i need a title for my page but i dont know what to say.. oh right :)

                                       THE RED BEVERAGE

First i sgot her in the back of the head.
"Then i went out to the car and fetched a drinking glass and made an incision, i think with a pen knife in the side of the throat, and collected a glass of blood, which i then drank."
After that he removed her persian lamb coat and jewlry --- rings and necklace, earings and crucifix --- from the body, hualed the courpse over to an empty oil drum in the warehouse, and dumped it in. Then he looked at his watch and saw that it was time for tea. He went "round to the Ancient's Prior's for a cup of tea" to refresh himself after his exertions. Soon he returned to the warehouse and pumped the oil drum full of enogh acid to cover the whole body. Then he left, and nature took its course, the acid destroying the evidence.

He was John George Haigh, a dapper thirty-nine year-old Englishmen. This was the latest of a series of crimes unknown to the British police, so clever had john been in his bloody efforts.
He had the veneer of a completely respectable man, and indeed he came from a respectable family of Yorkshiremen. His father had worked in a colliery and, except for a bad time during the depression, hadworked steadily and faithfully for the same employer all his life. So john spent the first twenty-four years of his life in Outwood, a suburb of Wakefield. They were unexciting but unsettling years for the youth. His mother and father were ardent members of the Plymouth Bretheren, the "peculiar people" whose religion was a harsh and unforgiving instrument. John was bedeviled by the Devil all during his youth. Join the church choir? Yes. Read Robert louis steveson's "Treasure Island"? No. His father rejected the book --- any book about pirates was ungodly, and there would be no ungodly books in the Haigh house. No radio, no films, no magazines, no newspapers entered the Haigh house. The bible and Pilgims Progress were quite enogh to suplement his schoolbooks. No friends from school ever entered the Haigh house; they were not alowed. Chiledhood friends might be bad influences. So John had no friends. Alone, lonely, he turned inward. At the age of eleven, he began drinking his own urine, and from that time onward did so everyday, he said. Did not the Binle say (Prov. 5:15) "Drink waters out of thine own cistern and running waters out thine own well"?
Spare the rod and spoil the chiled was the parenting philosophy of the Haighs; and so young John often felt the smart of a strap. One day his mother slapped his hand with a hairbrush for some misdeed, and the bristels drew blood. He sucked the wound and found the blood tasty and disirable. It was so good that later he delibrately cut his finger, in order to experience again the pleasant sensation of driking blood.
John attened the Wakefield Grammar School, and there he began to rebel agaist the strictures of his family life. The rebellion brought him into open conflict with his father, and that meant more punishment. His revenge was sweet: he became a choirboy --- for the Church of England's Wakefield Cathedral Choir. Hardly anything he could done woulf have hurt his familys feelings more.
But they could not fault him for being religious, could they? And he was a devout believer. Every Sunday mouring he left home at 5:30 to walk three miles to serve at the Wakefield Cathedral alter for three holy communuion services in a row. He would stay at the cathedral all day --- for matins, Sunday school, and evensong --- then he would walk the three miles home again. He spent many hours in the cathedral during school days, befor the figure of Christ bleeding on the Cross. The thought of Chirst nailed to a cross, dying slowly, filled him with extreme pain. Why didn't they kill him and be done with it? He had the other painful thoughts and dreams. Actually it was one dream, repeated over and over again.
"I saw a forest of crucifixes that gradually turned into trees. At first it seemd like dew or rain was running from the branches. But when I came nearer i knew it was blood. All of a sudden the whole forest began to twist about and the streamed with blood. Blood ran from the trunks. Blood ran from the braches all red and shiny. I felt weak and seemed to faint. I saw a man going around the trees, gathering blood. When the cup he was holding in hand was full he came up to me and said "Drink". But i was paralyzed..... The dream vanished, but i still felt faint and streched out with all my strength towards the cup..... i woke up. I always kept on seeing those hands holding out that cup to me that i couldent quite reach..... and that terrible thirst.... never left me. For threeor four days i always had the same dream and everytime i woke up, my horrible desire always became stronger."
Generaly, Haig managed to sublimate this terrible desire. He became assistant organist at the church, and that took his mind off his dreams. He was a strange young man, not much of a student, and no athlete, but music was his life. The loneliness of the early years wore off. He left the school at seventeen to take a job with a firm of motor engineers. He did not like the mechanical work, it was too dirty, so he quit and got a white-collar job. When he was twenty, friends introdused him to sex, and he showed some wild oats. He also showed business promis and made quite a lot of money promoteing insurance purchases on such prijects as the construction of a dam in Egypt. He also floated a company, Northen Electric Newspapers Ltd., which was an advertiseing agency, and for a time it was quite successful. When he was twenty-four years old, in order to get out of the family house, he married a beautiful girl. Not long afterward, John discovered crime.
