Guy Hadleigh's Blog

The Acid Bath Murderer: How John George Haigh's Perfect Crime Was Undone by a Single Tooth

The Gentleman Killer of Kensington

On February 18, 1949, Mrs. Constance Lane walked into the Chelsea Police Station in London with a troubling story. Her friend, sixty-nine-year-old Olive Durand-Deacon, a wealthy widow who lived at the Onslow Court Hotel in South Kensington, had been missing for two days. Mrs. Lane had last seen her friend leaving the hotel with a charming gentleman who also resided there—a well-dressed man in his late thirties named John George Haigh. He had invited Mrs. Durand-Deacon to visit his factory in Crawley, Sussex, to discuss a business proposition involving artificial fingernails.

What made Mrs. Lane suspicious was Haigh's behavior after Mrs. Durand-Deacon failed to return. He had approached Mrs. Lane with apparent concern, suggesting they report her friend missing together. He seemed almost too eager to involve himself in the search, too willing to answer questions, too cooperative. Something about his urbane manner and ready explanations struck her as rehearsed, performative.

The detective who took Mrs. Lane's statement, Detective Inspector Albert Webb, shared her unease. A routine background check on John George Haigh revealed something remarkable: this well-mannered hotel resident with his expensive suits and polished shoes had a criminal record. Three separate convictions for fraud and theft. Four prison sentences totaling nearly eight years.

When Webb questioned Haigh about Mrs. Durand-Deacon's disappearance, the suspect maintained his story with unsettling calm. Yes, they had planned to visit his workshop. No, she had never arrived at their meeting point. Yes, he had waited, then assumed she had changed her mind. His answers were smooth, reasonable,...Read More

The Poison Eaters: How Two French Villagers Survived Daily Arsenic and Sparked a Scientific Revolution

A Morbid Breakfast Ritual in the Austrian Alps

In the spring of 1851, a Viennese doctor named Johann von Tschudi sat in stunned silence at a breakfast table in the remote Austrian village of Styria. His host, a robust mountain farmer with ruddy cheeks and calloused hands, had just done something that should have killed him instantly. The man had casually sprinkled what appeared to be white powder onto his bread—a substance von Tschudi immediately recognized as arsenic trioxide, one of the deadliest poisons known to science. The farmer spread it like butter, took a hearty bite, and washed it down with coffee. He smiled at his guest's horrified expression and explained that he and many others in these mountain villages had been "eating" arsenic for years.

This bizarre practice would eventually lead to one of history's most perplexing criminal cases—a tale that bridged three countries, challenged everything scientists thought they knew about poison, and culminated in a trial that nearly allowed murderers to walk free because their victims' bodies told an impossible story.

To understand the magnitude of what von Tschudi witnessed, one must first understand arsenic's dark reputation. By the mid-nineteenth century, arsenic had earned the nickname "inheritance powder" across Europe. Colorless, tasteless, and readily available in rat poisons and agricultural products, it was the weapon of choice for those seeking to dispatch inconvenient relatives, unfaithful spouses, or business rivals. Its symptoms—violent vomiting, abdominal pain, and eventual organ failure—mimicked common diseases like cholera or food poisoning, making it nearly undetectable before the development of sophisticated chemical tests.

Belle Gunness - Americas First Female Serial Killer

One of 5 stories in Very Bad Women Volume #1 by Guy Hadleigh.

Available from Amazon by clicking here

Brynhild Paulsdatter Storet was born in Norway on November 11 1859. The innocence of Brynhild was short lived; brutality changed her life before she left the shores of her beloved Norway. Young Brynhild fell in love and conceived out of wedlock; she decided to tell her lover at the dance held in a barn outside of town. Behind the barn, she broke the news to the one she wanted to marry; instead of sharing her love and joy, he became enraged. He violently attacked Brynhild; because of the beating, she lost the child. Brynhild was never the same; love and hate became inseparable in her mind, they were fused together in a demented dance, forever fighting for her attention…

Brynhild left Norway for the United States and a new life; she was full of anticipation, she wanted to start over in a new place and find a new love. She changed her name to Belle to help her forget her past, to try to erase the pain and bury Brynhild in the dirt of Norway. She told herself that Belle was nothing like Brynhild; Belle was smart and beautiful. Brynhild was dead and gone, a distant relative with no one to mourn her passing.

Belle made her way to Chicago, a city full of strangers, full of infinite possibilities. She wanted to be in love, she wanted a family and Chicago was full of potential suitors. She fought back the fear with a brave and beautiful new...Read More

Top 10 Strangest Motives for Murder: When Logic Dies and Madness Takes Over

Murder is often explained by the old trinity of motive: money, jealousy, revenge. But some killers defy all logic — their reasons are so strange, irrational, or chillingly absurd that they leave even seasoned detectives shaking their heads.

From the Cold War agent slain with a poisoned umbrella to a cannibal who believed eating beauty could make it his own, these crimes show that not all murder is born of hatred. Some are rooted in delusion, obsession, superstition — or simply the bizarre corners of the human mind.

