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BAD PEOPLE			Date Added
	Doctor Hawley Crippen		July 2003

	Bio
	Full Name	Doctor Hawley Harvey Crippen
	Date of Birth	1862
	Known Also As	Dr Crippen Peter
	Hit Count	?
	Information & Pictures
	On 31st March 1910, Mrs Louise Smythson went to Scotland Yard to report the disappearance of an old friend of hers called Cora Crippen. Cora - or to use her music-hall stage-name, Belle Elmore - had last been seen exactly two months before by her friends. It seemed that, in an uncharacteristic move, she had quite suddenly set sail for the United States. She had given no advance warning to any of her friends, sent no form of communication on arrival and given no forwarding address should they have needed to get in touch with her. The first time that any of them were told of her sudden departure had been on 2nd February 1910, when a letter was delivered to the committee of the Music Hall Ladies' Guild, of which she was the Honorary Treasurer. It announced that, because of the illness of a relative in America, she had to leave at very short notice and was hence resigning her position at the Guild. She was in such a hurry that the letter had been written for her by her husband. Just over a month later, her husband had announced that Cora was dangerously ill, and a week later that her condition was critical, with double pleuro-pneumonia. On 24th March, he sent a telegram to one of Cora's closest friends announcing her death: 'Bella died yesterday at six o'clock... shall be away a week - Peter.' (Cora's theatre friends had taken to referring to Dr Crippen as Peter.)
	39 HILLDROP CRESCENT Dr Crippen and his wife Cora lived at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, in Holloway, north London. After Cora's death, the house was said to be haunted - locals claimed they sometimes heard screams during the night.
	Two days later, an obituary notice was published in Era, the theatrical weekly newspaper. Cora's husband's behaviour was causing the greatest suspicion. All the information about Cora Crippen's whereabouts came through him and him alone, and yet he seemed unsure of where she was at any given time before she died. Crippen was also unsure of the precise details of her death. Although it was common knowledge to all Cora's friends that her relatives were based around New York, her husband had said she would be going to California. Yet, only Dr Crippen had relatives in California. His story seemed to be tripping itself up at every step. He was inundated by Cora's friends for more information, such as exactly where she had died and whether they could send floral tributes. He showed no intentions of going out to America to deal with the funeral arrangements, saying that his wife would be cremated and her remains sent home. Once these arrived, he would 'have a little ceremony' for her friends to pay their respects. Friends who knew that Cora Crippen was a Roman Catholic thought it strange that she should be cremated.
	CORA CRIPPEN : Although the flamboyant Cora Crippen (back row, middle) had given up her stage career, she led an active social life with her friends from the music hall world. Crippen on the other hand, chose the more passive role of bystander.
	To add to their suspicions, Cora's husband now had a girlfriend - his secretary from work, who was living with him. She appeared with him in public, and had even taken to wearing his wife's jewellery. There was even a rumour, which turned out to be true, that Cora's jewellery was being pawned. For her theatrical friends, other circumstances were far too unusual to be left unreported. Despite the unusual circumstances, Scotland Yard found nothing to go on - there was no evidence of a crime, everything was circumstantial. Besides, the number of missing persons in London was enormous and some form of evidence would be required before starting an investigation. It seemed possible that Cora had simply eloped because of the difficulty she would have had obtaining a divorce. On 30th June 1910, just over three months after Cora's death, a Mr and Mrs Nash arrived at Scotland Yard to see a friend of theirs, Superintendent Frank Froest, head of the Criminal Investigation Department. Nash told him that he and his wife, a popular music-hall singer known as Lil Hawthorne, were worried about Cora (or Bella, as they called her). It seemed odd that she had not contacted Mrs Nash, who had been one of her closest friends. The couple had recently been in America on business when they were notified by a friend in London about Cora's apparent death in Los Angeles. They made some investigations, but could find nothing to support the story. The Nashes, as well as Mrs Fred Ginnett, president of the Music Hall Ladies Guild, were upset about Cora's death, but their suspicions were raised. Mr Nash promised that he would interview Crippen as soon as he and his wife returned to England. They finally set sail from New York on 15th June.
	HUMAN REMAINS FOUND : On the second day of the second search of Crippen's house, policemen found human remains buried under the loose bricks in the cellar floor.
	Once back in London, the Nashes called on Crippen at his central London office to offer their condolences on Cora's sudden death. It was 28th June. According to Nash, Crippen was very upset. When Nash questioned him about where Cora died, Crippen changed the location from Los Angeles to a small town near San Francisco, whose name he could not remember, not did he know which crematorium sent her ashes. At this point Crippen got very nervous. To Nash, something seemed terribly wrong. Later, after discussing Crippen's story with Mrs Nash, they decided that the doctor's tale was unsatisfactory and worth reporting to Scotland Yard. Froest subsequently asked Chief Inspector Walter Dew to start an investigation. Dew began interviewing many of the people who knew Crippen, including the music-hall star Paul Martinetti and his wife, who had been the last people to see Cora alive when they were dinner guests of the Crippens at the end of January. Dew was not getting too far, however, and finally decided to call on Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen, of 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Holloway, in north London on 8th July. The doctor was not at home - he was at work in central London - and the Inspector instead spoke to his girlfriend, Miss Ethel Le Neve. He later described her as being quite attractive with a sensual mouth, and neatly dressed. He also noticed that she was wearing a distinctive diamond brooch, which matched the description of one that had belonged to Cora Crippen. Chief Sergeant Mitchell, then went to see the doctor at his office in New Oxford Street in central London. Crippen was almost welcoming and appeared happy to tell them all he knew.
	CORA CRIPPEN : Cora was also known by her stage name, Belle Elmore. Her marriage to Crippen failed, and they both took lovers. Crippen poisoned Cora, aged 35, in the first week of February 1910. He buried her remains in a coal cellar, where they were discovered on 13th July 1910.
	The majority of Crippen's statement was taken down in between his medical consultations and his tooth extractions. Crippen would dictate to the policemen for a while, return to his surgery and then come back to the waiting room to dictate some more. He admitted that Ethel Le Neve was his mistress, that their relationship had begun long before his wife had disappeared and that Cora knew about Ethel. He also conceded that his marriage to Cora Crippen had been far from happy. More than this, Crippen admitted that the story of his wife's death had been a lie - it was to cover up the fact that their marriage had failed. The truth was that Cora had indeed gone to America, but she had gone to live with an old lover from the music-hall stage, named Bruce Miller. It was because of his embarrassment at being cuckolded, and because he wanted to protect his wife's reputation in front of her friends, that he had made up his original story about her death. Crippen even went as far as to invite two policemen to inspect his house in North London.
	CORA CRIPPEN'S REMAINS : Cora Crippen's remains were found wrapped in a pyjamas top in the coal cellar in her north London home. The limbs and head were missing and all the bones been removed from the body.
