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00:05She is an actress.
00:08The Taylor Swifts and the Beyonce of their day.
00:10It seems to be the most open and shut murder case you can imagine.
00:16Racing the ship. Who's gonna get to Canada first?
00:30If they found the body in your house, you know, he's guilty.
00:35There's something about Crippen that is so twisted.
00:42Sometimes people are just bad. Sometimes people just do terrible things.
00:47Cora disappears.
00:49People's lives have been destroyed because of it.
00:51What happened to Cora, Crippen?
00:55I was blown away by the results.
01:04I'm Vicky McClure.
01:06I've spent years playing police officers on screen.
01:09My husband, Johnny Owen, is a historian and filmmaker.
01:13We share a passion for finding out the truth.
01:17Together, we're going on a journey back in time
01:20to explore murder cases that have changed modern Britain.
01:25Oh, God. He's basically saying, I'll do time for these people,
01:29but when I come out, I'm gonna kill them.
01:33Whether it's unsolved crimes.
01:35Cora Cockrell was the victim. He wasn't the perpetrator of any crime.
01:39Miscarriages of justice.
01:41The last words he said just before he was executed was,
01:45Christy done it.
01:47Wow.
01:47Gosh.
01:49Or milestone cases that have changed the law.
01:52The government agreed to not disclose it to the public.
01:56Wow.
01:57We'll examine what really happened and how the legacy of these crimes
02:00continues to be felt today.
02:23We are in North London.
02:27A beautifully sort of typical North London day.
02:30Grey, slightly rainy.
02:33And this is Camden, an area we both know fairly well.
02:37Yeah.
02:42We're here to look at the case of Crippen.
02:45That's it.
02:46Somebody that I know very little about, actually.
02:49All I know about Dr. Crippen is, I seen him as a kid in the House of Horrors,
02:54in Mad and Two Swords.
02:56He was married to an actor, a very famous one apparently in London,
02:59and he murdered her.
03:00When was this?
03:02In the Edwardian era.
03:03I believe around 1910.
03:05One thing that I've noticed in recent years,
03:08his guilt has come into question.
03:10Well, if that's the case, we need to take a closer look.
03:15And why is he still imprinted on our history and on our consciousness?
03:20What is it about Crippen that people are still fascinated by?
03:26To try and find out, I've arranged for us to meet with criminologist
03:30and former prison governor, Professor David Wilson,
03:33who's written extensively about the Crippen case.
03:36I'm hoping he can give us a foothold in the story.
03:40Hello.
03:41How are you?
03:42Lovely to meet you.
03:45Now, I'm really excited to tell you about this story
03:49because still to this day, people are fascinated by it.
03:53So, the actual house I wanted you to see was 39 Hill Drop Crescent,
03:58but that was destroyed in the Second World War by German bombs,
04:01and it was replaced by these kinds of new flats.
04:05But this is what the house would have looked like in 1910.
04:11What happens in this house captures the Edwardian imagination.
04:18There's so much going on in this story.
04:22Firstly, it is about the development of forensic science.
04:28It's about technological advances.
04:33It's about a transatlantic chase with the Scotland Yard,
04:38chasing after the killer.
04:41Now, let's find somewhere warmer.
04:43Talk about this with a little more detail over a cup of coffee.
04:47Fantastic. Thank you, David. Let's lead the way.
04:49Let's go.
04:50Coffee sounds good to me.
04:55David certainly piqued our interest,
04:58but what I really want to know about is the victim in this case.
05:02Shall we start by discussing the lady that was murdered?
05:06And I think that's the right place to start,
05:09because so often,
05:10Cora Crippen is relegated in the story.
05:16She's a musical performer.
05:18She is an actress.
05:20But this is her in her stage costume as Belle Elmore.
05:25Gosh, really?
05:26She marries Dr. Holly Harvey Crippen in 1894.
05:34So do they meet in America?
05:35They meet in America.
05:37OK.
05:37And this is his second marriage.
05:39So these are the two main characters living in the Hill Drop Crescent,
05:44to which they move in 1905.
05:48Meanwhile, this is where the love triangle starts.
05:52This is Ethel Le Neve.
05:59She is his secretary.
06:02OK.
06:04They started a relationship relatively quickly.
06:07By 1908, she's clearly his mistress.
06:15On the 1st of February, 1910,
06:20there is a dinner party in Hill Drop Crescent.
