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Posted: September 25th, 2008
Executed in Error
According to the police report, the victim had been poisoned, and then filleted. The horrific murder, so reminiscent of Jack the Ripper’s attacks only two decades earlier, quickly became headline news. The media glare and close government scrutiny put Scotland Yard under intense pressure to catch Crippen and solve the crime. Even a young Winston Churchill, then Britain’s Home Secretary, was intimately tracking the investigation. Crippen and Le Neve tried fleeing to Canada, but were apprehended after the captain of their ship used a brand new technology—the Marconi wireless machine—to alert authorities of his whereabouts. The high-profile case that followed included incriminating pajamas, a rare poison that Crippen was known to have possessed, and a showy pathologist with a red carnation who convinced the jury that marks on the skin samples proved they were from Cora. “The Crippen case was the O.J. Simpson case of 1910,” said forensic toxicologist John Trestrail, one of the key investigators revisiting the Crippen case. “I don’t think any murder in history had been covered that much in the newspapers. It was being read about all over the world.” Trestrail, a poison expert, was troubled by its circumstantial evidence. He had never heard of a poisoning case where the perpetrator had dismembered his victim—poisoners usually did all they could to make death look like an accident. And even if Crippen had committed both acts, why would he have disposed of so much of the body, then left just a few incriminating pieces behind? His questions led to a careful analysis of the court records, and new forensic testing on the physical evidence that still remains from the crime scene. Trestrail traveled between the U.S. and England to piece together details of the infamous crime, working closely with DNA expert Foran and genealogist Wills each step of the way. Dr. Foran’s team, working in his forensic biology lab at Michigan State University, compared the DNA from the 100-year-old tissue to modern DNA from relatives of Cora that Wills has managed to track down. Expecting to confirm that the body was Cora’s, the team instead found that the DNA doesn’t match, and even more startlingly, that the body parts were not even female—they were from a male victim. With convincing evidence that the body did not belong to Cora, Trestrail began to dig deeper into the police and court archives, slowly unraveling a series of suppressed documents. Among the noted evidence is a letter to Crippen from Cora, in which she claims she is living in America and has no plans to save him from execution. The letter was deemed a hoax by investigators, but was never even shown to Crippen or his lawyers. Could the police have tampered with the evidence used in trial? With all the new findings, James Patrick Crippen, the closest living male relative of Crippen, is now formally requesting that the British government pardon the doctor and return his bones to America. Before he was executed, Crippen wrote an eerily prophetic letter to Ethel Le Neve. In it, he said, “Face to face with God, I believe that facts will be forthcoming to prove my innocence.” Modern forensic science has now fulfilled his prophecy. |
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The quiet Dr. Crippen moved to the U.K., and worked as a homeopathic doctor in London. His flamboyant and flirtatious wife Cora – also known by her stage name Belle Elmore – was a struggling music hall singer. In January of 1910, Cora disappeared under mysterious circumstances following a dinner party at the couple’s home. Crippen told Cora’s friends that she had returned to the United States to visit relatives, and then soon after, that she had taken ill and died. He then invited scandal by asking his secretary and lover, Ethel Le Neve, to move in with him. Friends grew suspicious, and asked the police to investigate. Crippen told them that Cora had left him for another man, and that he had lied to her friends to save face. When the inspectors returned a few days later to ask more questions, they found that Crippen and Ethel had fled. A thorough search of the Crippen home resulted in the grisly discovery of body parts beneath the cellar.
I may have missed part of the program, but I’m extremely curious to know what happened to Mr.Crippen’s mistress, Ethel Le Neve. Also, I thought I heard the narrator say that Crippen confessed? If so, this contradicts the last letter he wrote to his mistress in which he stated he believed that facts would be forthcoming to prove his innocence.
http://www.trivia-library.com/b/life-after-trial-the-crippen-murder-and-ethel-le-neve-part-1.htm
This is a reprint of an article I read in “The People’s Almanac” by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace. In brief, it appears that Miss Le Neve took the name Ethel Harvey (in memory of Crippen) and fled to Toronto, where she lived for decades in anonymity.
To see what happened to Ethel, Do a Goole search under Ethel Le Neve
I am surprised that they did not extradite him back to the US ,so he could stand trial there.
I thought that there was one major contradiction in the show and I was wondering if anyone had any input. According to the show, it was the finding of the body parts in the basement that brought the case to public attention. Later in the show it was suggested that the police might have planted the body parts in the basement to frame Dr. Crippen because they were under preasure to solve a high profile case. Those two statements contradict each other. The case wasn’t high profile until AFTER the body parts were found so there wasn’t a reason for the police to plant the body parts in the first place.