	The two policemen returned with Crippen to Hilldrop Crescent, where they made a cursory search, at one point even going into the cellar. Finding nothing suspicious, Dew insisted that Crippen attempt to get in touch with his wife in America. Crippen appeared to do this, and even drafted an advertisement to be placed in a number of American newspapers, calling for Kunigunde Mackamotzki (Cora's maiden name) to contact Hawley Harvey Crippen. Chief Inspector Dew left Crippen's house at 8pm that night after getting him to sign the statement he had just given. Dew's interview with Crippen had taken place on Friday 8th July and had lasted for nearly eight hours. Over the weekend, Dew examined Dr Crippen's statement in detail. Although there were a number of points he wished to clear up, he was not overly suspicious of the mild-mannered doctor. Crippen's marriage to Cora was well known as a mismatch. it was also known that she had flirted outrageously with a number of young men over the last ten years. It was by no means impossible that she had become bored with her meek and subservient husband. In fact, Chief Inspector Dew had actively enjoyed Crippen's company, going with him to an Italian restaurant for lunch. 'Crippen made a hearty mean,' said Dew afterwards, 'and ate it with the relish of a man who hadn't a care in the world.' Dew decided that Cora's disappearance was a domestic matter - perhaps she chased after a lover, but she was also a 'woman scorned', and had disappeared in such a way to make Crippen's life as difficult as possible. Dew decided that the file should be closed.
	CHIEF INSPECTOR DEW : Chief Inspector Walter Dew (far left) began his career with perhaps the most notorious case in British criminal history. He received his detective's badge in 1887, and was put on the trail of Jack the Ripper. This was the only case in his career that he failed to solve. He gained the nickname 'Blue Serge' because he wore his Sunday-best suit on duty. His most striking feature was his sympathy for the criminals it was his job to catch. When Dew eventually caught Dr Crippen and Thel Le Neve, the couple remembered him, above all, for his consideration to them both. Dew was as thorough as he was discreet in his work. Chasing after Crippen, not even his wife knew exactly what he was up to. When a newspaper claimed he had been at fault for allowing Crippen to leave the country, he sued for libel and won.
	On the following Monday, 11th July, Dew returned to Hilldrop Crescent to check a few details with Crippen to finalise his statement before abandoning the case. Much to his surprise, Dew found the house empty, apart from the maid. He checked at Crippen's office and was told that the doctor had not been in that day. Chief Inspector Dew ordered a complete search of the three-storey nine-room house. Nothing of significance was found, so Dew turned his attention to the garden. It was the height of summer and the garden was in full bloom, but Dew and his colleagues dug up every rose bush, pulled up every flower and turned over ever bit of soil to no avail. On 13th July, after two full days of searching, the only room that had been left untouched was the tiny coal cellar, situated at the end of a short, gloomy corridor leading from the kitchen to the back door. The cellar was dark and dusty. A small pile of coal lay in one corner; in another was a collection of branches. Dew got down on his hands and knees, and pried between the crevices of the brick floor with a poker. The mortar was old and loose and several bricks came up easily, revealing a bed of clay beneath the floor.
	LETHAL POISON : Dr Crippen made an unusual choice of poison with which to murder his wife. Hyoscine, or hydrobromide of hyoscine, had never been used before (nor has it since) to commit murder. A week or so before Cora's disappearance, Crippen obtained five grains (a quarter of a grain is reckoned to be enough to kill someone) from Lewis and Burrows, a London chemist that he had been doing business with for many years. He had obtained other poisons from the chemist, but never hyoscine, and he had to sign the Poisons Register before taking it away. The poison came in the form of white, odourless crystals - easily disguised in food or drink - and was made from the plant henbane, a member of the nightshade family. At the time, hyoscine was used in an extremely diluted form as a sedative and an anti-aphrodisiac to reduce sexual drive. As a 21 year old medical student, Crippen had seen it be administered to the violently insane at London's Bethlehem Royal Hospital to calm them down.
	After digging down about 15cm (6 inches), a foul smell filled the cellar, forcing Dew and his sergeant out into the garden for fresh air. Digging down a little further, they came across a shallow pit filled with a mass of human flesh, which had been covered in lime. Dew dug no further. Whether the remains were all that was left of Cora Crippen was not certain. Regardless of this, Dr Crippen and Ethel Le Neve were now under suspicion of murder. A hunt was launched immediately to find out where the couple had gone.
	WHOSE BODY? After the discovery of human remains in the coal cellar of 39 Hilldrop Crescent, police investigators were faced with a problem - how could they positively identify those remains as belonging to Cora Crippen, the missing wife of Dr Crippen? All that was left of the body was a torso that had been carefully filleted of all its bones. The murderer had removed arms, legs, genital organs and, most important of all, the head. Five clues emerged from an examination of the remains. 1. A metal hair curler, found alongside the remains, had a 15cm (6 inch) tuft of hair coiled around it. The hair changed in colour from dark brown at the roots to blonde at the ends. It was generally known that Cora Crippen used peroxide on her hair. 2. A mark found on the abdomen of the torso was identified as a scar, which corresponded with an operation Cora Crippen had to remove her ovaries. The strength of this piece of evidence was proved during Crippen's trial, when the defence tried to claim that the mark was no more than a fold in the skin. 3. There was a presence of hyoscine in the remains. Dr Crippen had bought the poison less than a fortnight before the disappearance of his wife. Crippen had first become familiar with the drug - so rare that his chemists had to order it for him - in 1883 when he had seen it administered to the violently insane to sedate them. 4. There was a surgical quality in the removal of the bones from the torso. Although Crippen had no practical experience of surgery, there was little doubt that he had extensive theoretical knowledge in that field and there was no reason why he should not have been able to carry out the task of dismembering his wife's body. 5. The pyjama top in which the torso was wrapped bore a Jones Brothers label. This was found to be a garment that could only have been bought after the Crippens had moved into Hilldrop Crescent.
	Hawley Harvey Crippen was the son of a respectable family from Coldwater, Michigan. His grandfather, Philo, ran the local dry goods store, building up the business to be inherited by Hawley's father, Myron. Coldwater grew from a cluster of log cabins to a thriving town and the Crippen family grew with it. By the time of Hawley's birth in 1862, the store and house were the biggest in town. Hawley was an only child and, coming from the richest family in town, he grew up spoilt and conceited. From his childhood, he was set on emulating his Uncle Bradley, Coldwater's family physician. Hawley attended the local school during the week, and read the Bible on Sunday. His family - and especially his grandfather - were devout Christians, following a grim, strict and unforgiving Protestantism. After chapel, where the family sat in the front pew every Sunday, Philo Crippen took his grandson on his knee, and sternly read him long passages from the Old Testament, drumming the Books of Proverbs and Isaiah, with their emphasis on the 'sins of flesh', into the young child, whose curiosity was aroused by the phrase. Crippen paid his way through university by working as an assistant in a chemistry laboratory at the University of Michigan's School of Homeopathy where he obtained a diploma. He qualified as a doctor at the Homeopathic Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. It was not, however, a qualification that would have allowed him to practice in England without taking further examinations.
	CHARLOTTE BELL : Charlotte Bell, Crippen's first wife, was born in Dublin and went to America as a student nurse. The marriage did not last. Crippen found her religion a burden. Divorce was out of the question but, conveniently, for Crippen, she died.