06:25And then Cora disappears.
06:35What was his excuse for his wife not being in?
06:37Crippen says that she went off to have an affair in the United States.
06:43So she disappeared.
06:47Meanwhile, Ethel Le Neve has moved into 39 Hill Drop Crescent.
06:57She's wearing Cora's clothes.
07:00She's wearing her jewelry.
07:02She's parading about, you know.
07:05She's very much the new mistress of the home.
07:13The first time Crippen is interviewed by the police is the 8th of July,
07:19months after Cora had disappeared.
07:22Now, the police accepts that she has run away.
07:28They do a cursory search of the house and find nothing.
07:32But because he was interviewed, it spooks them.
07:37And so they think, oh, bloody hell, we're going to be arrested for this.
07:44And so they dash off across the channel.
07:50Because they've run away, that encourages Scotland Yard to think,
07:54well, wait a minute.
07:55There's more here than meets the eye.
07:58Whilst there in Antwerp, there's more searching done on the house.
08:03And eventually, parts of her body are found in the cellar.
08:14They've not found a skeleton.
08:16They've not found a head or feet.
08:19So we're literally dealing with flesh.
08:25Is that it?
08:26Yeah.
08:28Meanwhile,
08:30Crippen and Ethel have disguised themselves.
08:34Ethel has dressed as a boy.
08:37OK.
08:38And they book passage on a Canadian liner.
08:43And they are going to sail across the Atlantic,
08:47seemingly going to dock in Quebec.
08:50Now, this is when the transatlantic chase aspect of the story emerges.
08:55Did the police catch up with them?
08:57They did.
08:59They arrest a pair of them,
09:01bring them back to England,
09:03and they face trial at the Old Bailey.
09:06And he's found guilty after a four-day trial.
09:09And he is executed in Pentonville Prison in November 1910.
09:17Did he deny it, then?
09:19I mean, he pleads not guilty.
09:21He never expresses remorse.
09:23OK.
09:24What happened to Ethel?
09:26Ethel is found not guilty.
09:27Really?
09:28I became fascinated by this case.
09:31Not the guilt or innocence of Crippen,
09:34who I personally think is guilty.
09:36We've heard there are a number of theories.
09:39Exactly.
09:40That's for you guys, I think,
09:42to come to your own conclusions
09:44when you've looked at the evidence.
09:46For me, this story is more about violence against women.
09:51The kind of legacy of misogyny that one sees in this story
09:56is still being played out in Holmes the Lenten breadth of the country.
10:10Camden, London, 23rd of November 1910.
10:15Dr. Hawley Crippen is hung for the murder of his wife, Cora.
10:20Ethel and Eve, his lover, was charged as an accessory but walked free.
10:26To find out why this case is still being talked about today,
10:29we want to take a closer look at the backgrounds of the protagonists.
10:33Dr. Crippen, his wife, Cora, and his mistress, Ethel.
10:37And I think I've found the perfect person.
10:42Hi, Lindsay.
10:44Welcome.
10:44Nice to meet you.
10:46Lindsay Civitar is a historian
10:47with a huge personal collection of Crippen memorabilia.
10:51All the things you see, all of these belong to Dr. Crippen himself.
10:56Wow, that's amazing.
10:58We have a picture of Dr. Crippen wearing his famous glasses.
11:02Crippen had more than one pair of glasses, as many people do.
11:05This is an original pair that came from his office.
11:08They're quite small, aren't they?
11:09He was quite petite, five foot three, five foot four height.
11:16Lindsay, got some great stuff here on display.
11:19I'd love to chat about him first, the infamous Dr. Crippen.
11:21Could you tell us a little bit about him?
11:24Yeah, so he was born on the 11th of September, 1862, in Coldwater, Michigan, in the US.
11:30OK, yeah.
11:30He's into homeopathy, which was growing quite a lot in its popularity in America.
11:35But throughout his studies, what I thought was intriguing is that he specialised in, like, gynaecology, women's problems.
11:43His first wife, Charlotte, they had a son together, Otto.
11:47Tragically, Charlotte died in 1892 from apoplexy, which is like a stroke, which is really intriguing,
11:54because what basically makes a 33-year-old healthy lady suddenly die from a stroke?
11:59She was writing letters to her brother, William, saying,
12:03if I die, it's due to him.
12:06It was all a bit suspicious.
12:08She said those words, and sadly, she ended up dead.
