| Hawley Harvey Crippen | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 11, 1862 Coldwater, Michigan, US |
| Died | November 23, 1910 (aged 48) Pentonville Prison, London |
| Alias(es) | Dr Crippen |
| Motive | Unknown |
| Conviction(s) | Murder |
| Penalty | Hanging |
| Occupation | Homeopath |
| Spouse | Cora Henrietta Crippen |
Hawley Harvey Crippen (September 11, 1862 – November 23, 1910), usually known as Dr. Crippen, was an American homeopathic physician hanged in Pentonville Prison, London, on November 23, 1910, for the murder of his wife, Cora Henrietta Crippen. He was the first criminal to be captured with the aid of wireless communication.
In 2007, American researchers concluded that their DNA tests cast doubt on his conviction,[1] though this conclusion has been challenged.
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Crippen was born in Coldwater, Michigan, to Ardesee Skinner[2] and Myron Augustus Crippen, a merchant.[3] Crippen graduated from the Michigan School of Homeopathic Medicine in 1884.[4] Crippen's first wife, Charlotte, died of a stroke in 1892, and Crippen entrusted his parents, living in California, with the care of his two-year-old son, Hawley Otto.[5] Crippen became a homeopathic doctor and started working for Dr. Munyon's, a homoeopathic pharmaceutical company. His second wife was Corrine "Cora" Turner[6] (stage name: 'Belle Elmore'), born Kunigunde Mackamotski to a German mother and a Polish-Russian father. She was a would-be music hall singer who openly had affairs. In 1900, Crippen and his spouse moved to England. His US medical qualifications were not sufficient to allow him to practise as a doctor in the UK [7] — Crippen pursued an occupation as a distributor of patent medicines,[8] Cora socialized with a number of famous variety players of the time, including Lil Hawthorne of "The Hawthorne Sisters" and Lil's husband/manager John Nash.[9] After living at various addresses in London, the couple finally moved to 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden Road, Holloway, London, where they took in lodgers to augment Crippen's meagre income.
After a party at their home on January 31, 1910, Cora disappeared. Hawley Crippen claimed that she had returned to the US, and later added that she had died, and had been cremated, in California. Meanwhile, his lover, Ethel "Le Neve" Neave (born Bryers Lane, off Victoria Road in Diss Norfolk January 1883), moved into Hilldrop Crescent and began openly wearing Cora's clothes and jewellery. Police first heard of Cora's disappearance from her friend, strongwoman Kate Williams, better known as Vulcana,[10] but began to take the matter more seriously when asked to investigate by a personal friend of Scotland Yard Supt. Frank Froest, John Nash and his entertainer wife, Lil Hawthorne.[11] The house was searched, but nothing was found, and Crippen was interviewed by Chief Inspector Walter Dew. After the interview (and a quick search of the house), Dew was satisfied. However, Crippen and Le Neve did not know this and fled in panic to Brussels, where they spent the night at a hotel. The following day, they went to Antwerp and boarded the Canadian Pacific liner SS Montrose for Canada.
Their disappearance led the police at Scotland Yard to perform another three searches of the house. During the fourth and final search, they found the remains of a human body, buried under the brick floor of the basement. Sir Bernard Spilsbury found traces of the calming drug scopolamine. The corpse was identified by a piece of skin from its abdomen; the head, limbs, and skeleton were never recovered.
Meanwhile, Crippen and Le Neve were crossing the Atlantic on the Montrose, with Le Neve disguised as a boy. Captain Henry George Kendall recognised the fugitives and, just before steaming out of range of the land-based transmitters, had Telegraphist Lawrence Ernest Hughes send a wireless telegram to the British authorities: "Have strong suspicions that Crippen London cellar murderer and accomplice are among saloon passengers. Mustache taken off growing beard. Accomplice dressed as boy. Manner and build undoubtedly a girl." Had Crippen travelled 3rd class, he would have probably escaped Kendall's notice. Dew boarded a faster White Star liner, the SS Laurentic, arrived in Quebec, Canada, ahead of Crippen, and contacted the Canadian authorities.
As the Montrose entered the St. Lawrence River, Dew came aboard disguised as a pilot. Canada was then still a dominion within the British Empire. If Crippen, an American citizen, had sailed to the United States instead, even if he had been recognized, it would have taken extradition proceedings to bring him to trial.
Kendall invited Crippen to meet the pilots as they came aboard. Dew removed his pilot's cap and said, "Good morning, Dr Crippen. Do you know me? I'm Chief Inspector Dew from Scotland Yard." After a pause, Crippen replied, "Thank God it's over. The suspense has been too great. I couldn't stand it any longer." He then held out his wrists for the handcuffs. Crippen and Le Neve were arrested on board the Montrose on July 31, 1910. Crippen was returned to England on board the SS Megantic.[12]
The Crippen murder was featured in a popular song:
Dr Crippen killed Belle Elmore
Ran away with Miss le Neve
Right across the ocean blue
Followed by Inspector Dew
Ship's ahoy, naughty boy!
Crippen and le Neve were tried separately at the London assizes, held at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, London.
The pathologists appearing for the prosecution, including Bernard Spilsbury, could not identify the remains or even discern whether they were male or female. However, Spilsbury found a piece of skin with what he claimed to be an abdominal scar consistent with Cora's medical history.[7][13] Large quantities of the toxic compound hyoscine were found in the remains, and Crippen had bought the drug before the murder from a local chemist.
