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Britain's Almost Perfect Murders - Season 1 Episode 9 - The Doctor of Death
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00:01The perfect murder, the unsolvable crime, does it really exist?
00:07In a TV first, we reveal the cutting-edge technology now used by British police to join the dots
00:15and reveal new evidence in all homicide investigations.
00:19I'm Tim Tate. I've been an investigative journalist for almost 50 years.
00:26I'm Sam Robbins and I'm a criminal intelligence analyst.
00:30For over 20 years, I've worked alongside detectives on major murder investigations.
00:34Together, in this new series, we are going to discover the fatal mistakes
00:39which prevented the perfect murder from ever being committed.
01:19Few cases in the annals of historic crime have attracted as much interest as that of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen,
01:28the mild-mannered homeopath, hanged for murdering his wife in Edwardian London and for disappearing with his youthful mistress on
01:40a transatlantic liner.
01:42People are still definitely fascinated with the Crippen case.
01:45It wasn't just a cut-and-dry murder case that has the hallmarks of an almost perfect murder
01:51because there was such meticulous effort to conceal the victim's identity, conceal the victim's body
01:57and the deception about the victim's whereabouts, the fact that there is such an obscure method of death.
02:03If he'd just kept on with the fact that maybe he didn't know where she was and she had disappeared,
02:07this would have just been a missing person's case or a strange disappearance.
02:11It would never have turned into a murder investigation.
02:15It does have absolutely everything.
02:17There's a murder, a missing wife, respectable doctor and science solving the riddle.
02:23It really has absolutely everything that you would expect from a detective fictional novel.
02:28But the fact that this happened in real life, it just made it a media frenzy.
02:35The case was a media sensation and that's why it's remembered today
02:39because this was really the first major murder case that the public were able to follow as if it was
02:44a thriller.
02:45Every morning they would get a fresh update on this exciting pursuit across the waves.
02:51And this was largely because Inspector Dew deliberately wanted to involve the press.
02:58He had been a beat constable at the time of the Jack the Ripper murders
03:00and he felt that the way the police treated the press as irritations to be swatted away
03:07helped the murderer get away with it and he was determined not to do the same thing.
03:15Hawley Crippen, the mild-mannered homeopath.
03:21That image and that case is one of the most famous in English criminal history.
03:30But what struck me from all that you've done and working through
03:34is that it's rarely been examined as a case of almost perfect murder.
03:40Yes.
03:41I think Hawley Crippen has always been viewed as the murderer that tripped themselves up
03:47but the reality is that he came very, very close to getting away with murder.
03:54What do we know about Crippen?
03:57Hawley Crippen was an American national who started off his life in America
04:03and his career in America as a homeopath.
04:09Dr. Crippen was actually born in Cold Walsham, Michigan in 1862.
04:13Today we'd call him a quack doctor really.
04:16Although he trained in homeopathy, he wasn't what we'd call a regular doctor in this country.
04:20He had a degree in homeopathy but he practised as an eye and ear specialist,
04:26a deafness specialist, a dentist, none of which he had any qualification in at all.
04:31In fact, if you look at the transcripts of the trial,
04:35he's referred to throughout as Mr. Crippen
04:37because he's not legally entitled to be called a doctor in Britain.
04:42In reality, the men who emerged as Crippen did with the coveted title of doctor
04:49were rarely better than snake oil salesmen.
04:53But still, they had the title of doctor and they had a veneer of respectability.
05:02He had a wife. He married quite young.
05:05Had a son called Harley Otto Crippen, known as Otto.
05:10But sadly, his first wife died from a stroke at a young age.
05:15So, unable to cope with looking after his son on his own,
05:21Crippen got in touch with his parents who were living by this time in San Francisco
05:24and persuaded him to take in young Otto.
05:26And they would actually raise him out in California.
05:32Wouldn't be very long after,
05:34Harley met and married Cora Turner.
05:39And she was quite a bit younger than Crippen.
05:42So, he met Cora in America.
05:44She was from Brooklyn in New York and he was sort of working there.
05:48And then they got married very quickly.
05:51They had a fairly good relationship from what we can gather as historians and that.
05:55And certainly, he supported her idea of wanting to be a sort of a grand opera singer
05:59and an opera star.
06:01He paid for her to have singing lessons in New York.
06:04And they seemed very happy for many, many years.
06:08She was one of the legion of performers who then trod the boards on the burgeoning New York City Music
06:16Hall scene.