His first venture outside the law seemed ridiculously easy. He contracted for cars on a hire purchase plan and then sold them off for cash. This enterprise involved defrauding an auto dealer and a manufacturer and also committing forgery. He was caught, convicted, and, in November 1934, sentenced to fifteen months in prison. He never saw his beautiful bride again.
After less than a year, he was released for good behavior. He got onto a legitimate partnership in the drycleaning business and did well until his partner died. The business had to be sold to meet the widows taxes. He went to london to find work and ot a job as a chauffeur and secretary to a Mr.c Swam, owner of an amusement arcade. But that was not lucrative enogh and he soon left to go into another scam, which involved fraudulent stock sales. He was caught again this time sent to prison for four years. He was paroled in the summer of 1940 and joined the civilian war service as a firefighter. After some prtty criminality, for wich he was jailed briefly, he found a job with an engenireing firm and a buliding supply house, located at Crawley in Sussex county, as a commission salesman. He also secured the use of part of a warehouseownd by the company as a "workshop".
During all this time the blood lust seemed to have been forgotten. But on March 26, 1944, John suffered a scalp wound in an auto accident. "Blood poured from my head down my face and into my mouth. This revived in me the taste, and that night I experienced another awful dream. I saw before me a forest od crucifixes".
Yes it was the same old horror.
In 1944, John rented a basement at 79 Gloucester Road in London as a workshop. He set up as an inventor. At the same time, in a pub in Kingston, he happend to meet William Donald Mc Swam, the son of his former employer at the amusement arcade. The arcade was long gone, but the Mc Swams had prospered and now lived at No. 45 Claverton Street. Young Mc Swam brought John around the house and soon he was a frequent visitor. He an young William baeutifuly, perhaps because the latter had a bit of a crook in him too: he just then considering a plan to go underground to avoid serveing in the armed forces.
On september 9, 1944, William got his wish. T the national Service people would never come after him again, and it was all due to his good friend John.
"I got the feeling i must get some blood somewhere .... william brought a pinball table for repair. The idea came to me to kill him [william] and take soome blood. I hit him over the head and knocked him unconscious. I got a mug and took some bloos from his neck sliceing it with a pen knife. I oured it into the mug and drank it. Then i relized i must do something about him. I left him there dead .... i had acis and sheet metal for picking .... i found an iorn barrle and took it on a cart and put william in acid. I put the body in a tub and poured the acid on it. I did it with a bucket. I went to see his parents and told them he had gone away because of his call up. I sent them a letter from Glasgow."
He maked a red cross in his diary on the date september 9th.
When the flesh and bones had been reduced to nothing by the acid he dumoed it in a manhoel in a lower level of the shop.
Because the senior Mc Swams feared that there son was breaking the law and asked no questions Johns murder went completely unnoticed by authoritys.
The was porduced many dislocations and pushed many people out of there usual enviorment. London was full of starangers, In the next few months John claimed to have killed three more people, two women and a man, whom he had incountered casualy in pubs or at bus stops. The girls he pretended he wanted to have sex with, the man he pretended to befriend; but they all ended up in Johns barrel disolveing away under a gallon or two of acid. The murders were carried out for blood and profit, but there was very little of the latter for those, the man had less than a pound on him and no jewlry, the women only little more.
He did much better with the Mc Swams, younger and elder. By exerciseing his talent for forgery, he managed to sell off various properties tht young william ownd. He also managed to keep the friendship of the rest of the family but occasinaly giveing them "news" of there vanished son.
Then one day in july 1945, John convinced the father Donald Mc Swam to come with him to his workshop, were he killed him in the same way he killed his son, a blow to the head. "The courpes did not produce enogh blood." So he went back for the mother, Amy Mc Swam. She to got a blow to the head and a knife in her throat. John disolved the bodies in acid and left.
No one seemed to notice the disapperance of the Mc Swams, and John had plenty of time to dispose of the old mans securitys, and by means of forgerey, his other property.
