11 September: Dr Crippen

Born this date in 1862 was Dr. Crippen, convicted of killing his wife in the early 20^th century. Some facts about him:

1. His full name was Hawley Harvey Crippen and he was born in Coldwater, Michigan.
2. He was a doctor of homeopathy. He graduated from Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College in 1884. He had a homeopathy practice in New York, but when he moved to the UK, his qualification wasn't recognised so he couldn't legally work as a doctor. He worked as a distributor of patent medicines for a company called Munyon's.
3. The wife he allegedly killed was not his first wife. He was married to a woman called Charlotte with whom he had a son, Hawley Otto. Charlotte died of a stroke in 1892 and Hawley Otto was brought up by his grandparents.
4. His second wife was a wannabe music hall singer called Corrine "Cora" Turner, although her name at birth was Kunigunde Mackamotski, and her stage name was Belle Elmore. Crippen spent a lot of time managing her stage career, which got him the sack from Munyon's.
5. His next job was manager of Drouet's Institution for the Deaf, where he hired Ethel Le Neve, a young typist. Crippen started having an affair with her. Meanwhile, Cora was openly having affairs, too, including with one of the couple's paying guests.
6. Cora vanished in 1910 after a party at the Crippen's home, 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden Road, Holloway. Crippen told people she had run away back to America with a lover and later died over there. Ethel moved in with him and openly wore Cora's clothes and jewellery. Not everyone believed that. Cora's friend, strongwoman Kate Williams, known as Vulcana, raised her suspicions with the police, as did a couple called John Nash and Lil Hawthorne.
7. Chief Inspector Walter Dew interviewed Crippen and had his house searched, but found nothing and came to the conclusion Crippen was telling the truth. Crippen, however, didn't wait to find out what Dew thought. He and Ethel took off in a panic. They went to Antwerp and boarded a ship to Canada. His first mistake. When he and Ethel vanished, the police got suspicious and ordered a more thorough search of their house. This time, a human torso was found buried in the basement. The body had traces of a sedative drug in it, and had what appeared to be an abdominal scar. Cora was known to have such a scar, so they concluded the body was hers.
8. Crippen and Ethel, meanwhile, were on their way to Canada. He had changed his appearance by shaving off his moustache and was growing a beard; she was disguised as a boy – but not very well as the ship's Captain saw right through it. Crippen's second mistake – booking to travel saloon class. Had they been willing to rough it in third, the Captain would probably not have noticed them. The captain had his telegraphist send a telegram to the British authorities informing them of his suspicions. Dew travelled to Canada on a faster ship and was waiting when Crippen arrived in Quebec. Disguised as a pilot, he boarded the ship. The captain invited Crippen to meet the pilots, whereupon Dew removed his pilot's cap and said, "Good morning, Dr. Crippen. Do you know me? I'm Chief Inspector Dew from Scotland Yard," and arrested him. This made him the first suspect to be caught using wireless telegraphy. Crippen's third mistake was going to Canada rather than to the USA, because at the time, Canada was still a dominion within the British Empire, so he could be arrested without extradition procedures, which would have been necessary if he'd gone to the States.
9. Throughout his trial, Crippen showed no remorse for his wife. He seemed to only care about Ethel's reputation. It took the jury 27 minutes to convict him of murder. He was hanged on 23 November 1910 at Pentonville Prison, London. Theories as to why he killed her, aside from the obvious one of wanting to be free to be with Ethel, include that he'd been giving her the drugs to sedate her and had accidentally given her too much, or that he'd killed her because she had syphilis.
10. Did he kill her at all? The novelist Raymond Chandler once said that he thought it odd that Crippen would successfully dispose of Cora's head and limbs (which were never found) and then bury the rest of her in his house. More recent evidence, comparing the corpse's DNA with that of Cora's living relatives, suggested it wasn't her at all. This led to the theory that Crippen may have been carrying out illegal abortions and the body belonged to a patient who had died during the procedure. However, still more doubt was cast on Crippen's guilt when further tests were done and the torso was found to belong to a man.

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