06:17And she performed under the stage name Belle Elmore.
06:24Crippen seems to have been smitten by this larger-than-life character.
06:28Whatever she did was fine by him.
06:30And she liked the idea of having a husband who had MD title and potential money that came with that
06:36to support her theatrical lifestyle.
06:41Crippen got a job with a homeopathic mail order company, a well-known company run by James Munyon.
06:48And in fact, he was so successful at this, he initially was appointed area manager in Philadelphia.
06:54And then he was later asked to go to London to run their branch office over there.
07:00So Crippen was very pleased with this.
07:02It gave him responsibility.
07:04And Cora was very happy as well because it gave her a chance to get on the stage in the
07:09London musical scene.
07:13It's another one of those cases of strong women, isn't it?
07:17Exceptionally strong women.
07:18Once again, looking back at the time that this case took place, Cora was a really larger-than-life character,
07:27wanting to be on the stage.
07:28Not very successful at wanting to be on the stage at a time when, obviously, music halls were very popular.
07:35Popular in America, very popular in London.
07:37And when the Crippins moved to London, I think Cora had the view that she was going to become a
07:44huge either opera singer or a huge star.
07:47A star of the music halls.
07:49That didn't quite work out for Cora and she wasn't that successful.
07:54But she was a very strong advocate for actors and musical professionals in terms of wages.
08:03And she became the treasurer of the music halls in London.
08:06The performers were almost like a community, weren't they?
08:10Yes, very strong community.
08:12And Cora did really well in terms of ingratiating herself in that community and was very well thought of in
08:20terms of what she did to help that community receive better wages.
08:26And it's a bit like a union representative in terms of what she did for the music hall community.
08:35So the Crippins were sort of quite active in London society, really.
08:38They were going to lots of parties.
08:40Then they were having lots of parties in their house at 39 Hill Drop Crescent, which is the scene of
08:43the crime eventually.
08:44They were very popular.
08:47And their life together seemed very happy.
08:50It was quite prosperous for a certain amount of time because Dr. Crippin was always buying his wife jewellery and
08:56furs and luxurious things.
08:58And the house was very well decorated, even though she was quite eccentric, liking lots of things in pink.
09:03But they seemed to live together quite well for a while.
09:11What struck me is that Cora and Crippin are a very complete mismatch, aren't they?
09:19They really are in terms of personality.
09:23You can almost tell, can't you, from his photo, just like a mild-mannered man into homeopathy, a very gentle
09:29form of natural form of medicine.
09:31And Cora is larger than life and really ruled the roost in that relationship in terms of her demands of
09:39Hawley.
09:40There's definitely suggestions that she was maybe conducting affairs outside of the marriage within the musical community.
09:48It was a very bohemian community who liked to have relations with each other.
09:53Yeah, and Cora was not immune from this.
09:57No, I think she was very open to it, and it definitely fed into her personality and her wants as
10:05an individual.
10:08Crippin's credentials didn't allow him to practice as a GP in London, so he worked on this mail-order business
10:14selling homeopathic products.
10:16Initially, that was very good.
10:18They had rooms in Piccadilly and then down in Bloomsbury.
10:21But because Crippin had to support Cora with her theatrical career, she wasn't bringing any money in herself, most of
10:28his money was going there.
10:30And most of his time was also spent with Cora.
10:33And the company felt that there was a chance that he might put their success in jeopardy.
10:39He wasn't solely concentrating on the business, so they fired him.
10:43And he was forced to find all sorts of different jobs.
10:47He ended up working initially in another mail-order company and then eventually took a job, a company working for
10:54the deaf, where he would eventually meet Ethel Laniv, his accomplice, as it was seen, in the death of his
11:02wife, Cora Crippin.
11:04He always maintained in his statements later on that Ethel Laniv was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to
11:11him.
11:11He hadn't really been happy with Cora.
11:12They were having difficulties since they got to London and Cora was pursuing her own life, really, doing her own
11:19things.
11:19And he just totally fell in love with this younger lady who was a lot younger than him and she
11:24was ten years younger than his wife.
11:28But by all accounts, this is a very real relationship.
11:33I think it's fair to call it all-encompassing.
11:37It very much feels like the relationship started and it became encompassing for both of them, not necessarily just on
11:45Hory Crippin's side, but also Ethel as well, to the point where she would do anything for him.
11:51There comes a point, doesn't there, when tensions become unbearable.
11:58Yeah, and Cora was definitely...