12:13So, tell us a little bit about Cora's background.
12:17Cora was born in Brooklyn, in New York.
12:20She loves music, hence why she goes into the music industry a bit later on.
12:24Apparently, she can speak quite a few languages.
12:26She's very intelligent.
12:27How old was Cora when she met Crippen?
12:30She was 19.
12:32She meets Dr. Crippen at a hospital when she's actually having an abortion,
12:37because she's been living as a servant for a chap and his family,
12:42and when her lover, the master of the household,
12:47puts his wife away in an asylum because she's mentally ill,
12:50they're then carrying on.
12:52OK.
12:53How did she start her career in music?
12:56She does various gigs, I think, in various places.
12:59She's quite keen to sort of start her career.
13:04Crippen's very generous.
13:05He pays for her to have opera lessons,
13:08because she wants to go into the high operatic world, you know.
13:11People, you know, have been quite rude about Cora in the past,
13:14and sort of said, oh, she was rubbish, she had bad reviews.
13:17I've not found any particular bad things about her in the press,
13:21and I've gone through quite a lot over ten years' worth of newspapers,
13:24and I've only found quite positive things, really.
13:26Maybe she wouldn't have had the voice suited for opera,
13:28but she entertained people in the music hall.
13:33And what about Ethel Laniv?
13:34How did she come to start working for Dr. Crippen?
13:38Ethel went to work for the Deaf Institute.
13:40Dr. Crippen worked there as well.
13:43If you read Ethel's autobiography that she wrote,
13:47she states that, you know, we became friends pretty quickly,
13:51and I really liked him very quickly,
13:52and we all have chemistry people quickly, don't we?
13:55So you either like someone or you don't.
13:56And I think there was definitely a friendship,
14:00possibly more of a relationship.
14:02There was a big age gap between Ethel and Crippen, wasn't there?
14:04There was an age gap between them, nearly 20 years.
14:07And people often say to me, you know, what would she have seen in him?
14:11But she's quite fragile, I think, Ethel.
14:14You know, he was really kind to her, courteous, would take her out.
14:18So there's all sorts of reasons why she would have liked him.
14:20What's your theory leading to?
14:22He denied guilt right till his execution, the whole way through.
14:28And he always said,
14:29there'll be some evidence one day to come to light that will prove my innocence.
14:34I've always believed Crippen was guilty.
14:37If he isn't, then you have big questions.
14:40If it's not Cora's body in the basement,
14:42well, whose body was it and who put it there?
14:54So Lindsay gave us some great insights into the background of Cora
14:57and Hawley Crippen and Ethel Leneve and the love triangle which developed.
15:03She's also convinced Crippen is guilty.
15:06But it's hardly surprising that there remains some doubt,
15:09bearing in mind the length of time it took the police to interview Crippen
15:12about his wife's disappearance.
15:15So I think now we need to find out more about the investigation.
15:18Well, it's very handy, we should say that,
15:20because I've set us up with this chap called Matthew Connion,
15:24an author who's written a book about Crippen.
15:27I think he can give us a very detailed view on what happened,
15:32what the chase was like, what the investigation was like.
15:35I think I'll be quite keen to find out what his view is.
15:44Hi, Matthew. Hello.
15:46I'm Vicky. Nice to meet you.
15:48Hello, Matthew. I'm Johnny. Good to meet you. You OK?
15:51Thanks very much for meeting us. Pleasure.
15:53Much appreciated.
15:54I'm intrigued to know about the now famous chase that occurred.
15:58Could you tell us a bit about the background of how that started
16:00and what happened?
16:01It started obviously with the discovery of the remains.
16:09The combination of the gruesomeness of the find
16:12with the fact that the man the police wanted to speak to
16:15appeared to be on the run with his mistress.
16:18Those two things kind of came together
16:20and just exploded in the popular press.
16:29Walter Dew, the chief inspector who was in charge of the case,
16:33had been a constable at the time of the Jack Ripper murders.
16:37OK.
16:38And he thought at the time that it was a very big mistake
16:43that the police made to not involve the press.
16:46The police's attitude at that time was that the press were a nuisance.
16:50Right.
16:50Something just to be batted away.
16:53And you thought, no, actually, if you recruit the press
16:56and you use the press, then you've got thousands of extra eyes and ears.
17:04So what we're seeing with the Crippen case, and this is a large part, I think,
17:08of why it became such a sensation, is that the press are involved
17:12to a degree that hadn't previously been seen.
