Was Crippen Really Guilty?

Throughout the proceedings and at his sentencing, Crippen showed no remorse for his wife, only concern for his lover’s reputation. The

jury found Crippen guilty of murder

after just 27 minutes of deliberations. Le Neve was charged only with being an accessory after the fact and acquitted.

What really happened to Cora Crippen?

Cora’s

actual cause of death was never established

, and her head and limbs were never found. But her torso, the only body part that remained, was found to have been drugged with hyoscine. As revealed in court, Crippen had bought the drug from a local chemist before his wife was killed.

Was Crippen a real doctor?

Hawley Crippen was

an American doctor

who moved to England in 1900 with his wife, Cora Turner. When Cora disappeared in 1910, Crippen said she had returned to the US, and later said that she had died in California.

What did the police think happened to Cora Crippen?

A thorough search of the Crippen home resulted in the grisly discovery of body parts beneath the cellar. According to the police report, the

victim had been poisoned, and then filleted

. The horrific murder, so reminiscent of Jack the Ripper’s attacks only two decades earlier, quickly became headline news.

Was Crippen really innocent?

Hawley

Crippen maintained his innocence throughout the five-day trial

, but it took the jury only 27 minutes to find him guilty of murder. He was sentenced to be executed by hanging and met his fate a month later in Pentonville Prison.

Is Dr Crippen’s house still standing?

Crippen was convicted at the Old Bailey and executed. Ethel le Neve was acquitted. Alas the house is no longer there in its original state but a block of flats now stand on the site. However

the street name of course does still exist

so you can take a photo the plaque at least as a souvenier of any visit!

Where did Crippen live in London?

In 1905 the Crippens moved to

a house in the Holloway area of north London, 39 Hilldrop Crescent

, where they took lodgers. Crippen came home one day and found Cora in bed with one of them. She had been unfaithful to him before and he and Ethel now began an affair. Ethel was his ‘wifie’ and he was her ‘hub’.

Did Dr Crippen have children?

Since

Cora Crippen had no children

and her Polish-German American heritage is complex, tracing these relatives took Beth Wills — an amateur genealogist enlisted by Mr Trestrail — seven years. The breakthrough came after she placed a notice on the internet.

Where did Dr Crippen live?

Crippen and his wife Cora settled in London in 1890, where he worked for a patent medicine company at Albion House, New Oxford Street. In the late summer of 1905, the Crippen’s moved from their West End home to the more run-down area of Tufnell Park, buying a semi-detached house at

39 Hilldrop Crescent

.

What poison did Dr Crippen use?

Medical tests had shown that the flesh contained traces of

hyoscine

, a poison, and it was known that Crippen had purchased five grains of that substance on 17 January, two weeks before Belle had vanished. It was enough for the jury, who took just under thirty minutes to find Crippen guilty of his wife’s murder.

Was Cora Crippen a man?

Not only was the body not from Cora Crippen’s family,

it wasn’t even a woman

. As Mr Trestrail sums it up, “This is the slide which Spilsbury [the expert witness at the trial] used to identify the body as Cora Crippen’s. And this was the evidence on which Crippen was convicted.

Where is Cora Crippen buried?