Each case in this list reminds us that the question “why?” is sometimes the hardest one to answer.

1. The Umbrella Assassin – Georgi Markov (London, 1978)

It was a bright London morning when Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov waited for a bus near Waterloo Bridge. A stranger brushed past him, tapping his thigh with an umbrella tip. Markov felt a sting — like an insect bite — and within days, he was dead. The autopsy revealed a tiny metal pellet laced with ricin, a poison with no antidote. Investigators suspected Bulgarian secret police, aided by the KGB, had orchestrated the hit to silence the outspoken journalist who mocked the Communist regime on Radio Free Europe. The murder weapon, an umbrella modified to fire a micro-pellet, sounded like something from a spy novel — and it was. No one was ever charged. The “Umbrella Assassin” disappeared into Cold War legend, leaving behind one of history’s strangest motives: the silencing of a voice, delivered with a gentleman’s umbrella.

2. The Lottery Curse – Abraham Shakespeare (Florida, 2009)

When construction worker Abraham Shakespeare won $30 million in the Florida lottery, he believed his troubles were over....Read More

Peter Sutcliffe and the Killing Fields of Yorkshire

The following story has been taken from SERIAL KILLER MURDER MAP: UK EDITION - BOOK 1: In the Footsteps of Evil - Following England’s Notorious Serial Killers by Guy Hadleigh

Available now on Amazon 📱Digital: $3.99 🎧Audio: $9.99

Bradford has worn many faces over the years. Once the proud “wool capital of the world,” its Victorian mills still stand like stone giants, their chimneys stabbing the skyline. Today, the city has the weary look of a place that’s been promised revival too many times. Neon kebab shops glow beside boarded-up pubs, while ring roads funnel endless traffic through a centre that never quite shakes the grit from its teeth.

By day, the streets bustle with markets and buskers, with students from the university dragging takeaway coffees up Great Horton Road. But at night, there’s a different edge. The wind that howls down Westgate still seems to carry whispers from the late 1970s, when Bradford and the wider West Yorkshire region were under siege. This was ground zero for one of Britain’s most infamous killers: Peter Sutcliffe, the so-called Yorkshire Ripper.

Between 1975 and 1980, Sutcliffe murdered 13 women and attacked many more, striking not just in Bradford but across Leeds, Halifax, Manchester, and Sheffield. Yet it was in Bradford’s red-light district, near Manningham and Lumb Lane, that his shadow loomed heaviest. Women working the streets here learned to glance over their shoulders with every footstep, never knowing if the man...Read More

A serial killer was on the loose in London, terrorising the gay community. During a 12 week killing spree in 1993 he strangled five homosexual men he had picked up in bars.

The telephone call to the newsroom of The Sun newspaper in London was brief and anonymous. A man's voice told a reporter: 'I have murdered a man.' He then gave an address in Vicarage Crescent, Battersea, south-west London.

Speaking in a gruff London accent, he continued: 'I am calling you because I am worried about his dogs. I want them to be let out. 'It would be cruel for them to be stuck there. They need food and water.' Then the voice added chillingly: 'I tied him up and I killed him and I cleaned up the flat afterwards. I did it. It was my New Year resolution to kill a human being. Is that of any interest to you? He was a homosexual and into kinky sex' Then he hung up.

The paper alerted the police, who went round to the flat on 9 March 1993. When they knocked on the door there was no reply, but they could hear dogs barking in the background. After forcing the door, the officers found the owner of the two dogs, a Labrador and a German shepherd, lying dead on his four-poster bed. He was spread-eagled and naked, with his wrists and ankles tied by cord to each corner post. A plastic bag had been tied tightly over his head.

Peter Walker was a 45-year-old theatre director who had been openly gay since his early 20s. He had spent his life working in show business, and when he died he was the assistant director of the West End hit musical City of Angels.

Detectives made a close examination of the scene to discover whether Mr Walker had been murdered, or had died accidentally during a sado-masochistic sex session. The police and pathologists had seen it many times before: sex games featuring bondage together with restricted breathing that had gone too far...Read More

Murderous Families

The Bloody Bender Killers

THE FOLLOWING STORY IS TAKEN FROM TRUE TALES OF MURDER AND MAYHEM VOLUME #1 BY GUY HADLEIGH - Available now on Amazon 📱Digital: $3.99 🎧Audio: $9.99

On March 9, 1873 Dr. William York left Fort Scott on horseback for his home in Independence, Kansas. He never arrived there. Nearly three weeks later, a local newspaper gave a brief account of his mysterious disappearance, and the story was quickly picked up by other newspapers in the state. There was considerable speculation that he might have been murdered, as it was known that he had been carrying a large sum of money, and a posse was formed to find him.

The posse was led by his brother, Colonel A. York, who followed the trail; it was said, “with the tenacity of an Indian and the devotion of a saint". Rivers were dragged, possible spots for an ambush were thoroughly searched, and the route Dr. York must have travelled was taken from town to town. There were no signs anywhere to show how he had met his death or even that he had been murdered. He was traced as far as Cherry Valley in Labette County, about 50 miles from the south line of the state, and no farther. There, the trail ended.