	Crippen sailed for England in 1883 to continue his medical studies at St Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals. He also attended lectures on mental disorders at the Bethlehem Royal Hospital, an asylum that had become popularly known as 'Bedlam'. Crippen then returned to New York, where he obtained a diploma from the Opthalmic Hospital in 1885. It was while he was doing his internship at the Hahnemann Hospital in Manhattan, New York, that he met and married Charlotte Jane Bell, then a student nurse. The marriage seems to have been a failure. Charlotte, originally from Ireland, was born and brought up in a convent, and remained strongly Catholic all her life. She even had to get a special dispensation to marry Crippen as he was a Protestant. Crippen's excitement at finally discovering 'the sins of the flesh' quickly palled, with his wife visiting confessional every time they slept together. They travelled west to San Diego where, in 1888, Charlotte gave birth to a boy, Otto Hawley Crippen. Then four years later, after a journey to Salt Lake City, Charlotte died of apoplexy in the bitter cold of a Utah January. She had been due to give birth a few days later. Otto was sent to live with his grandparents in San Jose, California, while Crippen returned to New York, and opened a new practice. It was six months later in July 1892, at his Brooklyn surgery, that Crippen first met his second wife. Kunigunde Mackamotzki, by then known as Cora Turner, was a bright 19 year old, of mixed European stock - her father, who had died when she was two years old, was a Russian Polish grocer, and her mother was German.
	AURAL REMEDIES : Crippen discarded whatever medical principles he had when he and Cora faced financial ruin. Using his skills as an ear specialist, he set up in a fraudulent company, offering fake remedies for ear infections.
	To the prematurely balding, 30 year old widower, she was a creature to be nurtured and protected, and it did not bother him that she was a 'kept woman'. She was impetuous, and her ruggedness and good humour appealed to him. In sharp contrast, Cora loved him for his distinguished air, his dependability and the security he offered - she came from immigrant stock and a man with a profession, such as a doctor or lawyer, was highly respected. After a brief, six week courtship, they married on 1st September 1892, in New Jersey. But from the first, things went awry. Almost immediately, Cora had to have an operation to remove her ovaries, which may have been due to complications from a miscarriage. Now, to the deep disappointment of them both, she could not have children. The early 1890's was a period of economic unrest in America as a great depression took hold, with vast numbers of people living rough. Homeopathic and conventional medicine alike were under financial strain. Doctor's bills went unpaid as the breadlines formed in the cities. Cora was forced to abandon the operatic singing lessons she had been taking since childhood and, for a time, Crippen had to move in with her family. The sharp-witted Cora soon realised that the New York public simply did not have the money for homeopathic remedies and she persuaded her husband to sacrifice his principles to become a quack. Crippen began to sell patent remedies, and soon joined up with another quack doctor, 'Professor' Munyon, running the offices of his Homeopathic Remedies on East 14th Street, Manhattan. Cora also worked there as a cashier, and the couple were forced to sleep in a room above the office. Within a year, Crippen - described by Munyon as 'one of the most intelligent men I ever knew' - was promoted to general manager at the head office in Philadelphia. He went on to open Munyon's new office in Toronto.
	CORA TURNER & HAWLEY CRIPPEN : Cora Turner became Crippen's second wife within weeks of meeting him.
	When Crippen returned to Philadelphia, Cora left almost at once for New York, where she wanted to continue her singing career. In 1897, Crippen was offered the London office at a salary equivalent to $10,000 a year. Cora joined him after four months, hinting that she had had shipboard romances on the journey. Cora had pretensions to opera, and had switched to vaudeville. She called herself Belle Elmore, and because American acts were all the rage, she managed to find middle-of-the-bill work, earning about £3 a week before expenses. However, Cora's London debut, under her new stage name of Macka Motzki, at the Old Marylebone Music Hall, ended in failure after a week and her contract was not renewed. She was also putting on weight and was known unkindly as 'The Brooklyn Matzoh Ball' (after a dumpling eaten during the Jewish Passover). She began to blame Crippen for her lack of success. She was not entirely fair to her husband. He had been neglecting Munyon's business to promote his wife when, out of the blue, he was recalled to Philadelphia. Munyon had discovered that Crippen had been described as 'Acting Manager' on a handbill for Vio and Motzki's American Bright Lights Company. As a result, he was sacked.
	VIO & MOTZKI'S AMERICAN BRIGHT LIGHTS COMPANY : Cora wanted to be an operatic prima donna, but her voice was not up to it. She became a music-hall entertainer. At her London debut, Crippen was billed as her Acting Manager.
	There was worse to come. The Crippen marriage was now in ruins. Cora had taken up with a former prize-fighter, Bruce Miller, now on the music-hall circuit. Even worse, she had developed a taste for drink - as well as an ungovernable temper. It could never be said that Crippen was not a worker. First, he joined another patent pill company, which went bust within a year, then he tried to market his own remedy named 'Amorette'. He set Cora up as a 'minituare painter' at their newer and cheaper flat in Store Street, near the British Museum, and in 1901 he joined the Drouet Institute, which prescribed patent plasters to be stuck behind the ears as a cure for deafness. The firm spent the then enormous sum of between £20,000 and £30,000 a year on advertising what was later described as 'one of the biggest and most ambitious frauds on the deaf ever engineered in this country'. It was at the Drouet Institute, in 1902, that Crippen first set eyes on Ethel Le Neve.
	ETHEL LE NEVE : Ethel Le Neve, initially unsure of Crippen's marital status, progressed from being his secretary to his mistress.
	Ethel Le Neve met Dr Crippen when she was 17. She lived at home in Camden Town, London, where her family name was Neve - like Cora with her stage name of Belle Elmore, Ethel had made the French alteration as an affectation. As a child, she had been a tomboy preferred playing with a catapult to dolls. She went train-spotting with an uncle and took a great interest in locomotive engines. She was a hypochondriac - her nickname was 'Not-Very-Well-Thank-You' She was also a persistent liar and had a very domineering personality. Her sister, Nina, worked at the Druoet Institute for the Deaf, where Crippen was employed as 'consultant physician'. The institute was named after an alcoholic Frenchman who had developed plasters which, when placed behind the ears, were claimed to cure deafness. Crippen must have known that the claims were completely false and that the treatment was just a money-making racket. However, Crippen needed the money, not so much for himself. but for his demanding and big-spending wife. When Nina left the institute to get married, Ethel replaced her as Crippen's private secretary. Despite later claims that Crippen seduced Ethel and that she was clay in his hands, it seems more likely that Ethel saw in Crippen someone she could manipulate. Both people with deeply unpleasant traits, they seemed made for each other. Nevertheless, it was not until seven years after they had first met that they slept together.
	39 HILLDROP CRESCENT : After the events of 1910, 39 Hilldrop Crescent was rented out by its owner to a Scottish comedian named Sandy McNab, who planned to convert it into small flats for people in the acting profession. The venture failed, and the house remained empty, gradually falling into disrepair. McNab then tried to turn the house into a Crippen museum, but after protests from local residents, the Scotsman abandoned his schemes. The house was finally destroyed during World War II, when it suffered a direct hit by a German bomb. On its site, there now stands a block of flats called Margaret Bondfield House, named after Britain's first woman Cabinet Minister.
