Hawley Harvey Crippen facts for kids

"Dr. Crippen" redirects here. For other uses, see Crippen.

Quick facts for kids Hawley Harvey Crippen
Crippen, c. 1910
Born	(1862-09-11)September 11, 1862 Coldwater, Michigan, US
Died	November 23, 1910(1910-11-23) (aged 48) Pentonville Prison, London, England
Cause of death	Execution by hanging
Resting place	HM Prison Pentonville
Occupation	Homeopath
Known for	First suspect to be captured with the aid of wireless telegraphy
Criminal status	Executed
Spouse(s)	Charlotte Crippen (died 1892) Corrine Henrietta Turner (m. 1894; died 1910)

Conviction(s)	Murder
Criminal penalty	Death
Details
Victims	Corrine Henrietta Crippen
Date	c. January 31, 1910
Date apprehended	July 31, 1910

Hawley Harvey Crippen (September 11, 1862 – November 23, 1910), colloquially known as Dr. Crippen, was an American homeopath, ear and eye specialist and medicine dispenser who was executed in Pentonville Prison, London, for the murder of his wife, Cora Henrietta Crippen. He was the first criminal to be captured with the aid of wireless telegraphy.

Early life and career
Murder and disappearance
- Transatlantic arrest
Trial
- Execution
Media portrayals
See also

Early life and career

Hawley Crippen was born in Coldwater, Michigan, the only surviving child to Andresse Skinner and Myron Augustus Crippen, a merchant. He was educated first at the University of Michigan's homeopathy school, then graduated from the Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College in 1884. After his first wife, Charlotte Jane (née Bell), died of a stroke in 1892, Crippen entrusted his parents, living in San Jose, California, with the care of his son, Hawley Otto (1889–1974).

Having qualified as a homeopath, Crippen started to practice in New York City. In 1894 he married his second wife, Corrine "Cora" Turner (born Kunigunde Mackamotski), a music hall singer who performed under the stage name Belle Elmore. That same year, Crippen started working for prominent homeopath James M. Munyon, moving to London with his wife in 1897 in order to manage Munyon's branch office there.

Crippen's medical qualifications from the United States were not sufficient to allow him to practise as a doctor in the United Kingdom. He initially continued working as a distributor of patent medicines, while Cora embarked on an ultimately failed stage career and socialised with a number of variety players of the time.

After Crippen was sacked by Munyon in 1899 he worked for other patent medicine companies, ultimately being hired as the manager for the Drouet Institute for the Deaf. There he hired Ethel Le Neve, a young typist, in 1900. After living at various addresses around London, Crippen and his wife finally moved No. 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden Road, Holloway, where they took in lodgers to augment Crippen's meagre income.

Murder and disappearance

Belle Elmore

On the evening of 31 January 1910, Cora disappeared following a party at the Crippen residence at Hilldrop Crescent. Crippen claimed that she had returned to the US and later added that she had died and had been cremated in California. Meanwhile, Le Neve moved into Hilldrop Crescent and began openly wearing Cora's clothes and jewelry.

Police first heard of Cora's disappearance from her friend, the strongwoman Kate "Vulcana" Williams, but began to take the matter more seriously when asked to investigate when two other friends, the actress Lil Hawthorne and her husband/manager John Nash, pressed their acquaintance, Scotland Yard Superintendent Frank Froest. Crippen's house was searched, but nothing was found.

Under questioning by Chief Inspector Walter Dew, Crippen admitted that he had fabricated the story about his wife having died, claiming that he did so to avoid personal embarrassment because she had in fact left him and fled to the US with one of her lovers, a music hall actor named Bruce Miller. Dew was satisfied with Crippen's story. However, Crippen and Le Neve did not know this and fled in panic to Brussels, where they spent the night at a hotel. The following day, they went to Antwerp and boarded the Canadian Pacific liner SS Montrose, bound for Canada.

The couple's disappearance led police to perform further searches of the house. During the fourth and final search, they found Cora's remains. Her remains were interred at the St Pancras and Islington Cemetery, East Finchley.

Transatlantic arrest

Crippen, disguised, after his arrest

Meanwhile, Crippen and Le Neve were crossing the Atlantic aboard Montrose, with Le Neve disguised as a boy. Captain Henry George Kendall recognised the fugitives and, just before steaming beyond the range of his ship-board transmitter, had telegraphist Lawrence Ernest Hughes send a wireless telegram to the British authorities: "Have strong suspicions that Crippen London cellar murderer and accomplice are among saloon passengers. Mustache taken off growing beard. Accomplice dressed as boy. Manner and build undoubtedly a girl." Had Crippen travelled third class, he probably would have escaped Kendall's notice. Dew boarded a faster White Star liner, SS Laurentic, from Liverpool, arrived in Quebec ahead of Crippen, and contacted the Canadian authorities.