12:00Her disdain for Hawley started to become very public and none so more than can be demonstrated by a dinner
12:10party that is held on the 31st of January 1910.
12:15They're two really good friends, Paul and Clara Martinetti, came round and had this dinner party.
12:21And Cora is particularly vicious with Hawley verbally and it's very clear to the Martinettis that there is tension in
12:29that marriage.
12:31Paul and Clara Martinetti left at about half past one and they were the last known people to have seen
12:38Cora alive.
12:39She vanished immediately thereafter.
12:56The early hours of February the 1st, 1910, were the last time anyone would see Cora Crippin alive.
13:07For the next two or three days, she was nowhere to be found.
13:13She had vanished almost completely and her friends became worried when they couldn't contact her, couldn't find her.
13:23Cora didn't turn up on the following Wednesday to a meeting of the Music Hall Guild and everybody was wondering
13:31where she was.
13:32But by that point, they'd already had a letter given by Crippin, sort of passed on to them via Ethel,
13:38to say that she was actually going away to America because there was somebody poorly in her family and she
13:44needed to go and see them.
13:45And she was sorry it was so late and there was not much notice, but that she would speak to
13:49them soon.
13:50But she had to go, literally imminently, to America.
13:54On the 2nd of February, Hawley pawns some of Cora's jewellery, and not for an insignificant amount of money either.
14:04And on the 9th of February, he goes to the pawnbrokers and pawns another set of jewellery, which brings him
14:11a fair amount of money in.
14:12So, suddenly, the community are thinking, where's Cora gone and why is Hawley pawning her jewellery?
14:21And then to make things worse themselves, Ethel starts wearing Cora's very nice fur coats and her finery.
14:31Before Cora even goes missing, Ethel informs her mum and her family she has married Dr. Crippin.
14:39What's going on here? Is she complicit with the disappearance later on? Is she complicit with this murder? I guess
14:45we'll never know.
14:46I personally think she definitely knew more than she let on.
14:51She comes within a couple of days, on the 2nd of February, to just sort of look over the house
14:55to become a housekeeper, if you like.
14:57She doesn't properly move in until mid-March, but by that point she's definitely wearing Cora's furs and clothing.
15:04And there's even neighbours who are a bit nosy, give statements saying, well, we saw through the window her trying
15:09on dresses belonging to Cora.
15:11So, it's quite strange, because at this point, you know, she's still officially alive and well in America, off with
15:16somebody else.
15:17And yet, it seems very final in that house that she's not coming back.
15:23On the 23rd of March, 1910, Crippin said it had a telegram that Cora had been ill for some time
15:31in California and had actually died of double pneumonia the previous day.
15:37And this was quite a surprise.
15:38They said, well, are you going to go there for the funeral?
15:42The friends had said, and they said, well, there's not going to be a funeral.
15:45She's going to be cremated.
15:47And again, this was a further surprise, because they knew that cremation was against her religious beliefs.
15:54One of the friends actually goes to America to try and trace it.
15:57There's no record of her death anywhere.
15:59And even Dr. Crippin's son, Otto, who's living in the States, he knows nothing about this.
16:05So, things start to get a bit suspicious, or her friends start to get suspicious.
16:09And eventually, some of the women actually in the march do go to Scotland Yard and report her missing in
16:14some strange circumstances.
16:16And yet, sadly, nothing is done.
16:22From Crippin's point of view, he thinks he's come up with the perfect explanation, doesn't he?
16:27Yes. I think he trips himself up by changing the story to the fact that she's died.
16:33I think initially, as he tells that story, he could have left it at that, and people maybe would have
16:39bought into it.
16:39The idea that she's got such disdain for him, she doesn't want to be with him anymore, and has gone
16:45back to America to be happy.
16:47With her lover?
16:48With her lover, but he didn't leave it at that.
16:51An inspector is called.
16:52Yes, and a very good inspector. So, Chief Inspector Dew, he goes to go and talk to Crippin to try
16:59and establish the facts of Cora's disappearance stroke death.
17:04Chief Inspector Dew goes initially to Hill Drop Crescent to find Crippin, and he's not there, but Ethel is.
17:11And he's like, oh, who are you?
17:12And she says, well, I'm the housekeeper.
17:14I mean, this is a blatant lie. We know she's his mistress, and it's been moved in.
17:17But that's what she says. She says, actually, Crippin's at work. Dr. Crippin's at work.
17:21So he goes, right, OK, let's go to Albion House, and let's go and chat to him.