Crippen's defence maintained that Cora had fled to America with another man named Bruce Miller and nonetheless Cora and Hawley had been living at the house only since 1905, suggesting a previous owner of the house was responsible for the placement of the remains. The defence asserted that the abdominal scar identified by pathologist Bernard Spilsbury was really just folded tissue, for it among other things had hair follicles growing from it, something scar tissue could not have;[14] Spilsbury noted that the sebaceous glands appeared at the ends but not in the middle of the scar.[7]
Other evidence presented by the prosecution included a piece of a man's pajama top supposedly from a pair Cora had given Crippen a year earlier. The pajama bottoms were found in Crippen's bedroom, but not the top. The fragment included the manufacturer's label Jones Bros. Curlers with bleached hair consistent with Cora's; both were found with the remains.[15] Testimony from a Jones Bros. representative, the store that the pajama top fragment came from, stated that the product was not sold prior to 1908, thus placing the date of manufacture well within the time period of when the Crippens occupied the house and when Cora gave the garment to Hawley the year before in 1909.[14]
Throughout the proceedings and at his sentencing, Crippen showed no remorse for his wife and concern for only his lover's reputation. After just 27 minutes of deliberations, the jury found Crippen guilty of murder and he was hanged by John Ellis, assisted by William Willis,[16][17] at 9 a.m. on November 23 at Pentonville Prison, London. Le Neve was acquitted and emigrated to the United States on the morning of her lover's execution. At his request, her photograph was placed in his coffin and buried with him.
Although Crippen's grave in the prison grounds is not marked by a stone, tradition has it that soon after his burial, a rose bush was planted over it. Some of his relatives in Michigan have begun lobbying for his remains to be repatriated to the United States.[14]
A theory which was first propounded by Edward Marshall Hall was that Crippen was using hyoscine on his wife as a depressant or anaphrodisiac, but accidentally gave her an overdose and then panicked when she died.[7] It is said that Hall declined to lead Crippen's defence because another theory was to be propounded.[18]
In 1981, newspapers reported that Sir Hugh Rhys Rankin claimed to have met Ethel Le Neve in 1930 in Australia and that on that occasion, she told him that Crippen murdered his wife because she had syphilis.[19]
There remains some dispute over whether Dr Crippen did murder his wife.
The novelist Raymond Chandler commented that it seemed unbelievable that Crippen would successfully dispose of his wife's limbs and head, and then, rather stupidly, bury her torso under the cellar floor of his home.
Dornford Yates, a novelist who was a junior barrister at the trial, records that the remains were placed in lime so that they would be destroyed, but suggests that Crippen failed to realize that while dry quicklime destroys, if water is added, it becomes slaked lime and preserves. Yates used this fact in the plot of his novel The House That Berry Built and told the story of the trial from his viewpoint in his memoirs As Berry and I Were Saying.
In October 2007, Michigan State University forensic scientist David Foran claimed that mitochondrial DNA evidence showed that the remains found beneath the cellar floor in Crippen's home were not those of Cora Crippen.[20] This research was based on alleged genealogical identification of three matrilineal relatives of Cora Crippen (great-nieces, located by US genealogist Beth Wills), whose mitochondrial DNA haplotype was compared with DNA extracted from a slide with flesh said to be taken from the torso in Crippen's cellar. This has raised new questions about the actual identity of the remains found in the cellar, and – by extension – over Crippen's guilt.
One theory is that Crippen may have been carrying out illegal abortions; it may be that one of his patients died and that he disposed of the body in the way he was accused of disposing of his wife.[21] However, the remains were also tested for gender at Michigan State, using an innovative test. On this basis, the researchers concluded that the body parts were those of a man.
The research team also argued that a scar on the abdomen of the body, which the Crown Prosecution interpreted as a scar consistent with one Mrs. Crippen was known to have, convincing the jury that the remains were Mrs Crippen’s, was incorrectly identified, due to the tissue's having hair follicles, whereas scars do not (a point which Dr. Crippen's defense argued at the time).[20]
These recent arguments for Crippen's innocence have been disputed by several commentators.[22][23] It has been argued that the DNA sample could have been tainted or mislabelled, or – alternatively – that the alleged relatives were not actually blood relatives of Mrs. Crippen.
In a skeptical review of the new evidence, and the suggestion that the remains came from a male, David Aaronovitch has written: "As to the body being male, well the American team was using a 'special technique' that is 'very new' and 'done only by this team' and working on a single, century-old slide, described by the team leader as a 'less than optimal sample'".[24] However, Foran stated in an interview, "There was a lot more DNA work than what is portrayed in the film. Those tests showed unequivocally that the remains were male."[25]
John Trestrail had previously requested New Scotland Yard to provide samples of the blond hair found in curlers at the scene (and now preserved in New Scotland Yard's museum) to conduct DNA testing to see if they are Cora's. Obtaining a DNA sample from these sources would greatly lessen any questions of contamination. New Scotland Yard has repeatedly denied his request.[14] However, New Scotland Yard was willing to test a hair from the crime scene for a fee, which in turn was rejected by the investigators as "over the top,"[25] making this an option which is still open if New Scotland Yard continues to extend the offer.
Trestrail has hypothesized that the police planted the body parts and particularly the fragment of the pajama top at the scene to incriminate Crippen. Trestrail admits he has provided no support for this hypothesis and that it is his best guess. Another suggested motive is that Scotland Yard was under tremendous public pressure to find and bring to trial a suspect for this heinous crime. An independent observer points out that the case did not become public until after the remains were found. [14]
In December 2009 the Criminal Cases Review Commission, having reviewed the case, declared that the court of appeal will not hear the case to pardon Crippen posthumously.