	Ethel developed an instant crush on the doctor. She did not know he was a married man. She later recalled that 'Dr Crippen was leading a somewhat isolated life. I did not knew whether he was married or not. Certainly he never spoke of his wife.' But she found out soon enough when Cora arrived at the office in a bad temper. Ethel described the event: 'Her coming was of a somewhat stormy character... She was obviously angry about something.' More scenes followed during subsequent visits and it became clear to Ethel why the doctor had been so reluctant to talk about his private life. Ethel provided the refuge from his marriage, which was crumbling rapidly. Cora's extravagance and selfishness had increased since her lover, Bruce Miller, had returned to the United States. Despite the fact that Crippen had supplied her with virtually anything she wanted - including a collection of jewellery that was the envy of her friends - she had absolutely no respect for him. When he explained to her that he was in financial difficulties, her reaction was to go out at once and buy a new wardrobe of clothes. Although she had failed in her dreams to become a music-hall star, Cora compensated for this with her boundless social energy. She was, in fact, considerably liked for her vitality, warm nature and down-to-earth openness - so much so that some of the top names in music hall, all women, sought her company.
	CORA CRIPPEN : Cora Crippen, stage name Belle Elmore, wanted to be an opera singer. Though she made her London debut in an operetta, it failed badly and she gradually found herself playing 'middle of the bill' acts in music hall. She blamed her failure on Crippen, who she said did not encourage her.
	The women, including Marie Lloyd, would meet on a weekly basis to drink tea and gossip. It was one of these social gatherings, when the plight of Flora Linton was mentioned, that the Music Hall Ladies' Guild was born. Flora had entered a sanatorium to be treated for tuberculosis, leaving behind a blond husband to look after their two children. The party of women decided to step in and help. The Guild allowed Cora to indulge her forceful personality in fund-raising activities and gave her a legitimate role among the theatre folk she loved. They returned her affection, but did not extend it to her husband. They regarded him as a sponger. Marie Lloyd even went so far as to nickname him 'The Half Crown King', as he never had any money and would always asked to borrow half-a-crown. The Crippens by this time moved to 39 Hilldrop Crescent. After the small flat they had occupied, the new home meant that Crippen and his wife no longer had to share a bedroom. There were many visitors to Hilldrop Crescent, mostly Cora's friends, all of whom noticed how quiet and unassuming Dr Crippen was in comparison to his loud wife. There was no question in any of their friends' minds about who the dominant partner in the relationship was. In 1906, Cora advertised for paying guests at Hilldrop Crescent so that she would have something to do to occupy herself. Four German students came to stay, one of whom, William Ehrlich, became a particular favourite of Cora's. Ehrlich noticed the degree of degradation that Crippen suffered at the hands of his wife. For example, Crippen had to clean the house and the lodger's shoes before they got up in the morning.
	MARIE LLOYD : Marie Lloyd was everything Cora wanted to be - a great success who was much loved by the public. Like Cora, who was born in a slum, Lloyd came from humble origins - something she never forgot. Whenever she saw a poor, barefoot child, she would take them to her boot maker and buy them a pair of shoes.
	'The doctor never lost his temper though his wife's reproaches were frequently unjustified,' Ehrlich said later. 'The husband must have possessed an extraordinary amount of self-control to endure his wife's stinging sarcasms for so long.' The degradation became all the worse when, in November 1906, Crippen returned to Hilldrop Crescent early one day to find Ehrlich in bed with his wife. Crippen hoped that Cora would at some stage leave Hilldrop Crescent and go and live with Bruce Miller. But she did not, and as the years went by, an atmosphere of silent hostility took over the house. Whereas Crippen and Cora had once kept up a pretence of fondness for each other in the company of other people, by 1908 they scarcely talked to each other. Most of Crippen's time was taken up working for The Yale Tooth Specialists, where he had formed a partnership with an American named Dr Gilbert Rylance, who had a degree in dentistry. Dr Rylance claimed that Crippen's role was merely to deal with the business side of the partnership, and that he played no active role in the dentistry itself. Rylance later described him as 'a smart man and wonderful organiser, very exact, with fine business methods' But according to Ethel Le Neve's father, Crippen had a far more direct involvement in the surgery. Assisted by Ethel, he carried out the extraction of teeth for himself. For Cora Crippen, the though of her husband and Ethel working so close together on a daily basis must have been humiliating. Cora also disapproved of Crippen moving away from the patent medicine racket, which she felt was his best chance of earning the sort of money which she had become accustomed. She was convinced that her husband's decision to set up The Yale Tooth Specialists - a second rate company that was destined to fail, in her opinion - had been influenced by Ethel Le Neve. In this, she was probably right. Publicly, Cora Crippen had maintained a scornful indifference to her husband's affair with his secretary up until now. But with Ethel starting to make Crippen's decisions for him, indifference was strengthening into an active dislike.
	LAST SUPPER : Two of Cora's many friends from the theatre were Paul and Clara Martinetti. He was a top variety performer known as the Prince of Mimes. Although the couple did not particularly care for Crippen's company, they visited regularly. On 31st January 1910, Crippen knocked on their door and invited them to dinner at Hilldrop Crescent. Clara explained that her husband was not home; he had gone to see a doctor and she was not sure that he would be well enough. Crippen practically begged her, saying, 'Make him come - it will cheer him up and afterwards we can have a game of whist.' Despite it being a bitterly cold night, Crippen returned again later to persuade Paul to come to dinner. They arrived at 8pm, had supper and played a game of whist. At 1.30am on 1st February, Crippen arranged for a carriage to take them home. Cora went out into the cold to see them off and Clara's last words to her were, 'You'll catch your death.' Clara was right - Cora was not seen alive again.
	Ethel, in the meantime, was growing more and more unhappy about the situation. Although at first she had been prepared to play the part of the mistress, she had been trying to persuade Crippen to leave his wife as early as 1906. Ethel found it painful to think that while she might spend much of the day with Crippen, he would return to Hilldrop Crescent every night. She left home, first moving to her sister's house and then to a house in Highgate. In 1909, an unexpected development took place that Ethel believed would force the issue: she became pregnant. Even if Cora did not take off after Bruce Miller, she felt sure that Crippen would have no option but to leave his wife and marry her. In March 1909, Ethel suffered a miscarriage. Cora Crippen, who had known of her husband's relationship with his secretary for some time, found it a good opportunity to rub salt into the wound. Referring to Ethel as 'the little typewriter', she spread the rumour among her friends at the Music Hall Ladies' Guild that Ethel had had an abortion to spite Crippen. Cora even suggested that it was difficult to be sure who the father was. Crippen had learnt to endure his wife's biting remarks, but it was another matter when they were aimed at the girl he loved. On 19th January 1910, Dr Crippen went to Lewis and Burrows, his local chemist in New Oxford Street, and bought five grains of hyoscine, a poisonous substance. A fortnight later, on 31st January, he invited some friends, Paul and Clara Martinetti, to dinner at Hilldrop Crescent. When they left the house at 1.30am, they were the last people, apart from Crippen himself, to see Cora Crippen alive. Later that day, Ethel Le Neve arrived at work to find a message from Crippen left on her typewriter: 'BE has gone to America... Shall be in later, when we can arrange for a pleasant little evening.' After that began a period, lasting over five months, of what with hindsight was complete folly. A day after Cora's disappearance, Ethel spent the first night at Hilldrop Crescent. She did not doubt what Crippen had told her about his wife's sudden departure for America. On 20th February, Ethel went with Crippen to a charity ball at the Criterion restaurant, rubbing shoulders with Cora's theatrical friends and wearing her 'rising sun' brooch. They walked together on Holloway Road and went on holidays to Dieppe and Boulogne. On 12th March, Ethel moved into Hilldrop Crescent on a permanent basis.
