Interesting Case Of Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen English Literature Essay
Interesting Case Of Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen English Literature Essay
Published:
Last Edited:
23rd March, 2015
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Hawley Harvey Crippen, more famous as Dr. Crippen, was an American homeopathic practitioner who was tried in London in 1910, for the murder of his wife Cora Henrietta Crippen. This case was interesting in many ways, especially in the context of the early twentieth century when technology was still in its nascent stage. It was the first criminal case where the murderer was captured with the help of wireless radio, a recent technological innovation of those times. Another significant point pertinent to this case was that "This was the first major case that Bernard Spilsbury, the famous pathologist, was called in to investigate" (Stradford, British Military & Criminal History in the period 1900 to 1999). However, this case again gripped the imagination of both the British and American people, almost 100 years later, when in 2007 a DNA test proved that "the evidence which sent Crippen to the gallows was mistaken: the human remains discovered under his London house could not be those of Cora" (Hodgson, 100 years on, DNA casts doubt on Crippen case). This article will take a close in-depth look into this interesting case with a brief study on Dr. Crippen's life history. It will also investigate the details that led to the capture, trial, and the subsequent hanging of Dr. Crippen. At the end it will examine the recent DNA findings that may conclusively prove that Dr. Crippen was not guilty after all.
Body
A brief biography of Dr. Crippen: Hawley Harvey Crippen was born in Coldwater, in the state of Michigan in USA, in 1862 to an affluent merchant family, which was strictly Protestant in their religious leanings. His father was Myron Augustus Crippen, a dry goods merchant, and his mother was Ardesee Skinner. He completed his graduation from the Michigan School of Homeopathic Medicine in 1884 (Elmsley, 34). Earlier in 1883, he went to England where he pursued certain medical training studies. In 1892 his first wife Charlotte Bell died and Crippen leaving his two year old son Hawley Otto Crippen in the care of his parents in California, left his practice in the Salt Lake City in Utah, and came to New York. Here two years later he met Cora Turner (stage name was Belle Elmore), a young girl of seventeen years and a new entrant in the line of show business. Though at the time of their meeting Cora was already a mistress to another man, Crippen married her and took her to St. Louis, where he worked as a consulting physician. By this time Crippen had "found out that his wife's real name had not been Cora Turner at all, but Kunigunde Mackamotzki, and that her father was Russian pole and her mother a German" (Young, xiv). Mrs. Crippen who had very average singing talents, however entertained a high opinion of her own voice, combined with ambitions that were sky high. She expressed a desire to be trained for the Grand Opera. Dr. Crippen being an indulgent husband allowed his wife not only to train but also live in New York, apart from his home in Philadelphia. Later when Crippen came to London as a manager for the Munyon's offices that dealt in patent medicines, his wife joined him to pursue her talents in England as an opera singer. Soon after, he left Munyon to start ventures of his own, and failing which he came back to Munyon. However business in Munyon at that time was a little downhill, and so Crippen again left it to join the Yale Tooth Specialists. Cora during this time tried to revive her failing career that had actually never taken off, and along with it had a string of affairs, all at her husband's expense. As Crippen's career took a downward spiralling, tensions between the couple increased, and they were forced to move away from Piccadilly, and in 1905 finally settled in 39 Hilldrop Crescent in Holloway, London. Here to augment their income Cora suggested that they take in lodgers. Soon Cora became involved in the Music Hall Ladies Guild, and with her brash manner and outrageous affairs, soon became a very popular fund raiser. Earlier in 1901, when the tensions between the couple had peaked, Crippen had met Ethel le Neve, an 18 year old English secretary, who was completely opposite to the brash and amorous Cora, and they both fell in love, though Crippen's Protestant upbringing did not let this relationship turn physical. In 1906, one evening in December when Crippen came home unexpectedly in the evening, he caught his wife in bed with a student lodger. Soon after this Crippen openly acknowledged his affair with Ethel, while surprisingly Cora decided to play the role of an injured, neglected wife.
The crime: On 17th January 1910, Crippen bought some 5gms of hydro-bromide of Hyoscine, a known poison, from the chemists who were also the suppliers for his dental practice, Lewis & Burrows at Oxford Street. Hyoscine had sedative properties with no known dental applications, and was mainly used in low doses to calm patients with mental disorder. On the night of 31st January 1910, as the Crippens were entertaining guests, Cora disappeared.