17:15The public, they were consuming a real murder investigation
17:19as if it was an exciting serial, a fiction of some sort.
17:23What's the narrative that the police are spinning?
17:26The police were absolutely certain that Crippen was guilty,
17:29but they immediately saw that they were going to have a problem
17:33making it stick because what they had in terms of physical remains,
17:39if not completely unidentifiable, then extremely difficult to identify.
17:43And so the game then became to make this stick.
17:47So you see a lot of consciously or otherwise confirmation bias
17:52in the investigation and all of it being played out in public
17:56via the newspapers.
17:58Tell us, what was the name of the ship that Crippen was on?
18:01It was called the Montrose.
18:04The story is that Captain Kendall of the Montrose
18:09is a kind of a Sherlock Holmes figure who has spotted
18:14that this father and son, Mr. Robinson and Master Robinson,
18:18are a little bit too friendly for father and son.
18:21And so he thinks, aha, I wonder if this is Crippen and Ethel in disguise.
18:26And then using pioneering wireless telegraphy,
18:30radios back to Scotland Yard and says, I think I've got the fugitives.
18:36When they know that he's on the ship, what do the police do to sort of chase after him?
18:41What they do is stage some theatre.
18:46This is all for the press and all for the ultimate benefit of the prosecution.
18:50What Captain Kendall was perfectly entitled to do as a sea captain
18:54is deny him exit and just hold him there and wait for the police to come and hand him over.
19:00And it would have been as simple as that.
19:01Instead, what we get is Inspector Jew getting on a faster vessel
19:06and then racing the ship.
19:08Who's going to get to Canada first?
19:10Every morning, you open the Daily Mail,
19:12always there halfway across, always getting closer.
19:16So the irony of the woman that's lost her life, tragically, who was an actress,
19:21and all of a sudden they're trying to create some sort of performance.
19:25Yeah, that's right.
19:26I mean, and as I say, this is kind of the first time that this happened.
19:30You know, the reading public had been interested in murders,
19:33but they would read of the discovery, they would read of an arrest,
19:37and then they would read of a trial.
19:38But this, for the first time, they're getting a daily serial.
19:44What was kind of your feeling after all this research about it?
19:47Did you think Crippen did it?
19:48Until very, very recently, it was a case where nobody had a different theory,
19:53because it seemed to be the most open-and-shut murder case you could imagine.
20:00There's an expression, if you don't believe someone, you would say,
20:03and Crippen was innocent.
20:05Yeah.
20:05You know, it was just a byword for guilt.
20:08It's only more recently that some of the cracks in the theory have kind of come to light.
20:16I have a strong suspicion.
20:18I think Crippen is telling the truth.
20:20The main problem that I have with the evidence is it's still mysterious to me
20:27why, if he had successfully got rid of everything else,
20:31why he would then put the remainder of the body,
20:34not only in the cellar of the house he's living in,
20:36but the cellar of the house that he's already said he's going to leave.
20:39It's only a rented house, I think.
20:42What we see beginning in the Crippen case
20:46is something that is kind of one of the big curses of our own age,
20:49which is trial by media.
20:51And so by the time he stepped into the dock, he was already guilty.
21:01That has put the cat firmly among the pigeons, hasn't it?
21:05It has.
21:06I mean, you know, everything that we've spoken to David about,
21:10I was fully convinced by everything that he's said.
21:12And, you know, he was quite adamant about...
21:14Crippen's guilt.
21:15And now we've got Matthew, who's opened up a can of worms.
21:20It's good to have a different view.
21:21I think, you know, that's what makes it so interesting.
21:23We need to carry on with our journey,
21:26and we make our own minds up at the end, really.
21:28At the moment, I'm very sort of 50-50 about it.
21:41What seems on the surface to be a straightforward case,
21:44the cold-blooded murder of Cora Crippen by her husband,
21:48Dr. Hawley Crippen, is anything but.
21:51Inspired by Matthew Koiniam's insight
21:53into the police relationship with the press,
21:55I've come to see some of the coverage for myself.
22:05I've been looking at some newspapers from the time.
22:08The Daily Mirror,
22:09which was one of the biggest newspapers in Britain.
22:11I think the impression you get from Crippen on these articles
22:13is that he comes across as a pretty pathetic figure,
22:16I'd say, in this.
