Serial Killers
David Edward Maust and John George Haigh
Early Life
Murders
- In 1979 in his apartment in Chicago Maust stabbed a friend in his apartment while he was sleeping.
- In 1981 Maust decided to find and kill the 13-year-old who had molested him at the children's home. He was unable to find the boy, encountered 15 year-old Donald Jones and decided to kill him instead. Jones was eventually drowned in an Elgin quarry
- In Texas the same year Maust stabbed a young man, was arrested, and sentenced to 5 years for “causing bodily injury to a child
- In 2001 Maust hit an acquaintance 6 times in the back of the head with a metal pipe in another attempted murder, but he was not prosecuted because the acquaintance, although he reported the incident to police, did not want to pursue prosecution.
- On 12 December 2003 Maust was arrested for the strangling death of James Raganyi, 16.Raganyi's body was found encased in concrete in Maust's basement in Hammond, Indiana. He was later charged with the deaths of Michael Dennis, 13, and Nick James, 19, similarly wrapped in plastic and encased in concrete. In November 2005 he pled guilty for the three murders and was sentenced to three life terms.
Death January 6th 2006
One Thursday Morning, Maust was informed by the Correctional Officers at the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana that he was being transferred to the Indiana Department of Corrections to carry out his sentence. He was in the "OLD" part of the jail, segregated from other inmates, and in his own cell. Upon returning to his cell, the officers noticed David Maust was hanging from a sheet, tied to the cell bars. Several officers tried reviving him at his cell. He was then transported to the hospital.
Maust died at St. Anthony Medical Center 27 hours after the hanging
John George Haigh " Acid bath murderer"
On 6 July 1934, Haigh married the 23-year-old Beatrice 'Betty' Hamer. The marriage soon fell apart. The same year Haigh was gaoled for fraud, Betty gave birth while he was in prison but she gave the baby girl up for adoption and left Haigh. His conservative family ostracised him from that point onwards.
He then moved to London in 1936, and became chauffeur to William McSwan, a wealthy owner of amusement parlours. Additionally, he used his mechanical skills to maintain McSwan's amusement machines. Following that he became a bogus solicitor and received a four-year prison sentence for fraud. Haigh was released just after the start of World War II and continued as a fraudster, and was sentenced to several terms of imprisonment.
While in prison he dreamed up what he considered the perfect murder: being able to destroy the victim's body by dissolving it with sulphuric acid. He experimented with mice and found it took only 30 minutes for the body to disappear.
Murders
He told McSwan's parents, William and Amy, that their son had gone into hiding to avoid being called up for military service. Haigh then took over McSwan's house and when William and Amy became curious as to why their son had not returned as the war was coming to an end, he murdered them too – on 2 July 1945, he lured them to Gloucester Road and disposed of them.
Haigh stole William McSwan's pension cheques, sold their properties – stealing about £8,000 (£310,000 in 2015, when adjusted for inflation) – and moved into the Onslow Court Hotel in Kensington. By the summer of 1947, Haigh, a gambler, was running short of money, he found another couple to kill and rob: Dr Archibald Henderson and his wife, Rose, whom he murdered after purporting to show interest in a house they were selling.
He rented a small workshop at 2 Leopold Road, Crawley, West Sussex, and moved acid and drums there from Gloucester Road. Haigh was also known to have stayed at The George Hotel, Crawley, on several occasions. On 12 February 1948, he drove Henderson to Crawley, on the pretext of showing him an invention. When they arrived Haigh shot Henderson in the head with a revolver he had earlier stolen from the doctor’s house. He then lured Mrs Henderson to the workshop, claiming her husband had fallen ill, and shot her also.After disposing of the Hendersons' bodies in oil drums filled with acid, he forged a letter from them and sold all of their possessions for £8,000 (except their dog, which he kept).
Trial and Execution
Haigh was led to the gallows and hung on August 10 1949.