Ep. 3 - The Infamous Dr. Crippen

Husband kills wife. This is the classic true crime tale. The spouses of murder victims are always the first to be scrutinized as suspects. And for good reason. The CDC did a study in 18 states of murdered women from the years 2003 to 2014 and more than half were murdered by a former or current partner or family or friend of that partner and 93% of those cases were current or former partners. Hawley Crippen was a successful homeopathic doctor in the early 1900s and his wife Cora went missing. All eyes focused on Dr. Crippen as the search for his wife began. The murder of Cora Crippen and the trial that followed became international news.

The Chamber of Horrors closed in April of 2016 at Madame Tussauds in London. Part of that exhibit was a wax figure of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen. Hawley Crippen was born in Coldwater, Michigan in September of 1862. He was a short man, standing only 5'3", and had what were described as very unusual buggy eyes. Crippen decided to pursue medicine and started at the Michigan School of Homeopathic Medicine and then moved to the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College from which he graduated in 1884. He married a woman named Charlotte in 1887 and they had a son they named Hawley Otto. Charlotte died of a stroke in 1892 when Otto was only two-years-old. Dr. Crippen had no desire to raise a child on his own, so he passed his son off to his parents who lived in California. He had started a homeopathic practice in New York and he poured himself into his work. 

The future Cora Crippen was born Kunigunde Mackamotzki to a Russian-Polish father and German mother in Brooklyn in 1873. She was a very domineering woman, described as promiscuious and someone who enjoyed partying. Cora had aspirations of being an opera singer, although she had no talent for singing. She took on the stage name Belle Elmore, but in her regular life went by the name Corrine Turner or Cora for short. She left home at 16 to pursue her performing dreams and met Dr. Hawley Crippen when she was 19 years old. In 1894, the couple got married with Cora believing that her very reserved husband would make a lot of money since he was a doctor. Being tied down made no difference to her when it came to pursuing other men. She like to flirt and she took on several lovers

The same year the couple married, Dr. Crippen went to work for Dr. Munyon's, which was a homeopathic pharmaceutical company. An advertisment for Munyon's claimed that there was "no experimenting, no guesswork, no nauseous doses - the cure is certain, speedy and lasting. Munyon's Improved Homeopathic Remedies are far in advance of the regular School of Homeopathy. They combine all that is best in all systems." Many old remedies like those sold at Munyon's contained arsenic and strychnine. The headquarters for the company was in London and three years after he started with the company, Dr. Crippen moved to England with Cora. He worked as a distributor there for the patent medicines and as an office manager. Cora went back to work as a singer and made friends in the social circles of the theater at the time like Lil Hawthorne of "The Hawthorne Sisters" and Lil's husband/manager John Nash.

No one knows if Dr. Crippen started getting more involved in Cora's career out of an interest in building her career or if he wanted to keep an eye on her, but he lost his job at Dr. Munyon's in 1899 for spending too much time managing Cora's career. He shifted career paths and moved on to becoming a manager at Drouet's Institution for the Deaf. It was while he was there that he hired a young typist named Ethel Le Neve in 1900. Several years later, in 1905, the two soon started an affair. Despite the affair, Dr. Crippen bought an expensive and beautiful home with Cora that was located on Camden Road in Hilltop Crescent in Holloway. The house was big enough to rent out rooms and they started supplementing their income with lodgers. Cora chose to start an affair with one of the lodgers. We have a marriage here with both spouses stepping out and before long, something was going to give.

On January 31, 1910, Cora and Dr. Crippen hosted a party at their home. Cora was never seen again after that evening. She simply disappeared. When people asked after her, Dr. Crippen explained that she had returned to America. When people still couldn't find her, he claimed that she had died in California and been cremated. That was odd enough, but when Ethel moved into the house shortly after Cora disappeared, people started doubting the excuses Crippen was making for his missing wife. Ethel took to wearing Cora's jewelry and clothes. This made Cora's friends suspicious. One of those friends was a strongwoman named Kate Williams, known as Vulcana in the sideshows, and she went to the police to report Cora missing. They did a little investigation, but not much effort was put forward. 

Cora's friends Lil Hawthorne and Nash had a friend, Superintendent Frank Froest, at Scotland Yard and they contacted him to put more pressure on the police and it worked. The Crippen House was searched, but nothing was found. They brought Dr. Crippen in for questioning and let him go after they were satisfied with his answers. But the doctor was worried that they would eventually arrest and charge him and so he and Ethel packed up and fled to a hotel in Brussels. They spent the night there and then boarded the Canadian Pacific liner SS Montrose for Canada. Ethel had disguised herself as a boy.

Dr. Crippen miscalculated. His flight sparked the suspicion of Scotland Yard and they did three more searches at the house. On the final search, they found the remains of a human body, buried under the brick floor of the basement. It was only a torso. The arms, legs and heads were never found. Traces of the anti-naseau drug scopolamine (Skoe PAH Lah Meen) were in the remains. The only thing that could be used to identify the corpse was a piece of skin from its abdomen. The Gazette's report on the crime stated, “Hilldrop Crescent is a quiet suburban place, although in the inner ring of the Metropolis, and reasoning specifically, it would be the last spot one would have dreamt of for the scene of a sordid murder. Here it was – in this unlikely quarter – that the corpse of a beautiful woman was dug up. Here it was that detectives silently came and went; here came eminent professors and official photographers and here came a coffin to bear ways a woman’s mangled remains.”