22:18Somebody that you'd look at and go,
22:20you know, what an idiot.
22:22What's he got himself embroiled in?
22:27You've got a map here of the North Atlantic.
22:30This map traces courses of the Montrose and the Lorantic,
22:34and shows where the steamers will be at noon today,
22:37in a blow-by-blow account of the journey.
22:40We think it's a modern thing, you know,
22:42hacking phones and sort of following people,
22:44and gardens with long-knit lenses.
22:46This would have been the same then.
22:49If you read this, then, you know,
22:51you'd definitely be biased about what's happened,
22:53because you would have heard about it,
22:54because it was the most famous story in the world.
22:56If you're a jury member, you're going to have an opinion.
22:59That whole trial by media thing was a huge part of this.
23:02I couldn't agree more.
23:03For me, it's the decisions have been made.
23:06He's guilty before he's tried.
23:14I want to find out how this dynamic played out in court.
23:20I'm going to see Andrew Rose, a former judge, historian and author,
23:25who has written extensively about the star witness in the Crippen trial,
23:29Sir Bernard Spilsbury.
23:33Given what we already know about the investigation,
23:36I'm expecting the trial itself to have been quite the circus.
23:42What would have been like in court, Andrew?
23:44Would it have been, like, every seat would have been filled, I imagine?
23:47It would have been, like, press attention?
23:48Oh, yes, heavens above.
23:50The newspapers, they covered it extensively.
23:53Photographers used to come into court
23:55with cameras hidden in their bowler hats,
23:57so they could take pictures.
23:58So you can see there are pictures taken in court,
24:01even though the judges had tried to forbid the practice.
24:04It really always reminded me to a real show.
24:07I caught one little bed, it was absolutely packed.
24:10Lots of ladies in fashionable big hats.
24:12I think controversy about people
24:14who couldn't see over the top of the hats.
24:15It was very much a sensational occasion.
24:18Sir Bernard Spilsbury was a very important part
24:22of the Crippen trial.
24:24Could you tell us a bit about him?
24:25He was a very eminent pathologist.
24:28Forensics was advancing,
24:29there's no question about that, from the 1890s onwards.
24:32Yeah, I heard the first murder case cracked
24:34with fingerprints was in 1905.
24:37Yes, that's right.
24:38And some practitioners were beginning to realise
24:40that it had very important aspects
24:42in the criminal process.
24:43Yeah.
24:44Spilsbury, he brought pathology into the public eye.
24:47It appears to be known as the beastly sounds.
24:50Did he?
24:51But he wasn't afraid to tangle with it.
24:55So he gave evidence for the prosecution
24:57in the Crippen trial.
24:59What kind of case did he present?
25:01What did he say to the court?
25:01When the remains were examined,
25:04they were just bits of the abdomen,
25:08bits of a thigh.
25:09The arms had gone, the rest of the legs gone,
25:13head had gone,
25:14only a section of the abdomen,
25:16according to Spilsbury.
25:17Some of the tissues found,
25:19six by seven inch piece of skin,
25:22contained evidence of scar tissue.
25:24It was known that the lady,
25:26Bill Elmore, had had an abdominal operation.
25:29It's a quite important factor in identifying these partial remains.
25:34Spilsbury really clinched it with absolutely no hint of uncertainty
25:38that this was scar tissue.
25:39The question was whether Spilsbury's evidence was as accurate as he made it out to be.
25:46What makes you say that?
25:47I think in 2002 where Dr. Bernard Knight was honest,
25:51we said he could see no evidence of scar tissue as so firmly declared by Spilsbury.
25:57And really the view is perhaps that Spilsbury was really over-egging his pudding.
26:00Your personal opinion here, Andrew,
26:04do you think that Crippen did it?
26:05Yes, I'm afraid I do.
26:08I know there's an argument about this.
26:10It was quite a strong case against Crippen.
26:12It's difficult to imagine that somebody who'd left her husband
26:16and gone to America wouldn't have taken her furs and her jewels with her.
26:22While Johnny digs into the trial,
26:24I want to get to know a little more about Cora.
26:29The trial of Hawley Harvey Crippen, written by Filson Young in 1920,
26:34has shaped how the case has been viewed for a century.
26:38I'm intrigued to find out how the victim was portrayed.
26:42I've just been reading some of Filson Young's book.
26:48Rather than getting an understanding of Cora herself,
26:51I'm getting an idea about attitudes towards women at the time.