17:24So they go actually over to his office and actually meet him.
17:29He gave a full statement over the course of the day and over an Italian lunch, which the police said
17:35he ate seemingly without a care in the world.
17:38He gave a statement which was very, very frank, very, very open, very, very, very willingly given, but nonetheless, which
17:46confessed openly to this long string of deceptions.
17:51Crippin broke down and said, I made up this story. In reality, Cora had left me, and he couldn't stand
17:57the shame.
17:57So he made up the story about her passing away to cover that shame.
18:01Crippin, at this point, by all accounts, was extremely unpanicked.
18:07He gave the statement freely and calmly.
18:11Inspector Dew said, can we come back and inspect the house?
18:14He said, yes, come back.
18:15They looked in all the rooms. He walked around the rooms with them.
18:18They looked in the cellar. He went in the cellar with them without betraying any sign of nervousness or apprehension
18:23at all.
18:24So after Inspector Dewitt had been to see Crippin and heard the story, they accepted that.
18:30They went back to Scotland Yard, but Crippin wasn't aware of this. He panicked.
18:37Next tipping point on the timeline is what Crippin does next.
18:43Yes. So had Crippin have held his nerve and had stayed in the address, the chief inspector might have gone
18:53back for a second visit.
18:54But had he held his story and held his nerve, he may have got away with it.
19:00But that is absolutely what he doesn't do.
19:05Crippin starts to panic and eventually he decides that the best course of action isn't to really say nothing, it's
19:12actually to flee the scene.
19:15So Crippin and the Leneve decided to go on the run and they were going to go to Canada.
19:18That was their plan.
19:19So they spent several days on the continent.
19:22They had 10 days in Brussels.
19:24Then they eventually went on the SS Montrose to go to Quebec and Canada where they have a plan to
19:29have a new life.
19:34So one of the most sensational aspects of this whole case is the fact that Ethel was dressed as a
19:39boy and was pretending to be Crippin's son.
19:41They were under the name of Master and Mr. Robinson, John Robinson and his son.
19:46It must have been so hilarious because people started to realise the affection that these two people were showing was
19:52a little bit too much.
19:53And they were actually holding hands at one point.
19:56So the affection was clearly being noticed.
20:00So Crippin and Leneve hightail it out of the country.
20:09Meanwhile, Chief Inspector Dew is on the alert.
20:13He is.
20:14So Crippin disappearing from the country or most certainly disappearing from that address at that point.
20:20It was a tipping point for Dew to say, we're going to go and do a proper search of 39
20:25Hill Drop Crescent.
20:29So they did another closer investigation of the house and down in the cellar, they realised some of the bricks
20:37on the floor were actually loosened as though they'd been recently taken up.
20:42They had these bricks lifted up.
20:45What must have hit them first was the stench of human remains.
20:49It must have been horrific.
20:50Eventually, they find a shovel and they actually dig this basic pit.
20:54What they find is the horrific human remains.
20:57Now, they don't know exactly what they found because what's really shocking is that there's no obvious bones.
21:02There were no limbs.
21:03There was no head.
21:05Absolutely shocking.
21:06So there's not only a murder has occurred clearly, but horrific mutilation of the body.
21:12It wasn't even possible to be certain of the sex of the victim because all the genitalia had gone.
21:23So upon murdering his wife, he then had the difficult task of getting rid of the body, which is something
21:28he would have probably planned alongside the actual commission of the crime itself.
21:32But he went to some lengths to disguise her, he removed her head and hands, he removed all of the
21:39bones from her body and it obviously showed his kind of anatomical knowledge and his ability to undertake this task.
21:48But in order to do this, really, he had to detach himself and dehumanise his victim completely.
21:53And the fact that this had been his wife, he'd shared some years with, and then to bury her in
21:59the cellar, again, shows a complete disregard for her as a person.
22:04He'd fallen out of any kind of love or respect for her and she was really just a difficulty he
22:09needed to overcome to pursue his new life.
22:13The dismemberment of a body is not something to be taken lightly, it's a very catastrophic experience, not only for
22:21the victim, obviously, but for the person perpetrating that crime.
22:26So the fact that that was done suggests that the person doing it was aware of the potential of the
22:35body to lead to identification, either through facial recognition or skull features or the bones of the body that can
22:44help in establishing sex and ancestry and height and perhaps dietary conditions.
22:54So all of those things, having been removed to some extent, tend to suggest that the person was trying to
23:03get away with the perfect murder.