After this everything is based on surmise, since Crippen never acknowledged the murder as being done by him. There were numerous wild speculations as to how Crippen killed his wife, and as author tells us "Since Crippen denied the murder of Belle, the exact chain of events were never conclusively proven, but medical experts summoned at his trial surmised that Crippen's intention was to fatally sedate Belle, and then summon his friend Dr. Burroughs, who had been previously primed with an illness story, when he 'found' her dead in their bed. Perhaps Crippen over-medicated whatever medium he used to administer the drug, but Belle became hyperactive, rather than sedated, and created a tremendous amount of noise. Crippen, in desperation, shot her with his revolver, and neighbours heard the sound, although they didn't recognise it as a gun shot at the time" (Crime and Investigation Network, Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen). As to what he did with the body is described as follows, "He dissected her corpse in the bath, removing her long bones and ribs, which he took down to the kitchen and burned in the open hearth there. He may also have used acid to dissolve her internal organs in the bath. He lifted the stone floor of the cellar, and buried her filleted torso there, before disposing of her head, and other remaining organs, in a weighted sack, in a canal near Hilldrop Crescent" (Crime and Investigation Network, Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen). Meanwhile, Ethel started living with Crippen, seeing which ladies of the Music Guild grew suspicious and upon questioning Crippen could find no clear answer, except that Cora had died due to some illness. Soon Cora's friend Kate Williams or Vulcana, approached Scotland Yard chief inspector Walter Dew, with the case of missing Cora (Vulcana and Atlas, Home Truths). However, the police initially found too little evidence on which to proceed, and on questioning Crippen he told the police that he had indeed fabricated his wife's illness so as "to cover up his runaway wife's unfaithfulness"( Le Vay, 22). A search of the house revealed nothing; however Crippen and Ethel decided to flee to Canada and boarded the SS Montrose for this purpose. After their flight, Scotland Yard felt suspicious, and decided to search the house once again, and during the fourth search came across remains of a body (no heads, or limbs or skeleton were found) under the basement floor. The body was identified by a piece of abdominal skin, which the pathologist Spilsbury confirmed that the skin piece had a scar that matched Cora's medical report.
Meanwhile Crippen who was aboard the SS Montrose with Ethel disguised as a boy, was recognised by the Captain, Henry George Kendall, who used the wireless radio (first time in the history) to inform the police about his suspicions. On hearing about this Inspector Dew took a faster liner and reached Quebec in Canada, and waited for Crippen to land. Finally on 10th July 1910 Crippen and Ethel were arrested by Walter Dew and transported back to London on SS Megantic. It was decided that Crippen and Ethel would be tried separately, and the "trial of Dr, Hawley Harvey Crippen for the murder of his wife Cora...was opened at the Old Bailey on Tuesday, October 18th 1910..." (Parry and Wright, 170). It took the jury just 27 minutes to pronounce Crippen a murderer. While Ethel was absolved form all murder charges and acquitted, Crippen was later hanged in November 1910, at the Pentonville Prison, England.
New evidences that prove Crippen was innocent: In 2007 with the help of latest mitochondrial DNA testing process, forensic scientist David Foran, claimed that the remains of the body found under 39 Hilldrop Crescent was not that of Cora Turner, "That body was not Cora Crippen's," said David Foran, a forensic biologist at Michigan State University. We don't know who that body was or how it got there" (Foster, Doctor Crippen may have been innocent). It was based on samples taken from Cora's great nieces, where the latter's m-DNA haplotype profile was matched with that of the skin piece found under the basement floor and presented as evidence in the trial against crippen, and later high profile sex tests revealed that the body was that of a man. With advanced scientific tests it is now said that the reports of the pathologist Sir Spilsbury was also incorrect, as the skin piece had hair follicles, while any scarred tissue would be devoid of hairs. "Dr John Trestrail, an expert on poisoning whose books are used by detectives across the world, said that the fact that Cora Crippen's body had been badly mutilated suggested that she had not been poisoned, as was believed...The thing about the Crippen case is the mutilation, which is contradictory to what poisoners do. They want a 'natural death' certificate, and to walk away" (Cockcroft, US scientists: Dr. Crippen was innocent). A close look at Sir Spilsbury's records also shows that he "was far from infallible. He began to make some terrible mistakes. He sent more than one innocent to the gallows. His theories increasingly took precedence over facts... Modern science has even questioned his conclusions in the Crippen case" (Macintyre, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, Britain's first forensic scientist). Thus, it cannot be convincingly said that Spilsbury had given correct pathological reports. Looking at all the recent reports it certainly raises questions as to whether really Dr. Crippen was the murderer, and whether wrong evidences had sent an innocent man to the gallows.
Conclusion
Dr. Crippen, an American homeopathic practitioner, made a disastrous second marriage to Cora Turner, a young show girl with a failed stage career. She was extravagant, too full of herself, and completely unfaithful to her husband. Soon Crippen tired of her relationships with other men, had an affair with his secretary Ethel, whom he wished to marry. On the night of 31st January 2010, Cora vanished suddenly, and later Dr. Crippen was arrested for her murder. A swift trial was conducted and Crippen was found guilty and later executed. Almost 100 years later modern forensic tests (DNA mitochondrial tests) have revealed that the body beneath the house was not of that of Cora's, but belonged to a male person. During the entire trial Crippen had maintained that he was innocent. It took almost 100 years, to prove scientifically that indeed, he may have been, after all, an innocent man.