Did I miss something in the show?
I was born in Coldwater and I am in some way related by way of my mother’s family name; Lobdell. We have talked about this case for all my life, but now it has been made real. Thanks to PBS and the detective work of all involved.
I would add this input to the question raised by Carey Baxter.
You’ve got to remember that the cops, before they ever went to Hilldrop Crescent, had been told to suspect Crippen as a wife killer – Cora’s friends had reported her missing and didnt believe Crippen’s story.
Chf Inspector Dew was a very senior cop – he was asked to investigate by the deputy head of the Metropolitan Police. Because of Cora’s celebrity connections this was always much more than a routine missing person inquiry. Otherwise they’d have just sent a constable, or ignored it altogether. In that sense the case was ‘high profile’, as far as the cops were concerned, right from the start.
Scenario 1 – the cops dig in the cellar, find some body parts, [which could have been there for several years] but believe that Crippen must be a wife killer, just as they suspected. Still, they don’t have a cast iron case, so they plant the pyjamas. This is what the programme categorised as possible ‘noble cause corruption’.
Scenario 2 – the cops don’t find anything, but they have their initial suspicions, and they also know now that Crippen has fled the scene, so they decide to plant some body parts that they had lying around the morgue, in order to nail him and enhance their own careers. The body parts were male, but in those days there was no way of telling so they thought they’d be safe. This is an unlikely scenario, and not one that the programme strongly suggested.
It was only after the hunt for Crippen was publicised round the world that the case became high profile in a public sense, and when there would clearly have been a very strong motive on the part of the authorities to have him convicted, as there is in high profile cases to this day.
i am from des moines iowa, ihave been following this case for quite awhile . it does not surprise me that new evidence was found . even though mrs crippen couldnt sing at all. and god knows how long i could take a rotten voice. everyone that knew the mild mannered crippen said, they could not see him doing such a thing. dr crippen even rented a hall out for the wife, to let the rest of the world enjoy that beautiful voice.
In a grand irony, the victim here is actually the killer. Even Agatha Christie never envisioned such a plot twist. When intelligent people are disappointed, they turn to introspection; when stupid people are disappointed, they turn to spite. Cora’s flit sent her husband to the gallows. She was too vain and selfish to come forward and save him. Unknowingly, the police aided Cora in her disappearance by being far too anxious to make a sensational arrest. It is possible that Cora lived until the 1940’s. Maybe some senior recalls a short, pudgy woman who boasted of having been on the London stage. Maybe searches of death notices can uncover some woman whose flimsy story points to being Cora. One thing is certain: Cora / Belle went SOMEWHERE, and it wasn’t into the basment of that house!
I have always been intrigued by this case because my middle name is Crippen. This article sheds new light to the case and to Crippen. I fully believe his innocence and it saves my name from such tyranny.
After watching the PBS episode, my boyfriend and I discussed it for hours. Our hypothesis: Crippen, Cora, and Ethel were in it together. They conspired and killed some unknown guy. (Someone from Cora’s past? Someone who was a threat to them? Look for someone who’s disappearance is elaborately explained.)
Perhaps Cora disagreed with the decision to kill him, but she would have been implicated as an accomplice. At any rate, she left the scene soon after the murder to protect herself (trying to withdraw the money, making plans to remove trunks or boxes). Naturally, she does not inform her circle of friends–simply high-tails it back home to safety. Crippen, then, told her friends a version of the truth when he said she went to the States. It never crosses his mind that he could be suspected of murdering *her*, so he doesn’t bother too much with elaborate explanations. (After all, his primary problem is a body to dispose of!)
Ethel remains with Crippen because of their relationship, and to help him dispose of the body. Crippen does not mourn the loss of his wife because he assumes she is with her family in the States. Ethel feels free to assume a more apparent role as lover in Cora’s absence.
When the body is found, Crippen and Ethel decide their best chance is to disappear just like Cora did. Confronted with the accusation that he killed Cora, Crippen can only protest that he never killed his wife. He cannot explain any further without incriminating both Cora and Ethel–and that would not get him off the hook for murder. He does not grieve or show regret during the trial: he has not killed anyone he cares for, and is primarily concerned with sheilding Ethel. Ethel remains silent, knowing that her speaking out will not help anyone. Cora’s tongue is tied, as well–speaking up would only incriminate herself and would not exhonerate Crippen.