All this wile, John was more or less commuting between London and Crawley, where he had the use of that store room for his "experiments." His lodings were in Crawley, and he merely "bunked" at the Gloucester Roag address. But with all the profet from the Mc Swams murders, he felt able to extend himself, so he moved up to London into the Onslow Court Hotel, s small place frequented by retired colonels and middle class widows. He made quite a hit here, and why not? He was a pleasent looking man, about five feet six inches tall, with glossy black hair and a small clipped mustache and clean shaven face. At thrity-seven he was considerably younger than the run of the hotel guests. He was the epitome of charm to the ladies. He passed himself off aas a factory owner and inventor and spoke expansivly but casually of his enterprises. He dressed neatly, and with a certian flair. One of his favorite outfits was a green hopsacking suit, which he wore with a cream colored shirt, red neck tie, green socks, and shiney brown brogue shoes.
The Mc Swam fortune had served John well for two years , but eventually it began to run out and he looked around for new opportunities. At christmas 1947, he gave himself a present, he ordered for three carboys of sulfuric acid to be delivered wich he stored in the warehouse "factory" at Crawley, He also ordered two fourty-four gallon steel drums, with tops removed to be delivered to the warehouse. He then set out to find a new source of revenue, He found it in the newspapers.
Dr. Archie Henderson and his wife had decided to sell there house at 22 Ladbroke Square, because the doctor wanted to give up his practice. Dr. Hendorson came from and old scottish family, but he was not precisley the quietest of the clan. He had cut quite a figure in London in the prewar years. When his first wife died and left him quire a lot of money, he ran through it rapidly. He married again, this time a sultry brunette of the baeuty-queen type named Rose. When the war began he joined the service. For her part, Rose turned there house at 22 Landborke into a guest house to help meet the need caused by the houseing shortage. Dr. Henderson was invalided out of the srevice in 1945, came home ti live at 22 Landbroke, and practiced medicine there. He and Rose also carried on an intence social life; it was said that the good doctor put away a bottle of Sotch whisky everyday. Eventually, times got hard for them and the decided to sell the big house on Landbroke and look for some smaller quarters. They advertised the house for sale in the London newspaper. John looking for opportunity, saw the advertisement.
The property was put up for sale at about L9,000. John insisted on offering 10,000. Mrs. Henderson was delighted with his stupidity, but when she told her brother about it. he told her that when you meet someone like that the best thing to do is run for your life. Mrs. Henderson did not take his advice; in the end John did not but the house because he could not rasie the money, he relized that he had found his oppertunity, and spent the next few months studying the Hendersons.
The Hendersons moved into a much cheaper district and a much cheaper house on Dawes Road in Fulham. They lived in rooms above a shop where the sold toys. John visited them often there. He had the run of the house and even the trust of the Hendersons red setter, Pat. Waiting for his oppurtunity he stole Dr. Hendersons revolver and put it aside for futher use.
Johns oppertunity came just in time. Febuary 1948 found John very near the end of his finacial rope. His overdraft at the bank had reached nearly L250 he owed a finace company L400 and was behind for his rent at the Onslow Court Hotel.
Just then the Hendersons took a trip that ended in Brighton, the seaside resort, where they stayed at the hotel Metrople.
On Febuary 12, John visited them there and invited Dr. Henderson to drive with him to Crawley to see his factory. When John had lured the doctor inside, he immediatly shot him in the head with hisown revolver and drank the blood. Then he drove back to Brighton and told Rose that her husband had taken ill and needed her, and drove her to the factory, where he repeated the proformance.
Both the Hendersons were then stripped, there belongings were confiscated, and they were treated to an acid bath. John went home and wrote in his diary "A.H" and "R.H" and the sign of the cross. Relizeing that the dog, Pat, had been left behind at the hotel in Brighton and might begin to make a fuss, John telephoned the night porter, pretending to be Mrs. Henderson asked them to take the dog for a few days since they had been clled away.
He retuned to the factory after two days to empty the sludge out of the acid drums. He noticed that one of Dr. Hendersons feet was still almost completely intact, but he was in a hurry --- there was so much to be done to settle the Hendersons affairs. So he dumped out the foot with the rest of the gooey remains. Dr. Henderson had be carrying a considarable sum of money: on Febuary 15, John deposited L565 to his own London account. That was enogh to satisfy his creditors for the moment and keep up his good name at the Onslow Court Hotel. Then he drove to Brighton, showed the assistant manger a letter purportedly written by Mr. Henderson, paid up the Henderson hotel bill, collected the dog, four suitcases, four coats, and two golf bags, and drove off. The Hendersons and checked out.