	WHERE IS CRIPPEN? : Following the revelation of the Crippen murder in the Daily Chronicle, a flood of sightings found their way on to Chief Inspector Dew's desk. Crippen fever even spread into the House of Commons, where the Labour MP for West Ham questioned the then Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, about police handling of the affair. Sightings included: ESSEX: Crippen spotted in Waltham Abbey, carrying a large brown Gladstone bag. LIVERPOOL: Crippen recognised by a barber, who was asked to shave his moustache off. WILLESDEN: Crippen spotted with a young lady on his arm looking for lodgings. The man was rescued by the police before being lynched by a crows of several hundred people. DIEPPE - Paris Express: Crippen and Le Neve recognised by a train guard. MANHATTAN: Crippen arrested disguised as a vicar. In the meantime, Madame Ginnett, an old friend of Cora Crippen's, kept a day-by-day vigil over the people coming off the big transatlantic liners to New York. According to Ethel Le Neve's father, Walter Neve, it was more than likely that the couple had gone to France and quite possible that Crippen, having feminine mannerisms, would be dressed as a woman.
	The police visit in early July convinced Crippen that he and Ethel had to get away. The reason he gave to Ethel was that the neighbours, particularly the Music Hall Ladies' Guild, would start to gossip. He doubted he could face the office staff again now that he knew the police had been to see him. Their lives would be a misery. They must go away and start a new life. Chief Inspector Dew had spoken to Ethel on her own and had told her of Crippen's admission that Cora's death had been a lie. She was angry that Crippen had told her a direct lie for the first time, but she seemed to accept that he did not know where Cora was. It was while they were still at Hilldrop Crescent that the two of them decided that Ethel should travel disguised as a boy. Crippen has been described as a cold-blooded and ruthless murderer, but his plotting did not work well in this case and was comic rather than calculating. He roughly cut off Ethel's hair, and sent one of his employees out to buy a boy's suit. It was too small, and Ethel split the trousers the moment she put them on.
	ETHEL LE NEVE / MASTER JOHN ROBINSON : Ethel Le Neve, photographed after her arrest, in the outfit she wore when she left the country as Master John Robinson.
	Crippen and Ethel never returned to Hilldrop Crescent. Arranging to leave the office separately, they met at Chancery Lane tube station and then went on to Liverpool Street station to catch the train to Harwich. They caught the night boat to Holland. In Rotterdam, Crippen took Ethel to have her hair cut properly. By this time, he had shaved off his moustache. Ethel had left her bowler hat on the boat and so a new straw one had to be bought for her. They went on to Brussels, where they stayed for ten days at the Hotel des Ardennes. At first Crippen planned to return to England and get a boat from Hull to America. He then saw an advertisement for boats sailing from Antwerp to Quebec and booked two second class berths, sailing on 31st July 1910. But on 15th July, he saw in the Belgian newspapers that the remains of Cora had been discovered and that the search was on for himself and Ethel. He returned straight to the booking office and changed the tickets to the earlier sailing on 20th July. They travelled on the SS Montrose under the assumed names of John Philo Robinson and Master John Robinson. They tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, but inevitably had to mix with the other passengers and the crew, including sharing dinner with the master of the Montrose, Captain Henry Kendall. It did not occur to Crippen that, by dressing Ethel up as a boy, they had made the fatal blunder in their attempt to escape.
	SS MONTROSE & CAPTAIN KENDALL : Captain Kendall (inset), skipper of the Montrose, became suspicious of two of his passengers. He thought they looked remarkably like the couple wanted for murder.
	The Crippen case reached its dramatic climax 11 days after the lovers had set sail from a port in Belgium. The couple travelled on a cargo ship that carried passengers as well. They were pursued by Chief Inspector Dew, on board one of a new generation of steamships that was much faster than the cargo ship, and which cut the Atlantic crossing time by as much as three days. 20th JULY: Crippen and Le Neve, disguised as a young man, boarded the Montrose at Antwerp bound for Quebec, Canada. The couple were registered as Mr and Master Robinson. 22nd JULY: Captain Kendall sent radio message about Crippen and Le Neve to the ship's owners who then passed it on to Scotland Yard. 23rd JULY: Sea chase started as Chief Inspector Dew left Liverpool on board the Laurentic. British newspapers reported that Dew's ship was gaining on the Montrose at the rate of 5.6km (3 1/2 miles) per hour. 25th JULY: Radio message sent to the Montrose from a London newspaper confirming that Scotland Yard had received a radio message about Crippen. 27th JULY: The Laurentic overtook the Montrose. 31st JULY: Crippen and Le Neve arrested at Father Point in Canandian waters. Both were jailed in Montreal pending extradition proceedings.
	SS MEGANTIC : A crowd at Liverpool docks watches as the SS Megantic, carrying Crippen and Le Neve from Canada, is towed in to harbour in August 1910. The Megantic was a sister ship of the White Star liner SS Laurentic which took Chief Inspector Dew on his transatlantic chase.
	Captain Henry Kendall did not get a chance to introduce himself to the two passengers, John Philo Robinson and his son John, until the Montrose was out at sea. It immediately struck him that there was something odd about the couple. The boy's figure was strange - broad hips, small feet and delicate white hands. Kendall also noticed that, although the father was not wearing spectacles, he had the red marks on either side of the bridge of his nose that were the giveaway sign of someone who normally wore them. Kendall invited the pair to share lunch at his table and, during the meal, found an excuse to go to their cabin and make a search. He noticed that they had only a single suitcase between them and that the boy did not even possess an overcoat for the journey. Later on that same day, Kendall went to look at a back copy of the Daily Mail, dated 14th July, which carried photographs of Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen and Ethel Le Neve. By closely examining the faces in each picture, Kendall became convinced that the two passengers he had just met were wanted in connection with the murder of Cora Crippen in London. The following morning, Kendall took the Chief Officer into his confidence. When they were 208km (130 miles) west of the Lizard promontory, on the English coast, Captain Kendall handed the radio operator the message that was to lead to one of the most publicised sea chases of all time.
	CAPTAIN HENRY KENDALL : Captain Henry Kendal was suspicious of the father and son travelling on his ship. He relayed his fears in a wireless message which was sent to the ship's owners based in Liverpool.
