Sometimes, the authorities get it right. Or do they?
On January 31, 1910, Cora Crippen disappeared after hosting a dinner party at home. Cora, a music hall singer, married Hawley Crippen in 1894. Enamored by the starlet, Crippen set aside his pharmaceutical job to manage his wife’s career. However, in 1899, his employer fired him for his inability to concentrate on his duties.
Hawley was a small-statured man who studied homeopathic medicine. People recalled him as calm with a friendly spirit. So, when the authorities arrested him for the murder of his wife, the neighbors were shocked.
Now, Cora was the exact opposite of Hawley. Friends remembered her as heavy drinking, unkept, and promiscuous. Then, one day in 1897, Crippen came home and found Cora in bed with one of the lodgers they took in to make ends meet.
Yet, in their investigation, the police found that Cora was not the only one “stepping out” on their spouse. Hawley had also taken a lover, Ethel Le Neve, a typist at the deaf center Hawley worked at in London.
After several searches in Crippen’s home, the investigators found the torso of a body buried under the floorboards in his cellar. With no limbs or head, the body had a scar on its abdomen and bleached blonde hair by its side. Based on the scar, the authorities assumed the body belonged to Cora, who had a procedure corresponding to the wound. Further investigation detected a large quantity of scopolamine, a calming drug used for postoperative nausea and motion sickness, in the remains. Later, the authorities interviewed a local chemist, who confirmed Crippen had purchased the drug before the murder. Likewise, Crippen’s pajama top covered the torso.
Before his arrest, Crippen told friends that Cora had sailed to the U.S. with a lover and became ill. Soon after, her lover had her body cremated. But their friends didn’t buy that explanation and called Scotland Yard. Crippen spooked and fled to Brussels with Ethel, who dressed in disguise as a boy.
When an investigator caught up with Crippen, he said, “Oh, thank God, it’s over.” Later, Crippen told authorities he had lied about Cora’s death to save face. But it wasn’t long after Cora’s disappearance that Ethel moved in with Hawley and started wearing Cora’s clothes and jewelry.
Criminologists were stumped. Suspects who poison their victims do not brutally dispose of the body. Instead, they create a scene that appears as an accident. Either way, the police were satisfied they had the right man and convicted Crippen of his wife’s murder and hanged him on November 23, 1910. But Ethel, found to be an accomplice after the fact, did not serve any jail time.
But was that the end of the story? No. A century later, toxicologist John Trestrail retested the skin sampling saved from the corpse and compared the DNA to Cora’s closest relatives. To his surprise, the genetic material did not match Cora’s. Furthermore, the DNA showed that the body belonged to a man, not a woman.
So, where’s Cora? A recent discovery found a letter in court records from Cora to Hawley. She told him she was happy in the U.S. and would not help him escape execution. Historians believe the original investigators deemed the note a hoax and never used it in trial.
Did the police cover up evidence? Why didn’t they look for Cora? Did they interview anyone at the party the night Cora went missing? Why was the body wrapped in Crippen’s pajama jacket? Who had access to his drugs that night? Is it possible that the man’s body belonged to someone associated with Ethel, and Crippen killed him for his lover? History shows that Crippen fought vehemently to prove Ethel’s innocence and even asked for a picture of her inside his coffin.
Ah, so many questions, yet so few answers. Centuries-old murders are challenging to solve based on antiquated procedures. Thus, there’s not enough evidence to cast suspicion on anyone.
With that, we’ll leave this one to rest and hope a forensic expert will pick up the “scent” and settle this case. Hmm? Maybe someday, I’ll pick up the trail and write about it! Who knows?
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