Back at the Onslow Court Hotel, John sat down to do some complicated forgery. He was well prepared. He had picked up a number of sheets stationary from the Metropole Hotel in Brighton. He use one of them to write a letter to the house keeper, saying that the Hendersons were moveing to South Africa, and John was looking after their affairs. A few days later, when Mrs. Henderson's brother telephoned, the house keeper gave him the information. He phoned John, who confirmed the statement and said that he had lent the Hendersons several thousand pounds and that if it was not repaid that he would have the Henderson house and car. Mrs Henderson's brother was puzzeled, but when he recived a letter from his "sister" explaining it all he was temporarely satisfied. After all, he knew the Henderson liveing stlye, and John's forgery of Roses hand writeing was excellent.
John devoted the next few weeks to bussines. He sold off all the Henderson personal property to jewlers and clothiers. He retained the toy shop for his own and kept careful recoreds of income and disbursments.
Over the next few months John disposed of all the Hendersons property, the car, and the Fullam house by forgeing the nesicary documents. It should have been enogh to keep him for several years but he had spent it all by the end of 1948. In January 1949 all the money was gone. He was behind at the Onslow Hotel and the bank was pressing for payment on his overdraft. Something had to be done,what he needed was a new oppertunity.
It arose right there at the Onslow Court Hotel, ove evening when he went into the dineing room for dinner.
John's single dineing table was placed next to that of a sixty-nine year old widow named Olive Henrietta Roberts Durand-Deacon. They had been nodding aquantinces for three years; but in the English fashion, although their elbows nearly touched at meals, they had not intruded one another's privacy. But in recent months they had exchanged a few pleasantries, and, in fact, John had sold Mrs. Durand the expencive hand bag that had belonged to Mrs, Henderson, passing it off as an un wanted inheritance. Thus a mesure of intamacy had been created, and nowadays they useually exchanged a few words over meals.
One evening, Mrs. Durand complained about the state of her fingernails. She said that she had often thought of makeing plastic nails for women with stubby nails like her own.
"What a capital idea!" said her friend John the inventor. Oh there was nothing new about it, Mrs. Durand, infact ahd had soome sampleas upstairs, but she did not like them and belived they could be made better. John showed intrest and she promised to show him the nails.
Monday, Febuary 14, 1948. John was told by his bank that he owed L85 in his overdraft, and the bank refused to honor more checks, and he owed his hotel L50. He had givein them a check but it bouced, the management was not pleased. He would have to do something immeditly to raise some money. He saw Mrs. Durand and brought up the matter of the plastic fingernails. She promised to show them to him that day at lunch, and she did, John agreed with everything she said, perhaps they could join in order to pruduce a superior line of product? Why didnt Mrs. Durand drive down with him to the factory he ownd in Sussex on Firday? Why such a long wait? John needed more time.
Tuesday, Febuary 15. He drove to Crawly and suggested the plastic fingernail idea to Mr. Jones, the managing director of Hurstlea Products Ltd. Jones was not enthusiastic. He did lend John 50L, with the proviso that it would be paid back at the end of the week. He did not know it, but he had just set the date for Mrs. Durand's death.
Wendsday, Febuary 17. John paid his bill at the Onslow hotel and drove to Crawly to order more acid.
Thursday, Febuary 17. The acid arrived and John got a new pump ... the old one had worn out from his previous ventures.
Friday, Febuary 18. John and Mrs. Durand had lunch at the hotel. At 2:30 they set out for Crawly. They stoped Briefly at a hotle there and then went on to the wharehouse. John took her and showed her some paper that would be good for treating the fake nails. While she was examining it he shot her in the back of the head. Then cut her throat with the pen knife and drank her blood. He removed her jewlery and fur coat and dumped her body in the acid. Then he went out for his tea. After that, as darkness fell, John was very busy moveing her possesions into the car and refilling the tank wih more acid. The exersise gave him an appitite so he wnt out to eat.
Saterday, Febuary 19. John appread at breakfast in the dineing room of the Onslow hotel. He asked the waitress if she had seen Mrs. Durand, because she had failed to keep an apointment with him on friday afternoon. He also posed the same question to Mrs. Lane a good friend of Mrs. Durand.
Mrs. Lane said she had not seen her, as a matter of fact she had noticed her friend had not been at the dineing table theevening befor. She then asked John if he knew were she was, because she had mentioned going to see him in Crawly. John said that she was but that she had failed to show up.