	The telegram which told of Kendall's suspicions, was passed from the Liverpool ship owners to Scotland Yard, where it came into the hands of Chief Inspector Walter Dew. For Dew it was the break he had desperately needed. It had been ten days since the discovery of Cora Crippen's body, and as every day passed it had seemed increasingly likely that Crippen and Le Neve would manage to get away. By taking the White Star liner Laurentic, which left from Liverpool the following day, there was a good chance that Dew would arrive in Quebec ahead of Crippen. Although the Montrose had a three day start, the Laurentic's running time was four days shorter. Dew persuaded his superior, the Assistant Commissioner, Sir Melville Macnaghten, that Captain Kendall's telegram was worth acting on and, after receiving his written authorisation, he left London for Liverpool. There, Chief Inspector Dew boarded the Laurentic, travelling under the assumed name of Dewhurst. Initially, there was doubt about the reliability of Captain Kendall's judgement. Chief Inspector Dew was taking a risk of major public embarrassment if he arrived in Canada to find that he had been chasing the wrong couple. The police code name given to his journey was 'Operation Handcuffs' and it began in utmost secrecy. Even Dew's wife was not told of the purpose of her husband's journey before he left for Liverpool. The police became confident that they had made the right decision after photographs of Ethel Le Neve and Crippen were positively identified by the travel agent who had booked their passage aboard the Montrose in Antwerp.
	WEEKLY DISPATCH : Crippen and Le Neve were unaware that they were making headline news in Britain. Readers, such as those of the Weekly Dispatch, learnt how Crippen spent his days on deck, sometimes he would comment on the marvel of wireless telegraphy - not realising that he was the subject of the messages being sent.
	Captain Kendall, in the meantime, had made good use of the Marconi wireless system on board the ship to pass back a stream of reports about the couple to the Daily Mail and other newspapers. The public learned from Kendall that 'Crippen was growing a beard and looking more like a farmer every day,' and that everything Ethel did made it more and more obvious that she was a girl. Kendall was also kept busy making sure that neither Crippen nor Ethel became suspicious that they had been recognised. 'They have been under strict observation all the voyage, as, if they smelt a rat, he might do something rash,' Captain Kendall relayed to the press. He went around the ship removing all the English papers that mentioned anything about the murder. At the same time, Kendall tried to obtain further small items of proof as to the couple's real identity. He would call them as they walked on deck, using their assumed names, to see how slow they were to recognise them. On several occasions, it was only Ethel who turned to the Captain, and then apologised, saying the cold weather had made Dr Crippen go slightly deaf. Kendall had also read the newspapers that Crippen had lived in San Francisco, Detroit and Toronto. By bringing these cities up in conversation, he confirmed that John Philo Robinson was familiar with these places.
	CHIEF INSPECTOR DEW : Chief Inspector Dew (centre) going through the formalities of Crippen's arrest on board the Montrose. It took three weeks before Crippen could set sail on the Megantic to face trial in London.
	Crippen and Ethel Le Neve were unaware of the fact the attention of the world's press was being focused on their transatlantic journey to Canada. Ethel was confident that her identity remained hidden. 'It never entered my head,' she wrote afterwards, 'that the ship's officers had discovered my disguise.' To keep up pretences, she made friends with one of the boys on board the Montrose. For most of the journey, Crippen was relaxed and seemingly confident about the future. Only once were his suspicions raised. when he overheard the wireless operator sending a dispatch. When he asked who the message was for, the wireless operator quickly said that he was asking the skipper of another ship whether any ice had been spotted near where they were heading. Two days later, before the Montrose was due to reach Father Point, a lonely pilot station on the St Lawrence River, Crippen's optimism left him. He gave Ethel all their money, telling her that he might have to leave her when they reached Canada. He suggested that she should go to Toronto and get a job as a secretary. She interpreted this as meaning Crippen would go ahead to find them somewhere to live. But his intentions seemed to be different. After his arrest, a note was found on the back of a visiting car that he had printed in Brussels in the name of John Robinson: 'I can't stand the horror I go through every night any longer, and as I see nothing bright ahead and money has come to an end, I have made up my mind to jump overboard tonight. I know I have spoiled your life, but I hope that some day you can learn to forgive me. With last words of love. Your H.'
	THE RETURN OF CRIPPEN : Crippen, his face partly hidden by his coat's upturned collar, disembarks at Liverpool, with Chief Inspector Dew at his side. A large, hostile crowd was waiting for him.
	At his trial, Crippen denied he intended to commit suicide, which itself was a criminal offence. He said that a friendly quartermaster had agreed to stow him away when the ship reached Montreal, and that the note would throw Dew of his trail. By the time the Montrose reached Father Point, the chase was over. Chief Inspector Dew had already arrived and, disguised as a pilot in a brass-buttoned jacket and visored cap, was waiting to go aboard. While journalists stood by on a nearby pilot boat, Dew and a number of Canadian policemen approached Crippen. 'Good morning, Dr Crippen,' said Dew. Crippen's face showed puzzlement, then he recognised the officer who had interviewed him only weeks before. He asked what he was being arrested for, and then grabbed the warrant from one of the policemen. 'Murder and mutilation. Oh, God,' he said, before being manacled. After spending 19 days in prison in the city of Quebec, Crippen and Ethel were brought back to England by Dew on the SS Megantic. They were kept separate during the voyage, except on one brief occasion, when Dew allowed them to gaze at each other, in poignant silence, from the doorways of their respective cabins.
	HAWLEY HARVEY CRIPPEN : Hawley Harvey Crippen has been described as 'mild-mannered', but when the conflicts within himself became too much, he chose a course of action - murder - that belied his image.
	Crippen was quite used to being the weak partner in the relationship between himself and Cora. Psychologically, he was the archetypal hen-pecked husband. He was weak-willed, long-suffering and prepared to go to extremes of generosity to ensure that his wife stayed with him. There was something masochistic about this behaviour. But, once he no longer had to oblige Cora sexually, he was free to look elsewhere. He took a mistress who would eventually provide the ingredient that would fire him up with a hatred strong enough to drive him to murder his wife. This ingredient came out of his love for Ethel and his protectiveness towards her. When Cora Crippen began to apply the same scorn to Crippen's mistress as had been dealt out to himself, the emotional balance began to tip dramatically. Crippen had been in love with Ethel Le Neve for some time. They had frequently talked about the possibility of his divorcing Cora, but the social stigma attached to such an action was sufficiently strong to stop them from going ahead. Dr Crippen, after all, had something of a social position in Holloway, and risked the possibility of losing his job. In this respect, his final resort to murder was fashioned as much by social pressures as by his own feelings. When Cora Crippen began to make disparaging remarks about Ethel in front of him and her friends, it became clear that the situation would have to change.
	ETHEL LE NEVE : Ethel Le Neve was in her late teens when she fell in love with the 41 year old Crippen. They maintained their romantic involvement (unconsummated for seven years) despite his marriage to Cora. Ethel always hoped he would divorce Cora.
