversion job is where a person uses strong acid to break down materials,and gets paid for it).Authorities quickly obtained a search warrant for the building-inside they found(among items used by a person who works in the conversion career)a briefcase with Haigh's intials on it;inside,papers were found that pertained to both Hendersons and all of the McSwans(which included:passports,ID cards,and driver licenses)-most importantly among the items was a cleaner's reciept for a Persian lamb coat.When the authorities traced the reciept,it came back stating the coat belonged to Deacon.Deacon's disappearence was placed in the newspapers and a man,who owned a jewelry shop,came forward-stating that jewelry had been pawned the same day that Deacon had been stated to have disappeared.The jewelry was handed over and,soon after,it was confirmed by a relative of Deacon's to have belonged to Deacon.This wasn't exactly enough evidence yo arrest Haigh,so the authorities asked the owner of the jewelry store to point out to them-the man who pawned the jewelry.The owner pointed out Haigh;Haigh was placed under arrest,and after a few hours of questioning(and many lies on Haigh's part),Haigh finally confessed to the murder of Deacon,and soon after,eight additional murders.

 

Due to the lack of evidence,Haigh was only charged with Deacon's murder.He went to trial on April 1,1949,and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.In all,the prosecution called on 33 witnesses,but the trial was suddenly postponed for the defense,so that Haigh could under go psychiatrict evaluations.Twelve medical doctors evaluated Haigh,and nearly every one of them found Haigh to be completely sane.The trial resumed its proceedings on July 18,1949 with all evaluations completed.Haigh,at this point,had run out of money to pay for his defense team;a newspaper company called "News of the World",volunteered to pay for Haigh's defense team,if in turn,Haigh would grant a no-holds-barred interview with them.Haigh agreed,but instead told them he would write his life's story and allow them to publish it,instead.The newspaper company agreed,and Haigh's defense was paid for.Haigh reinstated his plea of not guilty at the resumed trials(but left out "by reason of insanity").Although Haigh's sanity was no longer on trial,the majority of the witnesses,as well as the closing arguments centered around Haigh being "insane".The prosecution brought all 33 witnesses back to the trial to testify once again,and on the afternoon of only the first day of trial-the prosecution rested.After just fifteen minutes of deliberations,the jury found Haigh guilty-he was sentenced to death.While in prison,awaiting execution,Haigh was still being observed by medical doctors,and even up until the day he was executed,the doctors noted he was completely "sane".On August 6,1949-Haigh's death sentence was carried out by hanging at Wandsworth Prison.Before Haigh's execution,he was asked to participate in a death mask for Madame Tussaud's Chamer of Horrors wax museum-Haigh agreed to it,and his wax figure can still be seen in the museum till this day.