26:55He made her out to be really filthy, not very clean,
27:00you know, wasn't quite keeping up to scratch with the housework.
27:03He describes Cora's talent as inadequate.
27:06She was not that good at her job, as in, you know, she wasn't that great a performer,
27:11and she didn't have a scrap of ability,
27:14and just wanted to wear nice costumes, really.
27:18It's just bizarre that Filson Young chooses to criticise Cora's singing and personal hygiene
27:24when she is fundamentally the victim of a crime.
27:28My gut feeling is, and as much as these are taken from, you know, the testimonials at the trial,
27:34I don't really feel like I'm getting a true reflection of Cora.
27:39To me, it seems Crippen's murder is subtly excused by focusing on what was supposedly wrong with his wife,
27:46a familiar form of victim-blaming which still exists today.
27:51To really understand Cora, and attitudes towards women in general in the Edwardian era,
27:57I need to meet historians that are now asking different questions.
28:02One of those people is Fern Riddell, who wants to meet me at an old music hall in West London.
28:07Hi, Vicky. Lovely to meet you. Lovely to meet you. Thanks so much for meeting with me.
28:12You're welcome.
28:14So why are we here?
28:15This is a very early type of music hall,
28:17which is what the world that Cora was living in and breathing in and working in.
28:22And it's a world that was judged very harshly in this period,
28:26but had so much freedom and so much fun in it for women.
28:30Do you want to go and have a look at it? I'd love to, yeah.
28:37Music hall kind of bridges that gap between theatre and singing and comic actors.
28:43You'd come for a night out.
28:46Escapism, isn't it? Massively.
28:50So I read this book that was written by a man.
28:53And, you know, it was the testimonials of the trial
28:56and it was mainly from Crippen's point of view.
28:59And this is where I sort of learnt a bit more about Cora,
29:02the person that they painted her to be.
29:04How do you see Cora?
29:05Female performers like Cora were kind of the Taylor Swifts
29:09and the Beyonce of their day.
29:11They were the people that everyone wanted to come and see.
29:14But in the background, the industry is often controlled by men,
29:18agents, managers, people who would control where you could go,
29:23what contracts you agreed to.
29:25There's very much the opportunity for abuse in the halls.
29:29And is that why the Music Hall Guild existed?
29:32Absolutely.
29:33It's there to be kind of strong and powerful
29:36and represent women in the industry.
29:38To kind of do charity work, to look after performers who have got pregnant,
29:42been abandoned by their husbands,
29:43but also as like this whisper network to keep women safe,
29:47to warn them against bad agents and bad managers.
29:50Cora doesn't just become a member of the organisation.
29:53She marches all the way up to being treasurer.
29:56Very, very new, very exciting, very determined.
30:01This is not a group of women who are going to sit on the sidelines.
30:03So what did they do when Cora went missing?
30:06We do know that the moment she disappears, her friends are worried.
30:12A red flag has immediately been raised.
30:15They go and they bang on the door, they ask Crippen questions,
30:18and they are so unhappy with his answers, so confused, so scared,
30:24that they want to involve the police.
30:26The police don't listen.
30:28So what these incredible gang of women do
30:32is they start their own investigation.
30:35Brilliant.
30:37Have you seen photos of them?
30:38No, please show me.
30:41So this is Kate Williams.
30:43This is Vulcana.
30:44Oh, is this Vulcana?
30:46She was a Welsh strong woman, yeah.
30:47Oh, Johnny will love that.
30:48She was Welsh?
30:49Yeah, she was Welsh.
30:51Oh, Lord.
30:52She looks great.
30:54She looks so strong.
30:55She's the first person to kind of bang on the door of the police
30:59and go, something has gone wrong.
31:01Yeah.
31:01This woman is missing.
31:03And of course, she's ignored.
31:05Of course.
31:06Then we have the fantastic Lil Hawthorn.
31:09Wow.
31:10Lil is another American.
31:12She's on the stage, she's having a great time,
31:14she's in the Ladies Music Hall Guild,
31:16and she is Cora's best friend.
31:18Oh, really?
31:19Yeah.
31:19Love this costume.
31:21Isn't it beautiful?
31:22You can see that incredible kind of detail.
31:24Yeah, it's amazing.
31:27They go and they check shipping lists.
31:29Where is Cora?
31:30Has she left the country?
31:31They write to America.