	Dr Crippen found that he was contending with two overwhelming emotions simultaneously - his love for Ethel and his hatred for his wife. He was driven to find another option which, if successful, would solve all his problems at once. Another motive for murder was given by the prosecution during the trial - that Crippen needed money. The couple had a joint account and Cora had given the bank notice that she was going to withdraw all the funds. Crippen may have suspected she was going to run away. Then, too, there was the speed with which Crippen had pawned Cora's jewellery after Ethel Le Neve had moved in with him. Add to this the fact that Crippen's own job was running into difficulties. However, the money angle does not make very much sense. The £175 he raised through pawning Cora's jewellery seems slight compared to his earning power - a very comfortable £2,500 a year. Crippen defence during the trial was a blanket denial that the body found in the coal cellar at 39 Hilldrop Crescent was that of his wife. The reason he took this course was almost certainly to protect Ethel Le Neve at all costs from the risk of being prosecuted successfully as an accomplice. As a result, the exact truth of why Crippen murdered his wife - and why on that particular night - will never be known. However, the reasons can be pieced together with some certainty. Most obvious of all is the state of deterioration that Crippen's marriage had reached by the beginning of 1910. Cora Crippen had become a drinking, nagging, domineering, bossy and unfaithful wife. She ridiculed her husband in public and admitted that she scorned him as a partner. This portrait of Cora supplied what Chief Inspector Dew favoured as the prime motive for Crippen's action : sheer hatred.
	CRIPPEN AT TRIAL : Crippen in the dock at the Old Bailey. He was found guilty and sentenced to hang. Four days later, Ethel Le Neve appeared in the same dock for her trial.
	Throughout the sea voyage back to England, Dr Crippen seemed only concerned with Ethel Le Neve's welfare. To Chief Inspector Dew, he insisted on her innocence. When they arrived at Liverpool docks on 28th August 1910, a large, threatening crowd was waiting for them. Chief Inspector Dew brought Crippen down the gangplank first, when a young man, waving a cane, launched himself at Crippen and had to be pulled away by the police. Ethel Le Neve followed, wearing a blue veil. They caught the 2.20pm train to London. At Euston station, they were met by more jeering crowds. before being driven to Bow Street police station. The next day, Travers Humphreys appearing for the Director of Public Prosecutions, asked that the pair be remanded in custody for one week. Crippen already had a solicitor, Arthur Newton, who had volunteered to defend Crippen while he was still awaiting exrtadition in Canada. Crippen had agreed willingly, not knowing the real intentions behind Newton's offer. Newton took on Crippen as a 'professional speculation', which would enable him to pay off his racing debts. He saw Crippen's trial as an opportunity to enhance his own reputation and also make money. Newton was already renowned as a dishonest solicitor. Five years before, he had been jailed for six weeks for attempting to persuade certain key trial witnesses to leave the country. It was an enormous piece of ill fortune for Crippen. Properly defended, he might just have escaped the gallows. As it was, by a combination of Newton and his own pigheadedness, he had no chance.
	HAWLEY CRIPPEN & ETHEL LE NEVE : Crippen and Ethel Le Neve stand together in the dock at the Bow Street Court, in central London, for the committal proceedings in September 1910. The charge against Ethel was reduced from murder to being an accessory after the fact.
	It was also bad luck for Crippen that Edward Marshall Hall, the oustanding defending barrister of his generation, was away on holiday. Newton had approached Hall's clerk, but they disagreed over how Marshall Hall was to be paid. Given the celebrity of the case, it is likely that Marshall Hall would have reached some sort of compromise if he had been there. Instead, Newton walked straight out of his clerk's office and ten minutes later was briefing another solicitor, Alfred Tobin. Unfortunately for Crippen, Tobin lacked any of the flair and experience that might have been provided by Marshall Hall. Tobin had another problem. Crippen seemed to have a death wish. He was receiving a ver bad press - everyone was convinced that he was guilty and he was doing nothing to help himself. But he did have the beginnings of a defence. All he really had to do was admit to everything except the murder, making the most of Cora Crippen's infidelity, bad temper and drinking habits. With a strong defence barrister, there was the possibility of a manslaughter verdict, or even a defence on the grounds of an accident. But he still insisted that teh body found in the coal cellar at Hilldrop Crescent was not that of his wife. This was the central issue in the case. The defence's forensic team, which included Doctors Wall and Turnbull, claimed that a piece of the victim's skin marked with a scar came from the thigh and not the abdomen. If it had been the latter, it would have corresponded to a scar left by surgery on Cora Crippen, probably made when her ovaries were removed, making it likely that the remains were those of Cora. The defence thought they had scored a victory with this detail. However, the leader of the prosecution's forensic team, pathologist Bernard Spilsbury, happened to be an expert in scar tissue. He claimed the skin came from the abdomen, and was proved correct when some abdominal muscle tissue was found still attached to the skin.
	CRIPPEN & THE MEDIA : Crippen bitterly resented the lies printed in a hostile press and took particular exception when some newspapers wrongly claimed that he had made a confession.
	Added to this evidence was the poison found in the remains. Crippen had signed the Poisons Register for hyoscine, highly poisonous crystals, only a matter of days before his wife's disappearance. But what the prosecution really needed was to establish that the pyjama top wrapped around the remains belonged to Crippen. Chief Inspector Dew, after his return from Canada, had to be chased to produce the necessary evidence regarding the pyjama top. He eventually came up with the precise details. This was probably the most serious blow to the defence as Crippen did have a similar pair of pyjamas and the top was missing. Crippen claimed that he had lost the top prior to moving into Hilldrop Crescent in 1905. But detectives had been thorough in their work - they established that the pyjama top, with its Jones Brothers label, identifying a large Holloway retailer, could only have been bought in 1909, when Crippen was already living at Hilldrop Crescent. Crippen could not explain this away and it became crucial to the prosecution's case. Over 4000 applications were received for seats for the trial and 700 were granted. The trial opened at the Old Bailey on Tuesday 18th October 1910. It had already been decided that Ethel should have seperate counsel for her trial, which was to follow immediately after Crippen's. The medical evidence was secure. Bernand Spilsbury, who was to become the greatest pathologist of his era, was at the start of his career. He was able to show that the scar on the 20cm (eight inch) long piece of skin found in the coal cellar was, in fact, from the abdomen - the result of an ovarian removal operation.
	CROWDS OUTSIDE THE OLD BAILEY : The much publicised sea chase and the arrest of Crippen had caught the public imagination. By the time he appeared at the Old Baily, crowds gathered in hope of catching a glimpse of the man who had dismembered his wife's body.
	Crippen did as well as could be expected in the witness box. He stood up well to the relentless cross-examination. But he could not explain where his wife had gone, nor how the body, whose death occurred after the Crippen's had moved in, found its way into his cellar. The newspapers were enthusiastic about his performance. 'Marvellous exhibition of nerve power,' said the Daily Mail, but it was of no help. On the fourth day, the jury retired and returned after only twenty seven minutes of consideratrion to find Crippen guilty of wilful murder. Lord Chief Justice Alverstone decided not to dwell on the 'ghastly and wicked nature of the crime'. After the judge's marshal had placed the black cap on his head, Lord Alverstone ordered that Hawley Harvey Crippen be 'taken from hence to a lawful prison, and from thence to a place of execution, and that you there be hanged by the neck until you are dead'. Crippen showed no emotion. When asked if he had anything to say, he replied, 'I still protest my innocence.' The trial of Ethel Le Neve, which opened on Tuesday 25th October, in the same courtroom was very different. She was represented by the outstanding F. E. Smith, who later became Lord Birkenhead. In contrast to the plodding Tobin, Smith's was a brilliant performance. He made no attempt to conceal that she had been Crippen's mistress, but he protrayed her as a young innocent who had been captured by the magnetic persoanlity of Crippen, describing her as 'this defenceless child' and a 'person without any knowledge of the world'. Could she, he asked, have worn Cora's 'rising sun' brooch to the Criterion ball had she known its owner had been murderered, or moved into Hilldrop Crescent with this knowledge? The jury was out just 20 minutes, and Ethel Le Neve was acquitted. Lord Chief Justice Alverstone, who had also presided over Crippen's trial, congratulated Smith. But Smith never heard a word of thanks from Ethel.
