According to his mother, Neville Heath was ‘prone to be excitable’. He was that all right — and then some. In the space of two weeks in the summer of 1946, Heath murdered two women with such brutality that, as Sean O’Connor puts it with shuddering relish, ‘war-hardened police officers vomited on seeing them’.
The public were fascinated by him. Elizabeth Taylor reworked Heath’s story into a novel, Patrick Hamilton drew on it heavily for his Gorse trilogy and Alfred Hitchcock wanted to make a film about the case, but had to ditch the idea when the studio decided it would be too revolting.
Heath was fascinating mainly due to his ambivalence. Clearly capable of appalling brutality, he could also be tender and considerate. One of his girlfriends described him as a ‘big teddy bear’, while the actress Moira Lister wrote that she found it impossible to equate ‘the savage abnormal sex murders he had done with the charming man who would take me out on the town’.
Heath was not only charming but unusually good-looking.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in