Mrs. Lane was distressed. She checked with the maid upstairs and found that she had not returend the night befor.
Sunday was a busy day. At breakfast the senario with Mrs. Lane was repeated, she said she still had no news and would go to the police later to report her missing. John left. A short time later he told Mrs. Lane that they should go to the police together. They went and made the report that afternoon. John of corse said he did not know where she was. He knew prefecly where she was -- she was haveing an acid bath.
Monday, Febuary 21. John went back to check on the body to find that it had not completly dissolved yet. He went around to shops disposeing of her jewlery. He went back to find that still there was a pice of fat around a bone floating in the waste. He dumped the reast and pumped more acid in to dissolve the remaining flesh. He then left for work the rest of the day.
The police were also busy. They had sent some one to investagate at the Onslow hotel. The managers did not have a good opinon of John, but she learned little else, no on had seen Mrs. Durand since that friday lunch.
The police had called in for a check on John and strucj gold with a complete record of his war time crimes. They then sent two detectives to interview John at the Onslow hotel. He again denied any knowlage of Mrs. Durands activities on friday.
Tuesday, Febuary 22 was another busy day. The press called on John at the hotel. They had learned of his past and this intersted them. He fobbed them off with his standered story of ignorance taword Mrs. Durand's affairs. He told them he was was just as worried as anyone else.
After the press left he went and paid off part of his overdraft and repaid Mr. Jones for his 50L. He then Drove to Crawley to dump out the rest of Mrs. Durand.
The police kept busy, and on Febuary 26 they had enogh evidence to search John's warehouse. There they found plenty more evidence. The cleaners receipt for the fur coat, traces of blood, and bits of what was identified as ''animal fat'' They went around to the shops Jhon had visited and found Mrs. Durands jewlery. When all this was identified the confronted John and aressted him.
John remaind cool. He denied everything, but the police broght up the coat and jewls and he saw that they had him.
''Tell me officer, what are the chances of being released from broadmoor?'' The officer said he could not disscuss such matters.
"well inspector if i told you the truth you would not belive me it sounds to fantastic for belief''
John then confessed everything in the most lurid terms, it took him over 2 hours to tell it all.
''It was not there money but there blood i was after. The thing i am most concious of is the cup of blood.... i made a small cut usually in the right side of the neck, and drank there blood for three to five minutes and.... afterwards I felt better. Befor each of the killings i would have a series of dreams.''
Londons press, of course relished the new ''vampire'' to the fullest. ''Drinking blood!'' ''Vampire'' was on all the headlines:
Vampire a man held...
The vampire confesses...
The vampire will never strike again...
The public was not only horrified, but it could not wait for the next installment of the story. There had been murders befor, but blood drinking was something else.
John was remarkably eloquent in his discription of the killings and of his obsession with blood. Four days after his original statement, he ofered the fact that he had killed those people durring the war. The police were never convinced of these murders, for John had aroused suspicion that he was trying to plead insanity due to his talk of broadmoor.
After much legal manuvering, in July 1949, John was broght to trial in lewes, England. The trial was held in the cort that had juristiction over Crawly, Where the murder of Mrs. Durand had taken place. The defence pleaded not guilty, by reason of insanity. The evidence was presented and the corollary eveidence of the murders of the Mc. Swams, and the Hendersons. The question of blood was rasied, and after both sides has presented there eveidence the jury took only fifteen minutes to decide that John was not insane but guilty of plane old-fashioned murder.
On July 19th the court decided that John was to be hanged by the nect until dead.
John was taken to Wandsworth Prison to wait. The press had a feild day, John gave many interviews and told his life story embelishing it all with talk of the blood.
Finaly came John's day of recjoning. On August 9, 1949, the journalist Stafford somerfield of ''The news of the world'' went to wands worth to see John. One of his last requests was that the wax figure of him being prepared for the chamber of horrors in Madame Tusssad's wax museium in london was to be wearing his favorite green hopsacking suit his red tie and green socks. He still sticks to his frequently expressed view that he was not responsible for what he had done, that he had been guided buy some other force outside himself.
''What is, is, nd what will be will be.'' he said quoteing the book of Ecclesiates.
John was so right. The next moring they hanged John George Haigh, the man the press called ''The acid bath vampire.

well there it is. finaly. this took me 3 days befor surgey and then i had to wait till today to finish the last few pages of it. i copyed every word out of a book i have. it was very tedeus but worth it. hope you enjoyed the story of one of the best bag guys ever. hes eight up there with hanable ector.