31:32Is she there?
31:33Do we know a network of performers, female friends over there,
31:37who can look for her?
31:38So this incredible network of female performers
31:41is utilised in this kind of global search.
31:45The police are just ignoring it.
31:46This goes on for six months.
31:50With them going, but we can't find her.
31:53It is an awful moment of misogyny and dismissal of these women.
31:58But they don't give up.
32:02By this point, Ethel has been seen kind of in Belle's jewellery
32:05and in her furs.
32:06Yeah.
32:06Three weeks after she's gone missing.
32:08Oh, don't.
32:10Finally, when they're, well, you know, when these women
32:12are able to come back with all of this information
32:14that they've gathered showing that Belle isn't there,
32:16Lil and my husband, John Nash,
32:18they have kind of a friend called Superintendent Frank Froese
32:21and say, please, please listen to us.
32:25And luckily, he does.
32:27Six months after the disappearance,
32:31the last time she was seen alive.
32:34But without these women, without them,
32:39Griffin would never have been investigated.
32:41Oh, my gosh.
32:42He would never have been caught.
32:45So, for the sake of history,
32:48we are always trying to speak to different people
32:51with different versions of events,
32:52with different, you know, takes on history.
32:54And some people don't believe Griffin did this.
32:59Yes.
33:00What's your feelings and thoughts on that?
33:01I can understand why there is an appeal to thinking,
33:05to believing Griffin.
33:07When you look at the person that Cora was,
33:09there's no way, given the huge attention this case had,
33:14that if she was alive,
33:16if she had run away with a man to America,
33:19she would not have come forward.
33:21There's no way she would not have contacted one of her friends.
33:24It's one of those awful moments in this case
33:27with the people who campaigned that Griffin was framed
33:32or was a victim of the police and trial by media.
33:36It is just another example of ignoring the women
33:38and women's stories and voices and their testimonies
33:41and who they were.
33:42where sometimes people are just bad.
33:44Yeah.
33:44Sometimes people just do terrible things.
33:47And the echoes of that still sit with us today.
34:01Hello.
34:02Hello, darling.
34:03What?
34:03Yeah.
34:05How did it go with Fern?
34:07Did you finally get to know the real Cora?
34:09My chat with Fern was fantastic.
34:12If it wasn't for Cora's friends,
34:14I know for a fact she would never have been found.
34:17This was the power that these,
34:18the women of the musical guild had.
34:21This is great that we sort of told Cora's story.
34:23She loved being on the stage.
34:25She was hugely popular.
34:26And that popularity meant that her friends kept fighting
34:30until they found that body.
34:32God bless Cora's friends.
34:40Well, despite all these findings,
34:42I think we've got a little bit more digging to do.
34:45There's a forensic expert in America we need to speak to.
34:48Yes.
34:49A gentleman by the name of John Trestriel.
34:51And he got some interesting facts that he's discovered
34:54about the piece of flesh or the torso found under the cellar.
34:58Oh, okay.
34:59Well, that's the next stop.
35:01Yeah.
35:12Thank you so much for meeting with us, John.
35:15We're told that you're an expert in forensics.
35:17You'll have to hear what it is you've learnt in the Crippen case.
35:20Okay.
35:22Let me start with what brought me to the Crippen case to begin with.
35:26Okay.
35:26I got a tour of the Police Evidence Museum at New Scotland Yard.
35:32And I looked at the exhibit about Crippen.
35:36And sitting in the exhibit was the hair of Cora Crippen.
35:43I thought, oh, interesting.
35:46I said, wait a minute.
35:47If we could track down and find a living resident
35:51who came down the line from Mary Wolf, who was Cora Crippen's mother.
35:58I said, we could test their mitochondrial DNA
36:01because it passes down the female line.
36:05It took her seven years.
36:06We found three half grand nieces who were still alive,
36:10and we did cheek swabs on them.
36:13But Scotland Yard would not give us any hair samples to test.
36:17So, I found out at the Royal London Hospital
36:22were the original trial slides from Spillsbury
36:26that he used at the trial.
36:28So, we asked the Royal London Hospital
36:31if they'd loan us one slide.
36:34And they did.
36:37Now, we can prove or disprove
36:42that the remains in the cellar were or were not Cora Crippen.
36:49I was blown away by the results.
36:54There was something wrong.
36:57It didn't match.