	DR CRIPPEN AT MADAME TUSSAUDS : With his wax effigy at Madame Tussauds on permanent display in the Chamber of Horrors, Crippen gained the immortality Cora Crippen had so desperately wanted as music-hall artiste Belle Elmore.
	Once convicted, Crippen was sent to Pentonville Prison, in north London, to await the hangman. Her had only one real chance of the decision being reversed, and that was at the appeal hearing on Friday 4th November. Crippen allowed himself some optimism, but when the Criminal Court of Appeal upheld his conviction, he gace up all hope. Most of Crippen's time at Pentonville was spent thinking about Ethel Le Neve. He wrote a dozen letters to her in the month between his conviction and execution. Most of these were concerned with practical matters, such as how she would cope financially after his death and whether she would take his name in memory of him. Crippen had savings deposited with the Charing Cross Bank and he wanted to transfer these to Ethel. But the bank had used its funds to speculate in land in Canada, and had lost everything. When the bank failed to open its doors on 18th October (ironically, the day when his trial began), Crippen realised he had probably lost all his money. Le Neve wrote him letters in return, but in accordance with Crippen's instructions, they were not kept. Along with his photograph of Ethel, they were buried with him after his execution. On the same day as Crippen's appeal, Ethel earned herself some money by posing for a magazine called Lloyd's Weekly News. She agreed to dress up in the same boy's outfit that she had worn during her escape aboard the Montrose. To some, this was evidence of her insensitivity and proved that she did not care about Crippen's fate. But she had already sold her life story to the same publication with Crippen's approval. 'You have, my wifie, most ably set forth important facts that must tell with great weight in the minds of the unprejudiced,' he wrote to her.
	CLOSED CARRIAGE OF DEATH : A petition asking for Crippen to be spared the death sentence was sent to the Home Office a week before his execution. It contained thousands of signatures and the list grew daily. But it was to no avail, Winston Churchill's decision was given to Crippen on 19th November. He was transferred in a closed carriage to await execution.
	After the initial hostility to Crippen, the public mood began to swing more and more towards sympathy as the date for his execution approached. A number of petitions calling for Crippen's reprieve, with over 15,000 signatures, were delivered to the Home Office. His solicitor Arthur Newton said that hundreds of other signatures were arriving daily. SOme of these letters expressed doubts about the conviction - there was some concern that too much of the evidence had been purely circumstantial. On 18th November, Crippen's 83 year old father, Myron, died in Los Angeles. he had been living in poverty for some months, since Crippen's flight had cut of his remittance. The rooming housekeeper had allowed Myron to remain there rent-free and a local restaurant had even sent him free meals. The Coldwater Chronicle reported that his death had been hastened by grief over his son's crime. On 19th November, Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary who had been a spectator during the Crippen/Le Neve trials, turned down Crippen's petition for a reprieve. The news was delivered personally to Crippen in his cell by the governor of Pentonville Prison, Major H. E. Mytton-Davies. The news was given to Crippen late on Saturday, and the newspapers did not get the story until the Monday. Like Chief Inspector Dew before him, Mytton-Davis had developed a sympathy for Crippen that bordered on friendship. He also personally delivered Ethel Le Neve's final telegram at midnight on Tuesday 22nd November. When Crippen saw the Major for the last time the next morning, he asked him to accept his set of rosary beads and a ring, as a sign of appreciation for the consideration shown to him.
	DR CRIPPEN & ETHEL LE NEVE : United for posterity in the Chamber of Horrors, wax effigies of Dr Crippen and Ethel Le Neve stand side by side.
	During the last few days the strain began to tell on Crippen. Having shown a healthy appetite in the days leading up to the reprieve application, he now began to look noticeably unwell. Two days before his execution, Crippen worked out a plan to commit suicide. But one of the warders noticed that part of his spectacles frame was missing and made a search of Crippen's clothes. While he was in the lavatory, Crippen had broken off the steel arm of his spectacles and had hidden it in the inside seam at the bottom of his trouser leg. Crippen had intended to puncture an artery and bleed slowly to death while he slept on the eve of his execution. Crippen saw Ethel Le Neve for the last time on 22nd November. On the morning of Wednesday 23rd November 1910, he was hanged by the Chief Executioner, James Ellis, assisted by William Willis. No bell rung because three other prisoners were awaiting execution after Crippen. A notice was posted outside the prison shortly after 9am where a large crowd was waiting. While Crippen was being hanged, Ethel Le Neve, travelling as a Miss Allen, was boarding the liner SS Majestic, bound for New York.
	ETHEL LE NEVE HER LIFE STORY : Le Neve sold her story to Lloyd's Weekly News. The first installment appeared a fortnight after Crippen's execution. The story later appeared in book form.
	Ethel Le Neve arrived in New York and from there moved to Toronto, where she worked as a typist. In February 1911, she was granted probate of Crippen's effects, amounting in value to £268. In 1916, she returned to England to nurse her dying sister, Nina, living under the name of Ethel Nelson. She married Stanley Smith, an accountant, and had a son and daughter by him. Smith died in 1943 without having ever heard about her relationship with Crippen. It was not until 1954 that she disclosed her real identity to the novelist Ursula Bloom, who had written a book The Girl Who Loved Crippen. Ethel's brother Sidney disclosed her whereabouts for the sum of £30. She died in Dulwich in 1967 at the age of 84. It is said that she asked for a locket with a photograph of Crippen to be buried with her.
	THE SPADE : The spade which Crippen buried his wife's body in the coal cellar, and which Chief Inspector Dew used to dig her up, is kept in London's Black Museum.
	Chief Inspector Walter Dew handed in his resignation the day Crippen's appeal was turned down. He had become reasonably wealthy from the damages he had won from the writs for libel he had issued against the newspapers who suggested he had been negligent in allowing Crippen to escape. One paper had paid £400 damages. He had set up a private detective agency in Camberwell and died in 1947.
	CAPTAIN KENDALL'S REWARD : This cheque for £250 from the Metropolitian Police was presented to Captain Kendall of the Montrose as a reward for his detection work. The reward was authorised by the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill.
	Henry Kendall, Captain of the Montrose, received £250 reward for his part in the capture of Crippen. He was in command of the Empress of Ireland when she sank on 29th May 1914, with a loss of 1062 lives - just off Father Point, where Crippen had been arrested four years earlier. The Montrose herself was due to be used as a block ship at the beginning of World War I. Breaking her free from her moorings in December 1914, she ended up on the nortorious Goodwin Sands, off Dover. The book, film and theatre industry have made a thriving trade out of the Crippen story. There have been no less that 37 books written about the case, two films, a number of plays and even a musical.
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