23:07We don't know the reasons why Crippen decided to dispose of the body in his own basement.
23:12He went to the lengths of removing all the bones.
23:15It made an error in that he bought the wrong kind of lime with which to cover the body and
23:22actually preserved it wrong.
23:24Rather than got rid of it, but certainly probably this is something that he planned quite meticulously and he's really
23:30thought through how this was all going to piece together.
23:35Things escalated because this then became from a missing persons case to a potential murder investigation.
23:55The police had the remains and other objects found in the cellar removed and taken for closer investigation by the
24:03forensic scientists of the day.
24:05Although there was no genitalia and no head to identify whether the victim was even male or female, there was
24:13enough found in the cellar to implicate Crippen.
24:18And Chief Inspector Dew issued a wanted bulletin for Hawley Crippen.
24:25That information found its mark in the captain of the transatlantic liner on which Crippen had booked himself and Laniv
24:40passage, the S.S. Montrose.
24:44By this point, Crippen and Laniv were wanted fugitives on the rum.
24:50The whole world was chasing them via the press.
24:54The captain of the Montrose had strong suspicions that in fact two passengers, calling themselves Mr. Robinson and son, were
25:03in fact Crippen and Ethel Laniv.
25:06And as a result, Captain Kendall sent the following telegram to the British authorities.
25:13Have strong suspicions that Crippen, London's cellar murderer and accomplice, are among saloon passengers.
25:19Accomplice dressed as boy, manner and build, undoubtedly a girl.
25:25And this is the first time in history wireless telegraphy was ever used to capture a criminal.
25:32A ship like the Montrose carries hundreds of passengers.
25:36Why would this couple have come to the attention of the captain?
25:41Another mistake Crippen makes whilst taking this journey is that he doesn't book into the class of passenger that was
25:50very popular at the time,
25:51which is steerage, where they could have potentially have just faded into the background and been another father and son
25:57taking a journey.
25:58He books into a class of travel where there weren't that many passengers, so the access in the boat area
26:05meant that there were less people around, which meant that they stood out even more.
26:10So how's this extraordinary story playing out in the press?
26:16The press were reporting on a daily basis the fact that this slow motion cat and mouse were taking place.
26:25And probably what delighted the Edwardians even more, who loved nothing more than a crime story,
26:30was the fact that the captain on the SS Montrose was going collecting in the newspapers,
26:38so that Crippen and Ethel couldn't be alerted to the fact that Inspector G was onto them.
26:43So this is happening in real time?
26:45Yes. What unfolds next must have delighted the Edwardians, because it was reported on a daily basis that this cat
26:54and mouse chase then ensues.
26:59So as a result of this telegram, which made its way to the Metropolitan Police and Walter Dew,
27:05he made his way to Liverpool, where despite having several days' head start,
27:11the ship that Dew took, the Laurentic, was a much faster liner, and it was going to Quebec.
27:20And while Crippen was making his way on the Montrose across the Atlantic,
27:25thinking he'd left everything behind him, Walter Dew was on this faster ship,
27:30making good pace to catch up with him.
27:32Do you knew that once they landed in Canada, it would be easy for them to go down and slip
27:41across the border
27:42into the United States, where Crippen remained a citizen?
27:48If Crippen got across the border, it would require lengthy, torturous and expensive legal proceedings
27:56to extradite him, even if that proved to be possible.
28:00So it was all on the race between these two steamships.
28:05It must have been the longest and slowest police chase in criminal history.
28:16They are arriving shortly into Canada, and Inspector Dew goes aboard, and they get Crippen,
28:23and he says, you know, good afternoon, Crippen, and he recognised him straight away
28:27and realised the game was up.
28:29They arrested Crippen and Leneve, and the pair were taken back to London in handcuffs
28:36on the next available steamer.
28:41The press were waiting at the dock.
28:43As soon as they came off the ship, there were thousands of people waiting for them to get off the
28:47ship.
28:49So back in England, both Ethel and Leneve and Crippen both faced the charges of murder of Cora Crippen.
28:56After a few weeks, Ethel's charge was actually reduced to accessory after the fact, so she wasn't actually up for
29:04murder in the end.
29:08The crime museum at Scotland Yard still retains some of the exhibits in the original Crippen case,
29:13and I was very fortunate as a historian to work there as a volunteer for several years, so every day
29:17I got to see the original exhibits from the hair curlers
29:20to the pyjama jacket itself to lots of other ephemera and things connected with the case, and the actual shovel
29:26we believe that was used by Jew in order to actually extract the body from the cellar.
