Muir admitted that there was no conclusive evidence that the remains were those of Cora Crippen, or even those of a woman. However, the evidence had overwhelmingly pointed to the fact that Cora Crippen was dead. The hair found amongst the remains was naturally dark brown, but had been bleached to a lighter colour, and ‘Belle Elmore had dark brown hair bleached to a lighter shade. It was true that other women had dark brown hair bleached to lighter colour, but there was no suggestion that any woman with hair of that sort was missing in London within the limits of the time which were involved in that case.’ Muir reiterated the prosecution’s claim that the mark on the piece of skin was an abdominal scar, and reminded the jury that ‘Belle Elmore had been operated upon in that region in the year 1892 or 1893.’
In addition, and most damagingly, the remains had been riddled with hyoscine, and Crippen had purchased large quantities of the drug. Summing up, Muir said:
Ask yourselves in this most important case these questions. Where is Belle Elmore? Is your answer to be that she is dead? Then, whose remains were those in the cellar? Is your answer to be Belle Elmore’s? If not Belle Elmore’s, what conceivable explanation is there? None in the world. Who mutilated her body and put the remains there? Who but the prisoner had the opportunity, the skill, the access to the pieces of pyjama jacket which were found in the grave? How did she die? Is your answer to be of hyoscine poisoning? If not, how did that person die? No sign upon the internal organs which were left, no sign on post-mortem examination, of any cause of death at all except hyoscine poisoning. If your answer is to be that she died of hyoscine poisoning, where did she get it and who administered it? Crippen bought it – it was not much known – on 19th January, and Belle Elmore disappeared from this world on 1st February.
Lord Alverstone lucidly summed up the case to the jury: ‘That is the crime of murder charged here against Dr. Crippen, that he wilfully and intentionally killed his wife, poisoned his wife, and that he mutilated the body, and buried the remains in the cellar at 39 Hilldrop Crescent in order to conceal his crime.’ The jury had to consider two questions. The first:
Were the remains found at 39 Hilldrop Crescent the remains of Cora Crippen? If they were not, there is an end of this case. If you find that they were the remains of Cora Crippen, then you have got to ask yourselves, was her death occasioned by the wilful act of the defendant Crippen? If not, again the defendant is entitled to be acquitted. Those are the two issues that you have got to consider, and those are the issues upon which I shall ask you in a short time to concentrate your attention.
Dew had found Crippen to be an enigmatic character, saying, ‘There will never be another Crippen. There were two distinct sides to the man.’ Alverstone had been similarly intrigued by Crippen:
Whatever the truth in this case, the defendant is an extraordinary man. He has committed a ghastly crime; he has covered up that ghastly crime, or endeavoured to, in a ghastly way, and he has behaved with the most brutal and callous indifference after the crime has been committed. If he is an innocent man, it is almost impossible, as you may probably think, to fathom his mind or his character, again absolutely indifferent to the charge made against him of murder; having, according to him, I will not say a ready means, but at any rate the means of doing his utmost to establish his innocence, no step taken of any sort or kind by him.
It was the judge’s opinion that ‘the fact that Dr. Crippen has lied on material points in this case is a very important matter for your consideration’. Another ‘very serious matter’ was why, if Cora had left Crippen on 1 February, she did not take the bulk of her jewellery and furs with her.
As to the matter of whether Cora Crippen was still alive, Alverstone thought there were two problems with this. Firstly, how could Crippen have written the mourning letters
except with the knowledge that the wife could not appear? Friends in America, gone to America, friends at home making inquiries; put off, hoodwinked – we need not care about the dates, but hoodwinked in a disgraceful way by mourning black-edged paper, and so forth. Do not consider it from the point of view of taste. Consider it from the point of view of upon which side the truth lies. If you come to the conclusion that the game was so enormously dangerous that Dr. Crippen could not have possibly carried it out if he thought his wife might appear again, you will ask yourselves, can you believe the story that his wife left him on 1st February.
Cora may even have come forward herself:
The man was arrested, as you know, in consequence of the agency of this new invention, wireless telegraphy; there is no doubt about that; it is a matter that could not have been established but for that invention; that part is common knowledge; he is arrested in Canada, and then the story is known all over the world. It is a very serious suggestion to make to you, as it is made by the counsel for the defence, that Belle Elmore may still be alive. If Belle Elmore is alive, is it possible to think that this has not come to her knowledge? Does that man in the dock mean to suggest that so bad is this woman who was his wife for eighteen years, and whom, apart from her being angry and bad tempered, he does not make any serious complaint against – that she is so mean and so abominably wicked as to allow this man to stand his trial in the dock without making any communication or anything of the kind? That is what you have got to consider in this part of the case.