Cherry Valley, in 1873 was a small railroad town. About two miles south of it was a modest frame house where travellers could buy a meal or a drink. It stood about 100 yards back from the Osage Trail, which ran east and west in front of it. Over the door was a sign marked “Grocery”. The single room,...Read More

🌑 Macabre True Crimes Revisited: Madness, Faith, and Flesh Across Continents

“Evil doesn’t always hide in the dark. Sometimes it waves back from the mirror.”

The third volume of Macabre: True Crimes & Mysteries opens like a descent through the world’s hidden trapdoors—into back alleys, interrogation rooms, and jungle clearings where reason frays and humanity unravels.

Across 20 stories, from Soviet factory towns to Pacific island missions, we meet killers, victims, and systems that failed them both. The thread binding them isn’t geography or era—it’s the human compulsion to dominate, to believe, to destroy, and to justify it afterward.

Here are some of the most haunting cases from Macabre Volume 3—each proof that real horror needs no fiction.

🩸 The Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs — Murder as a Performance (Ukraine)

Nineteen-year-olds Viktor Sayenko and Igor Suprunyuk weren’t hardened criminals; they were middle-class sons of engineers, raised on video games and vodka. Their pastime began with cruelty to stray dogs. It ended with 21 human victims.

They called it “testing their courage.” The world knows them for something else: “3 Guys, 1 Hammer.”

The pair filmed their killings on cell phones—faces calm, hammers dripping. The leaked footage scorched across the internet like a contagion, birthing one of the most infamous snuff myths of the digital age.

The police caught them not through forensics but by sheer accident: a stolen phone pawned for pocket change. That single mistake exposed hard drives filled with videos, photographs, and smiling selfies beside the dead.

In court, the killers showed no remorse. “We are gods,” one said. “We decide...Read More

Top 10 Medical Serial Killers: When Healing Turns to Murder

Hospitals are meant to be sanctuaries—places of care, compassion, and trust. But sometimes, behind the reassuring smiles and crisp white coats, lurks something monstrous. Throughout history, a small but chilling number of doctors, nurses, and caregivers have turned the power to heal into a weapon. Their victims weren’t strangers in dark alleys—they were patients, vulnerable and bedridden, who believed they were safe.

These are the medical professionals who crossed the line from medicine to murder. Some claimed mercy as their motive; others seemed driven by ego, control, or sheer bloodlust. Each story is a reminder of how fragile the boundary between life and death can be when the hands meant to save become instruments of death.

1. Harold Shipman – The Doctor of Death (UK)

For years, Dr. Harold Shipman was the picture of respectability — a trusted family GP in the quiet English town of Hyde. Patients adored him. He made house calls, remembered birthdays, and spoke softly about “making people comfortable.” No one suspected that comfort, in Shipman’s hands, meant death.

Between the 1970s and 1998, Shipman methodically killed hundreds of his mostly elderly female patients by administering lethal doses of morphine. He would then falsify death certificates, attributing their passing to natural causes. Families trusted him implicitly — even allowed him to oversee the cremations.

The pattern began to unravel only when a local undertaker noticed a suspiciously high death rate among Shipman’s patients. A forged will in the name of one victim sealed his fate.

When police finally tallied the evidence, the scale of murder was staggering — at least 215 deaths, possibly as many as 250. Shipman showed no...Read More

Six Icelanders admit to two murders they can’t remember, sparking a decades-long
battle over police tactics, false memories, and one of Europe’s strangest miscarriages of justice.

The Disappearances - A Dark Night in January 1974

In the early hours of 26 January 1974, 18-year-old Guðmundur Einarsson left a community dance hall in Hafnarfjörður – a small port town just outside Reykjavík – and set out on foot for home. A winter storm was raging, blanketing the lava fields of the Reykjanes peninsula in thick snow. Guðmundur had been drinking and, with youthful overconfidence, decided to walk the 10 km journey despite the perilous weather. On a remote dark road, a driver later reported nearly hitting a stumbling figure who lurched in front of his car – believed to be the young man himself. That motorist drove on, leaving Guðmundur alone in the blizzard, and the teenager was never seen again.

Search parties mobilized in the following days once Guðmundur was reported missing. They scoured the snowbound lava fields and rocky crevasses where a person could easily disappear. The hunt was hampered by drifts half a meter deep, and after a few weeks the authorities called it off with no trace found. In Iceland, it was not unheard-of for people to vanish in harsh winter storms without a trace – a tragic reality often attributed to the unforgiving landscape and weather. Many assumed Guðmundur’s fate was just such a misfortune of nature (speculation). His name might have faded from public memory as an unfortunate statistic – if not for what happened next.

Ten Months Later: Another Man Missing

Boats docked in Keflavík harbor, where search teams scoured the waters for any sign of the missing man. Geirfinnur Einarsson, a 32-year-old construction worker and family man from the...Read More