29:30So there's lots of exhibits still around, which were used at the trial at Scotland Yard.
29:35I'm also very lucky as a historian because I actually own several exhibits which I purchased at auction belonging to
29:41Cora and Dr. Crippen.
29:44So we have a very rare, original, wanted poster, which you can see in Metropolitan Police Murder and Mutilation.
29:52These posters, the majority of them would have been outside the police stations themselves.
29:57But also the actual image itself was then also reproduced in sometimes handbills and sometimes just general newspapers as well.
30:05They've got two poison bottles, and you can always tell poison bottles, there's ridges in case you were partially sighted
30:11or blind,
30:12so you wouldn't actually accidentally take medicine you're not supposed to.
30:15So these medical bottles, this medical pill-making equipment, all belong to Dr. Crippen.
30:20It all came from his office.
30:22But probably my favourite thing, which I'm very privileged to own, is actually a pair, and he had a few,
30:26a pair of his actual spectacles,
30:28his glasses there, which you can see in the box.
30:35While Chief Inspector Dew was involved in his police chase, his colleagues back at Scotland Yard had been working on
30:46the mysterious torso.
30:48The body had traces of a drug called scopolamine.
30:55So the thing about poisons is that they're usually in a form that can be readily administered either through food
31:02or drink.
31:02And in this case, scopolamine was quite readily available.
31:07It was naturally used as either an anaesthetic or something that could be administered to reduce the consciousness of an
31:15individual.
31:16And obviously in high doses, then, that would have a catastrophic effect.
31:22So assuming that there was a mechanism by which he could administer this drug, then, to all intents and purposes,
31:30that could be done quite surreptitiously because it could be hidden in food or drink.
31:38Earlier in January, he'd actually bought some from Lewis Burrows and Sons in Oxford Street.
31:44So he'd actually ordered some.
31:45And then two days later, because they'd never had that amount in stock, I mean, he argued he needed it
31:49for homeopathic remedies and things like that.
31:51And he was going to make up packets to sell to people or whatever.
31:54But they never did that.
31:55He never had any patients.
31:56They went through his patient registers.
31:59There's nothing to show that he ever actually used it as part of his homeopathic remedies.
32:03And he signed the poisons registers.
32:06So it's a bit crazy, really.
32:08Why, in a way, if this was premeditated, would you actually choose to use the poison you've actually legitimately signed
32:14for?
32:16So we often see poisonings more associated with female killers than males.
32:21So Crippett is quite different in this respect in that he used the poison against his wife.
32:25And I think it reflects a little bit more on his character, that he was quite a devious person.
32:30And it just kind of indicates the type of person he was, that he, you know, kind of quite cruelly
32:35poisoned his wife and then disposed of her body.
32:39So, yes, the body was clearly poisoned, but we still don't know if there are other methods of dispatch, if
32:44you like.
32:44So there was a piece of string.
32:45So some suggest maybe he actually strangled her.
32:48Gunshots were actually heard that night, allegedly, by neighbours.
32:51So did he shoot her?
32:52Is that why her head wasn't there?
32:54There were so many fascinating forensic aspects of this case because there were so many bits of evidence found with
33:01the body in the cellar.
33:03So, for example, there were actual pieces of Cora's hair in Heinz' curlers.
33:08And that was one of the reasons why they believed they identified it was Cora in the basement, because Cora
33:12bleached her hair.
33:13And the hair in the basement actually had bleach on it.
33:16It was dark brown and then it had bleach and it was in the curlers.
33:18So that's one of the identifying markers that they gave really for Cora.
33:24Enter the Home Office pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the leading scientist of the day.
33:30What has he found which is the crucial piece of evidence?
33:33So, underneath the flagstone, there was still an intact piece of skin.
33:40And on that skin was a scar that suggested that whoever was under that flagstone had an operation.
33:48That scar then matched a similar scar, which would have appeared on Cora's body because she had an operation in
33:54that abdominal area.
33:56Well, that's game, set and match, isn't it?
33:58Not necessarily, no. It was contested that it wasn't a scar at all. It was some kind of birthmark.
34:04So, it was contested.
34:07And Crippen is pleading his innocence all the way through.
34:10All the way through, yes.
34:13The trial was a huge media sensation.
34:17Worldwide press were reporting this.
34:19They'd already reported the chase and the frantic capture of these fugitives.