As Montrose entered the St. Lawrence River, Dew came aboard disguised as a pilot. Canada was then still a dominion within the British Empire. If Crippen, an American citizen, had sailed to the US instead, even if he had been recognised, it would have taken extradition proceedings to bring him to trial. Kendall invited Crippen to meet the pilots as they came aboard. Dew removed his pilot's cap and said, "Good morning, Dr. Crippen. Do you know me? I'm Chief Inspector Dew from Scotland Yard." After a pause, Crippen replied, "Thank God it's over. The suspense has been too great. I couldn't stand it any longer." He then held out his wrists for the handcuffs. Crippen and Le Neve were arrested on board Montrose on 31 July 1910. Crippen was returned to the UK on board the SS Megantic.

Trial

Alleged scar tissue used in evidence at the trial, claimed to be that of Cora Crippen

Crippen was tried at the Old Bailey before the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Alverstone, on 18 October 1910. The proceedings lasted four days.

Sketches from the trial of Dr. Crippen

The jury found Crippen guilty of murder after just twenty-seven minutes of deliberations. Le Neve was charged only with being an accessory after the fact and acquitted.

Execution

Crippen was executed by John Ellis at Pentonville Prison, London, at 9 am on Wednesday 23 November 1910.

Le Neve sailed to the US before settling in Canada finding work as a typist. She returned to Britain in 1915 and died in 1967. At Crippen's request, a photograph of Le Neve was placed in his coffin and buried with him.

Although Crippen's grave in Pentonville's grounds is not marked by a stone, tradition has it that soon after his burial, a rose bush was planted over it. Some of his relatives in Michigan have begun lobbying for his remains to be repatriated to the US.

Media portrayals

Waxwork of Dr. Crippen in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussauds in London (pictured 1984)

The case inspired the 1910 Australian play By Wireless Telegraphy
The murder inspired Arthur Machen's 1927 short story "The Islington Mystery", which in turn was adapted as the 1960 Mexican film El Esqueleto de la señora Morales.
The gang defeated by Elsa Lanchester in the H.G. Wells-scripted crime comedy Blue Bottles (1928) is revealed to be related to the Crippen case.
It is thought to have inspired the 1935 novel We, the Accused by Ernest Raymond.
The German 1942 feature film Doctor Crippen on Board, directed by Erich Engels, stars Rudolf Fernau in the title role. (A 1958 Engels film Doctor Crippen Lives is neither a sequel nor about Crippen.)
The character of Mr. Pugh in the radio drama Under Milk Wood, by Dylan Thomas, is described as sporting a "nicotine-eggyellow weeping walrus Victorian moustache worn thick and long in memory of Doctor Crippen". Throughout the play, he obsessively fantasises about murdering his wife, but never attempts to do so.
The 1961 Wolf Mankowitz-Monty Norman musical Belle, or The Ballad of Dr Crippen at London's Strand Theatre was based on the case.
The British 1962 feature film Dr. Crippen stars Donald Pleasence in the title role and Samantha Eggar as Le Neve.
The American TV series Ironside presented an episode (season 2, episode 16, January 23, 1969: "Why the Tuesday Afternoon Bridge Club Met on Thursday") in which a neurotic man assumed Dr. Crippen's identity and committed a similar murder.
In Carry On Loving, which was made and set in 1970, there is a jokily anachronistic reference to the Crippen case: Peter Butterworth appears in Edwardian costume as 'Dr Crippen', visiting a marriage bureau to seek a third wife, having dispatched both his first two.
In the 1972 season of Australian TV soap opera, Number 96, a plot line involving the death of Sylvia Vansard (in which her estranged chemist husband and his mistress are the main suspects), deliberately homages the Crippen story. It was referenced in the official synopses provided to the screenwriters.
The Crippen saga is the basis for 1982's The False Inspector Dew, a detective novel by Peter Lovesey.
The 1989 BBC series Shadow of the Noose, about the life of barrister Edward Marshall Hall, includes an abortive attempt on Hall's part to defend Crippen (played by David Hatton).
John Boyne wrote the 2004 novel Crippen – A Novel of Murder.
Erik Larson's 2006 book Thunderstruck interwove the story of the murder with the history of Guglielmo Marconi's invention of radio.
Martin Edwards wrote the 2008 novel Dancing for the Hangman, which re-interprets the case while seeking to adhere to the established evidence.
The PBS series Secrets of the Dead episode "Executed in Error" (2008) explored new findings in the Crippen case.
Dan Weatherer's stage play Crippen (2016) explores the life and crimes of Dr. Hawley Crippen while taking into account new evidence and presenting an alternative theory as to who lay buried beneath the cellar floor.
In The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie Crippen is mentioned.
In A Fantastic Fear of Everything, when British author Jack's literary agent sets up a meeting between him and an American named Harvey Humphries, Jack's paranoia leads him to believe he is really Dr. Crippen come back to kill him, based on the shared name and nationality. When Mr. Humphries appears on screen he is the spitting image of Dr. Crippen.