37:08Nearly a hundred years after Dr Crippen was hanged
37:10for murdering his wife Cora,
37:12American scientists decided to re-examine the human remains
37:16found in the basement of Hill Drop Crescent.
37:20And it seems they made a shocking discovery.
37:25There was something wrong.
37:28It didn't match.
37:36Which means that the tissue, which was used at the trial,
37:42was not clearly Cora Crippen.
37:46Wow.
37:46Wow, what?
37:47We were able to do a gender test on the DNA.
37:56I still have a hard time believing this.
37:59It turned out that the DNA was not only not Cora Crippen,
38:04the DNA was male.
38:07What?
38:13That brings me to you today.
38:17What kind of questions do you have?
38:19I don't know.
38:20You've kind of stumped us a bit there, John.
38:22I mean, you know, the journey that we've been on so far,
38:25there's certain people that feel that Crippen didn't do it.
38:28There's so many unanswered questions to throw into them.
38:31I know.
38:32How was your study received in the UK?
38:35They refused to accept the DNA work.
38:38Did they?
38:39They said, number one,
38:41you are trying to embarrass Scotland Yard.
38:45Number two, you're trying to make a circus out of this.
38:49And nobody cares anymore because it's 100 years old.
38:54And we said, yeah, we care.
38:57It's the truth.
38:59Something's wrong in this conviction.
39:03And still they refused to accept it.
39:07There's nothing more I can do.
39:08I just kind of throw up my hands and say, I've done everything I can do.
39:13That's all anybody wants is the truth.
39:15I can only say, I wish the British would accept the results.
39:21We're not trying to embarrass anybody.
39:24We're just trying to say, this is the science.
39:28You can't fight that science.
39:31It's bang on.
39:34It's fascinating, John.
39:37So why was the body dismembered?
39:41If you read about the dismemberment, there's no organs of gender.
39:46There's no skeleton.
39:48There's nothing to prove it's female.
39:51Do you think that Crippen is guilty of killing Cora?
39:56Can't prove it.
39:57Okay.
39:58I have no evidence that he's guilty.
40:02The evidence went to trial.
40:04And the evidence hanged him.
40:08Yeah.
40:08What we came up with, with the DNA work, is that the evidence is wrong.
40:16So therefore, Holly Crippen was hanged in error.
40:21Wow.
40:22The DNA work doesn't match.
40:24If that's not Cora Crippen in that grave, then who is it?
40:28We'll never know.
40:30But I can tell you one thing.
40:32It's not her.
40:36It's a big blow, isn't it?
40:38Well, it's a very, very interesting turn of events, as they say.
40:42What a fascinating, tragic story, Holly Crippen.
40:45I can see why this Crippen case has gripped everybody's imagination for so long.
40:50And we'll continue to.
40:52Because it's so open now.
40:54Even with this on top of everything else.
40:57We've opened up the story once again.
41:01And we're going to our grave, I think, not knowing.
41:19Oh, look at that view.
41:22Yes.
41:23London in all its busy glory.
41:25Yeah.
41:27A city with so much history.
41:29So many secrets.
41:32Well, that's it.
41:34We've come to the end of the Crippen story without a real final conclusion.
41:40There's parallels with sort of the O.J. Simpson case, you know, where the media dominates the story.
41:45And you almost forget who the victim is in all this.
41:47I think, from when we spoke to David, and he said to us, follow Cora's story.
41:54Yeah.
41:54Follow Belle's story.
41:55You did, didn't you? Yeah.
41:56We've done that.
41:57And I think the biggest finding for me is those women that investigated where she'd gone.
42:04Those amazing women that ensured that she had some kind of justice.
42:09Ultimately, you end up with, you know, the story of Crippen.
42:12A snapshot from history which we can look at in the modern world and we can see our reflection.
42:16And I think that's why the story sort of will run probably forever.
42:21A bit like the Ripper.
42:22A bit like Christie.
42:24A bit like the Body Snatchers.
42:27It's stories like those that will encourage women to go, we need better protection.
42:32Yes.
42:32We need better rights.
42:34We need a louder voice.
42:35Yeah.
42:35So, you know, history plays a huge part in where we are right now.
42:40And I'm just really glad that we've been able to tell Cora's story.
42:45Thus saying, the battle never ends.
42:47Yeah.
42:49Right, I think this is where we walk off into the sunset. This way?
42:52Can't see much sun.
42:53No.
42:53No.
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