34:22But the trial itself, over 4,000 people actually applied to try and get tickets to sit and watch the
34:28trial inside the Old Bailey.
34:30And this was unprecedented.
34:48This was really the first notable example of one of the great curses of our modern age, which is trial
34:55by media.
34:56And that the trial really wasn't the beginning, but the end of a long process in which he'd already been
35:03found guilty in the world's media.
35:07They actually split the court time into two morning and afternoon sessions.
35:11And you could have a red ticket for the morning session to hear some of the trial, and a blue
35:16ticket for the afternoon session.
35:18And it lasted for five days and was absolutely sensational.
35:23From the first, there were people who strongly doubted Crippen's guilt, but the forensic evidence seemed to be so totally
35:33against him that it was never seriously entertained.
35:37There was a popular expression in Britain, and Crippen was innocent, meaning pull the other one.
35:44At the trial, Crippen basically presented a mysterious figure in that he was very unruffled, very, very calm, not seemingly
35:55distressed, as one would expect a man in his position to be.
35:59But at the same time, the only defense he would offer was one of complete innocence and complete ignorance.
36:08So the case against Crippen was really built up on a number of almost small circumstantial things.
36:17The fact that he'd fled rather than stick to his story.
36:21And in terms of science, they didn't have an identity of Cora Crippen, obviously, but they were relying on this
36:27scar, which was on the torso, on the remains that matched Cora.
36:33The defense tried to say that there were hair follicles in the scar, which shouldn't be there if it was
36:37on the abdomen.
36:38And Spillsbury said they would be there, it was puckered skin, exactly as you'd expect, and it was the right
36:44size and location for a lower abdomen scar that Cora Crippen had been known to have.
36:52So the other really huge, important piece of evidence within the remains was actually a pyjama jacket, which actually was
36:59sort of folded around, we think, around the remains.
37:01And actually, this really helped convict Crippen.
37:04It was possibly one of those important pieces of evidence against him, because surviving on it was a label saying
37:10Jones Brothers Holloway.
37:12Under the bed, they found three sets of pyjamas, and the third set didn't have its pyjama top.
37:18And they got all the experts from the people who actually physically made and manufactured these, and they discovered that
37:24this was not actually produced, the material, and these sets of pyjamas were not produced until 1908.
37:29Which meant the excuse that Crippen was coming up with, well, I don't know who put that in there.
37:34The murder and that body and those pyjamas could have even been in the house before I even got there
37:38in 1905.
37:39But that pyjama jacket with that label proved beyond shadow of a doubt that it must have been produced after
37:441908, so definitely when Crippen was in the house.
37:48We take forensic science for granted now in DNA and that sort of thing.
37:53In 1910, it was very, very new.
37:56And as a result that the jury and newspapers, in fact, reporting on the trial, they were just completely blown
38:02away.
38:03This science can't be wrong.
38:05They can't make mistakes.
38:06This definitely happened.
38:07And Crippen was found guilty on the evidence of Bernard Spilsbury that this scar definitely belonged to Cora Crippen.
38:17In the end, Crippen was found, after 27 minutes only, guilty.
38:21And he was sadly sentenced to death.
38:28And was executed on the 23rd of November at Pentonville Prison.
38:37Crippen went to his grave maintaining absolute innocence.
38:41And I think very tellingly in his final statements, he's not saying, I was undone by fate or anything kind
38:51of wishy-washy.
38:52He's still talking about the evidence.
38:55He's talking about the experts.
38:56And he's asking not to be forgiven, but to be believed.
39:01It didn't avail him anything.
39:04He was taken to the scaffold.
39:06The noose was placed around his net.
39:09And the hangman dropped him into eternity.
39:16We will never truly know how guilty Ethel was and what she knew.
39:21I personally think she definitely knew more than she let on.
39:24From wearing, you know, costume jewellery and jewels and furs and clothing belonging to the victim.
39:31Telling people she was married when she clearly wasn't.
39:34And her whole willingness to go along with Dr. Crippen, to dress as a boy, to escape, to start a
39:39new life, to leave her family behind her.
39:41I definitely think she knew more than she let on.
39:46What made the murder he committed almost perfect, not perfect?
39:52Panic.
39:54Panic that the police were on to him.
39:57And the moment that he decides to leave that address, the game is up.
40:03That's the point from which there is no return.
40:05I think that's the tipping point.
40:07The pawning of the jewellery, et cetera, was careless.