Bulletins were put out that featured the faces of Crippen and Ethel. The Captain of the ship, Henry George Kendall, recognized the fugitives and he had his telegraphist, Lawrence Ernest Hughes, send a wireless telegram to the British authorities. It was the first transmission of its kind and read, "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." Chief Inspector Dew boarded a faster White Star liner named the SS Laurentic and it arrived in Quebec ahead of Dr. Crippen. Since Canada was ruled by Britain, Dew was able to arrest Dr. Crippen and take him back to England without an extradition proceeding.

The doctor and Ethel were tried separately in London and Ethel was acquitted as an accessory to the murder of Cora because there was not enough evidence. The same was true for Dr. Crippen. There was no evidence that he had killed Cora and identifying a body in the early 1900s based on skin was rather dubious. The trial was a strange one and started on October 18, 1910 at Old Bailey. Several pathologists testified for the prosecution and they could not identify the remains. They couldn't even tell the court whether they belonged to a male or female. The skin piece they used for evidence had a scar on it that they claimed matched a scar Cora had. They also found the Scopolamine in the body and found evidence that Dr. Crippen had bought some prior to Cora's disappearance. One key piece of evidence were curlers with bleached hair like similar to Cora's hair that were found with the remains.

Crippen's defense argued that the remains had been in the house before the Crippens moved in and maintained the doctor's claim that Cora had run away to America. They added that she had done so with a man named Bruce Miller. They claimed that the abdominal scar was really just folded skin tissue since hair follicles were growing from it. Dr. Crippen did himself no favors by showing no remorse throughout the entire proceedings that lasted for three days. The jury deliberated for just 27 minutes and found him guilty of murder. Unlike the death penalty of our current era that may afford a death row inmate years, even decades, before the sentence is carried out, Dr. Crippen was hanged a month later, on November 23, 1910. The execution took place at Pentonville Prison in London. At his request, a photograph of Ethel Le Neve was placed in his coffin with him. He was put in a grave on the prison's grounds.

But did Dr. Crippen kill his wife? There are many who claim that Dr. Crippen did not murder his wife and doubts remain today. Scotland Yard was under intense pressure and scrutiny to find Cora and get her justice. Is it possible that they planted a torso when they were unable to find Cora's body? In 2007, DNA evidence questioned the identification of the body found in the cellar of the Crippen's House. Michigan State University forensic scientist David Foran claimed that mitochondrial DNA evidence showed that the remains found beneath the cellar floor were not from Cora based on DNA from three matrilineal relatives of Cora. Another study of the remains claimed the DNA belonged to a male. The novelist Raymond Chandler said of the case that it seemed unbelievable that Dr. Crippen would manage to make Cora's limbs and head disappear, but keep the torso under the cellar floor of his home. Some theorized that the doctor had been carrying out illegal abortions and that this was one of his patients who had died during the procedure. But if these were the remains of a man, that theory goes out the window. That research was published in the January 2011 issue of the Journal of Forensic Sciences.

And for those of us that study true crime, we know that if someone uses poison to kill a victim, that killer is more than likely trying to make the death look natural. It would defeat that purpose to dismember a body. But the doctor didn't report his wife missing and he made up stories about where she disappeared to, finally telling people she had died. And he fled with his lover. Obviously, you don't have to be guilty to flee. Just the fear of being arrested would be enough.

As for the Crippen's former residence, the Islington Council had the property demolished in hopes of erasing the bad memories of the place. The house was nearly destroyed before this time as Hilltop Crescent was bombed by German aircraft on the night of September 8, 1940. They replaced it with a block of ten flats in 1951 named  Margaret Bondfield House. The memories may have been erased, but the spirits are still here apparently.

Residents of Margaret Bondfield House claim to be plagued by haunting activity. Seventy-one year old resident Anne Heathfield said of the haunting, “It’s quite frightening. Some people hear noises in the night. Sometimes seeing shapes in the room and all that. You ask anyone round here they’ll tell you. It’s not as bad as it used to be – years ago it was terrible.” She has lived here for a long time and used to share her home with her mother. She said, “In her day we heard a lot more. She was in the Gazette about it many years ago. It’s creepy. When my mum moved in here I came and helped her sort everything out. While we were doing it, we saw a shadow move past the front room window. It was wearing a black hat and had a cape, really old fashioned. We ran out but no-one was there. It was awful. Just the other week I was in bed when I heard this ‘knock, knock, knock’ at the window. It wasn’t at the bedroom window, it was somewhere else in the house. I couldn’t just lie there, I went to look around, but there was no one there. It’s frightening when you’re on your own, but you get used to it. You just have to get on, don’t you?”

People have claimed to see the spirit of Dr. Crippen re-enacting the disposal of his wife's body at Hilltop Crescent. This figure is dressed in Edwardian clothing and has been described as shadowy and bringing an intense sensation of cold. Other times the apparition is described as having a drooping mustache and carrying a large bulky parcel under its arm. But are all these haunted events committed by Dr, Crippen's spirit or is it possible that Cora's ghost is active here as well. Some claim to see her headless apparition walking in the area. 

Spirits are restless when still seeking justice and it is quite possible that guilt may lead to a ghost remaining at a location. Sometimes a scene is locked into the landscape and so seeing the re-enactment of a crime could just be something residual. We may never know why spiritual residue remains, just as we will never understand what drives someone to kill another person they once cared for deeply.