October 19, 2007

Dr Crippen is a name that has been synonymous with murder for nearly a century. Notorious for murdering his wife and fleeing Britain on a ship with his lover disguised as a boy, this American doctor was the first person to be apprehended via the aid of wireless communication, in this case radio telegram. He was hanged in 1910 after a British jury found him guilty of murdering his wife, Cora, who had vanished earlier that year, and whose remains were identified as those found under the cellar floor of his London house. Except he was innocent.

He protested his innocence until the end. Two weeks before he was hanged he wrote 'I am innocent and some day evidence will be found to prove it'. And now that evidence has been found. But a body *was* buried under his house, and there are indications that it could only have been placed there during his tenure. One theory is that he was performing illegal abortions, and a patient died, leading to his attempt at disposal of the body. But if that were the cause of death, then why were large traces of Hyoscine, aka Scopolamine, a deadly poison in even small doses, found in the remains? Why would a successful poisoner then dismember the body, seemingly negating the very purpose of poisoning as a means of murder, since poisoners always attempt to pass off the death as a natural or unexpected one, to avoid suspicion? The crime novelist Raymond Chandler noted that it was implausible that Crippen would successfully dispose of his wife's limbs and head, an extremely difficult undertaking given the resilience and identifiability of those body parts even in 1910, and then bury her torso under the cellar floor in a botched manner likely to leave clear evidence. Could the murder have been some nameless woman done in by one of the tenants in their home, which Cora had bullied him into running as a boarding house? If that was so, why did he flee? We won't ever know.

posted by Hank Mabuse 17 years ago
  • But if that were the cause of death, then why were large traces of Hyoscine, aka Scopolamine, a deadly poison in even small doses, found in the remains? Scopolamine used to be given to women in child-birth as a means of inducing amnesia ("Twilight sleep"). It's not unreasonable to thing that it may have been given to women undergoing abortions as well.
  • Ah, rats, guilty again. Which thus explains all the the running away and disguising and so forth. In a boat on an ocean, which has been a top 5 choice for disposing of resiliant and identifiable body parts since like forever.
  • *takes notes*
  • Well, they still can't touch his legacy as the founder of the Crips.
  • "Ah, rats...since like forever." That's the stupidest thing I've read today, and that's saying something since I've been reading digg.
  • If you spend your whole day floating on a sea of of self-manufactured bullshit, what counts as "stupid" is a relative sort of thing.
  • If you say so.
  • Is it at this point that I say "I know you are but what am I?" I can never keep track of who says what.
  • It's at this point you RTFA and realise how asinine your original statement was. He was carting around stinking rotting remains for months before dumping them off the ship? In the days before refrigeration? And no one noticed? Not even Ethel le Neve? Nothing in what I posted above was my speculation, it was paraphrased from much more expert sources than either of us. Tilt at windmills all you want, friend. You wanna go up against FBI profilers and people who make a living writing about the criminal mind? Be my guest. Is it the DNA thing that tweaks your nipples? I forget, you don't do science, or what was your poison? I dunno, maybe you're scoring a point for something I said six months ago. I forget, I don't let that crap occupy my head space. Anyway, good luck to you.
  • I find this chilling but fascinating, Hank. Wrongful convictions probably occur far more often than most people realize, and stories like this are a powerful argument against capital punishment. Great post. Thanks .
  • I know - I'd love to see all kinds of old cases like this revisited.
  • Wow, this Mabuse guy is both touchy AND offensive! (What do you care what someone else's take on your posted article is? Do you have a personal stake in it?)
  • Yeah, I'm descended from him. I want to clear his name. It was a travesty of justice. Also, I want a pony.
  • Why do you care if Hank cares if Fes cares, Rush?
  • Why do you care if Hank cares if Fes cares if rush cares, PareidoliatiacBoy? Next...
  • Actually Crippen is a name I associate with the Space Shuttle... I think it was one of the very first pilots.
  • BTW, a very interesting post.
  • JUSTICE FOR CRIPPEN! Someone make up some bumper stickers, quick! (I was driving with a coworker Friday, and we passed a car with a huge bumper sticker that said "JUSTICE FOR ALEX!" Neither of us had a clue who Alex was, or why he or she needed justice. We figured a helpful URL or something might have rectified the problem. Oh, well.)
  • Hmmm...is this it? Would have been easy enough to throw that link on the bumper sticker.
  • I just read a novel called Crippen last year, in which he was depicted as guilty... it was creepy. The case is so famous that, if he was innocent, it makes me think Cora (the "victim") was pretty evil: she could have exonerated him. It was a media sensation at the time. OTOH, back then, capture, trial, and execution tended to happen in very quick succession. (Not like nowadays, with our endless appeals and people who spend a decade on Death Row.) I don't mean to insinuate a value judgment either way: I think it's better to either Not Have Capital Punishment, or hey, Not Murder People In The First Place.