40:11You know, in terms of allowing Ethel to wear Korra's clothes, careless.
40:16Fleeing for America.
40:19That's the tipping point for me, is the panic.
40:28So whether Crippen was a psychopath, it's up to some debate.
40:32He certainly displayed many of the traits of a psychopath.
40:36He was very sort of charming.
40:37He was very able to manipulate people and situations.
40:42And he didn't really have any regard for the consequences sometimes of his actions in terms of empathy towards other
40:50people.
40:51However, he was also somebody who, at the hands of his wife, had suffered some humiliation, had been sort of
40:58manipulated himself.
41:00So that doesn't necessarily always fit with the behavior and the character of a psychopath.
41:07I think, like many killers, there's an element of narcissism in their personality traits.
41:13And I think Crippen probably thought he was going to get away with this.
41:16Not necessarily thinking that he was cleverer than everybody else, but that he felt he was in an intolerable situation.
41:23So for murder for him, because he would never have been able to get divorced from Bell, she was Catholic
41:27as well.
41:28It's another thing that people don't remember.
41:30So he saw his only way out of an intolerable situation, to be with the woman he loved, and for
41:35financial reasons as well, was to commit murder.
41:39He almost got away.
41:41The remains were almost unidentifiable.
41:45We don't know if he'd done it, why he didn't transport that last bit of flesh to wherever he put
41:55everything else.
41:56It seems very mysterious and really a point in his favor.
42:01Then you would have been looking at an almost perfect murder.
42:08At that point, this is a great piece of Edwardian detective story, isn't it?
42:14It's got all the elements.
42:15It's got sex, it's got lack of money, it's got buried bodies, it's got a slow-motion police chase.
42:22Yes.
42:23But that might be where it ended, except that it isn't.
42:27No.
42:28So there has been doubt cast over the fact that the body underneath the flagstone was Cora's.
42:42In the last few years, Crippen's guilt has been doubted and questioned by various people.
42:47When, about 20 years ago, some DNA was extracted from one of the slides from which Professor Bernard Spilsbury, the
42:54eminent pathologist who was involved in the investigation,
42:57some of his slides are still available at the Royal London Hospital Archives, and certain people from various institutes in
43:03America came over, had access to one of the slides.
43:05They claimed to have extracted DNA from this.
43:09According to them, they managed to track down three grand nieces of Cora Crippings, and they claimed that the DNA
43:16didn't match for the family, and also, more shockingly, that it may have been male.
43:23I think that we need to be very cautious about how we interpret results from historical slides like this, and
43:31maybe be careful that we don't jump to a very conclusive outcome in terms of what the DNA means.
43:40It was a small part of the abdomen, some scar tissue from the skin, that was subjected to our contemporary
43:49tests.
43:51And in doing that, we're already on the back foot, really, because the material has been subjected to histology, it's
44:00been exposed to chemicals in order to stain the cellular structures, it's been exposed to the DNA, probably, of tens,
44:10if not more, people who are not necessarily connected with the crime itself.
44:15And our technology is so sensitive that it can detect material from trace levels of material.
44:23So there's always that chance that the material under that microscope slide contains material from other sources.
44:34If that DNA testing is correct, what does that mean?
44:40So that would potentially mean that Crippen is not guilty of the murder of Cora, and that she did actually
44:50have gone to somewhere and set up home there, and that actually Cora had the last laugh in that relationship,
44:59in terms of Crippen going to the gallows for her murder.
45:06Which, in the sort of twist that makes my head spin, means that there was a perfect murder, but it
45:13was a judicial one.
45:14Yes, yes, very much so.
45:17So if it's not Cora underneath that flagstone, who is it and who committed that murder?
45:25And was Crippen innocent?
45:27And was Crippen innocent.
45:31The thing about the Crippen case is there's so many what-ifs or buts.
45:36Is it Cora Crippen?
45:37If not Cora Crippen, whose are those remains?
45:41Why did Crippen disappear if he was so sure that he hadn't murdered his wife?
45:46There's so many ifs and buts, and the fact that he tried to disguise himself and he almost got away
45:51with the perfect murder.
45:53There's so much going on that led and continues to lead that story to be of high interest, even today.
46:03I think it was remembered not so much as an almost perfect murder, but as an almost perfect murder case,
46:08because it was so neat and so intriguing and so well tied up by the police.
46:14But given what we now know about the remains, some very, very serious questions need to be asked.
46:58Thank you for joining us.
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