Capital Punishment

Satisfactory Essays
Capital Punishment

In the 1960's capital punishment was still an issue in our country. It

brought up many questions about morality which finally led to its

abolition in 1969.

In the 1950's the houses in Rillington Place were divided into 10

flats. From the outside Number 10 looked the same as every other,

however the horrors that were found in it in March 1953 made it one of

the most infamous addresses in England.

John Christie's murder method was to lure women to his house, get them

drunk then gas them. Once they were unconscious he strangled them and

finished by raping their corpses.

In 1949, Timothy Evans returned home to find his wife and 14 month old

daughter strangled to death. With shock and panic he fled to London. A

few days later he went to the police in Wales and told them of the

murders- he blamed his neighbor John Christie however he was charged

and tried for both murders and hanged in 1950. John Christie had also

fled his flat but a tenant found three dead prostitutes hidden in

Christie's kitchen. Upon further examination they found Mrs. Christie

under the floorboards in the bedroom and body parts and bones in the

garden. When he was found he confessed to have killing his wife and

eventually others. Altogether he was charged with 9 murders and hanged

on July 15th, 1953.

Timothy Evan was an innocent man hanged for a crime he did not commit.

Who has to decide whether people are innocent or guilty and does the

society have the right to take a life? By killing those who we believe

to have killed are we not ourselves made killers and sinking to the

level of those we are trying to eradicate. There was a reprieve

system, however how can we be sure that those hanged were guilty of

worse crimes than that reprieved, or was the whole reprieve system

just a lottery that was incapable of distinguishing between degrees of


Another case is the one of Ruth Ellis.
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