Chelsea Wood
Appearances
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
Hey, Serial Killers listeners, producer Chelsea here. I wanted to tell you about some new information I discovered since working on this episode. Just a few days after we recorded, author Hallie Rubenhold released a book about the case titled Story of a Murder, The Wives, The Mistress, and Dr. Crippen. As its title suggests, the book focuses on the women in Holly Harvey Crippen's life.
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
Information about his first wife, Charlotte, was sparse when I researched this episode. In Story of a Murder, Rubenhold fills in those gaps. Charlotte immigrated from Ireland in the mid-1880s and settled in New York City. She trained to be a nurse, then got a job at a homeopathic hospital. That's where she met Holly Harvey Crippen.
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
The couple married in 1887, and Charlotte quit her nursing career to join her husband as he jumped from job to job, city to city. Rubenhold discovered evidence suggesting Crippen may have been abusing his wife. Neighbors witnessed Crippen throwing a book at Charlotte. They claimed she lived in fear of her husband. The couple welcomed a boy in 1889, but never had another child.
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
Charlotte sent letters to her brother alleging Crippen had been performing unwanted abortions on her. In one letter, Charlotte wrote, "'If I die, it will be his fault.'" Charlotte's death in 1892 was officially ruled apoplexy, a stroke, but hindsight certainly raises some questions. Charlotte was only 33 and reportedly healthy.
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
Crippen had access to various poisons through his homeopathic practice. That would be the method he would later use to kill his second wife, Cora. Could he have also murdered his first wife the same way? Ultimately, the real answer is likely lost to time, but at least now we have a fuller picture of Charlotte's story.
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
Another important woman in Dr. Crippen's life was his second spouse, Cora Turner, which was just one of the stage names she used in her career. Crippen painted Cora out to be a talentless dilettante who bled him dry with her penchant for high fashion. But in her book, Rubenhold found several positive reviews of Cora's performances.
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
And Dr. Crippen's problems with money date back to long before he even met Cora. Finally, there's Crippen's mistress, Ethel Lenev. While she was briefly jailed after her and Crippen's transatlantic escape, she was not found to have taken part in the murder or even known anything about it. After her release, Ethel lived the next decade or so in relative obscurity.
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
She got married and had two children, but never told her family about her past. Rubenhold's research uncovered some interviews Ethel granted throughout the 1920s. Being acquitted of the murder didn't stop the press and locals from believing she knew something about it. She wanted to put a stop to the rumors once and for all. But Rubenholdt says the interviews only fan the flames.
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
Like her one-time lover, Ethel's story changed often. Sometimes she would insist Cora was still alive. Other times she claimed Cora's death was little more than an accident. She also never publicly expressed remorse or sympathy for Cora's death, only an insistence that Ethel herself was the victim, robbed of a happily ever after with Dr. Crippen.
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
Story of a murder does help enrich our understanding of the Crippen case, but it doesn't answer every question. If the doctor did kill his wife, what was the motive? Was it premeditated? A crime of passion? A total accident? And those questions only exist if the body in the cellar was really Cora's. Forensic toxicologist John Trestrail's examination found no genetic connection to Cora's relatives.
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
He discovered the body might not even be female. Turi King is a renowned geneticist who led the verification of Richard III's body in 2012. She acknowledges Trestrail's findings may be correct, but she also contends there's several issues with the way the evidence was tested. the DNA tests were done on a single sample in a single lab.
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
King says current standards of practice require testing at least two samples in two different labs. That helps validate the results and also buffer against possible contamination of the DNA. Technology has come such a long way in the last 15 years that King suggests the DNA be re-examined in depth to put to bed the question, whose body was in the cellar?
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
It's that question, the many unknowns, the cinematic chase, and the historical use of a telegraph that make this story so intriguing, even 115 years later. It's why, just a few days after we recorded this episode, Crippen's leather-bound prayer book sold at a British auction for 240 pounds, or approximately 318 US dollars.
Serial Killers
A Body in the Cellar: Hawley Harvey Crippen
It's why I will continue to follow the case, and if there are any updates, you can be sure to hear about them here on Serial Killers.