After a brief adjournment Alverstone continued his summing up. He addressed the issues of how long the remains had been buried, saying that ‘perhaps the most important thing is the pyjama jacket’. Were the remains those of Cora Crippen? Alverstone asserted: ‘that they are the remains of a woman now is really not seriously disputed’, as they were partially clothed with a woman’s vest and found with hair curlers. There were suggestions that it was Cora Crippen on account of the hair colouring and pyjama top, but the evidence was ‘not so certain’ as was the evidence suggesting the remains were those of a woman.
Alverstone described the alleged scar on the piece of skin as ‘the battleground in this case’. ‘Now is that a scar or not?’ he asked, before warning the jury, ‘In order to satisfy you that it is not Cora Crippen, the defence must have satisfied you that there is no scar there. Coupled with the pyjama and the camisole and the combinations and the vests, you have to ask yourselves have you any doubt that that is the body of Cora Crippen?’
The penultimate point was ‘what was the cause of death, who put that body there, was it the same person who killed her or not?’ Alverstone thought that the jury would be ‘of the opinion that the person who caused the death of Cora Crippen took steps to get rid of the body. That is the natural thing a man would do who had committed a great crime.’ If she had not been poisoned, could the jury account for her death by any natural cause? The defence had not put forward an alternative suggestion to hyoscine poisoning, so the only explanation of her death was that ‘[s]ome one gave Belle Elmore hyoscine, and she became unconscious, comatose, and died, and there was the dead woman in the house’.
Finally, Alverstone addressed the jury on the subject of Crippen’s behaviour, which he considered to be ‘a most important part of the case’.
Now, you have had Inspector Dew’s statement put before you, and you heard it read more than once. The only important thing in Dew’s statement for the present consideration is, not the lies that the accused told, which he admits now were lies, namely, the letters and all the statements about his wife being dead – but the things he said were true were not consistent with the facts as proved. He was at trouble to show Inspector Dew the jewels, and those are the same that were found sewn in his undervest when he was arrested at Quebec; he was at trouble to show Dew that his wife must have taken the other jewels with her. Now, one has to make every allowance for a man in a difficult position; he says, ‘She had other jewellery, and must have taken that with her,’ but, when you are dealing with a man who is supposed to be speaking the truth, and who is asking you to believe that his wife had gone away, you cannot forget the fact that he had pawned a very
considerable portion of that jewellery on 2nd February, the day after she disappeared, and on 9th February, seven days afterwards. He says, ‘I have never pawned or sold any jewellery belonging to her before or after I left her.’ He says afterwards, ‘I thought it was my property.’ It may be that that taken by itself may be so construed; it may be so understood; but the important thing is that he said that she had taken it with her and he follows that up by the statement about pawning. Then he says, and I suggest to you that it is one of the most important things, ‘I shall, of course, do all I can to get in touch with her and clear this matter up.’ Gentlemen, on that day he, with the assistance of Inspector Dew, drafts an advertisement offering a reward, to be published in the papers, to endeavour to find Belle Elmore. He never sent it. If he believed that his wife could be found, why should not he have sent it?
Alverstone then told the jury of ‘a test applied in these Courts’. That test was ‘How did the man behave when the charge was brought against him?’
You have it that, living there in the same name, carrying on his business, consorting with Ethel Le Neve for practically six months, the day after the inspector goes to his house he alters his name and flees – goes to Antwerp, appears under the name of Robinson, induces Le Neve to disguise herself as a boy, passes Le Neve off as his son, and endeavours to escape to Canada; and he would no doubt have got there but for Inspector Dew being able to catch him.
When Dew arrested Crippen the fugitive told his captor, ‘It is only fair to say she knows nothing about it.’ Alverstone wondered, ‘What did that “it” mean?’ The judge concluded by reiterating that ‘[t]here has been ample opportunity for getting hold of Cora Crippen if she is really alive’.
After the judge’s summing up, the jury retired to consider their decision at 2.15 p.m., and returned just twenty-seven minutes later. Dew rated Crippen’s chances as being ‘slender in the extreme’, and suspected that Crippen knew as much himself. The jury had unanimously found Crippen to be guilty of the murder of his wife. Crippen responded to the verdict by saying, ‘I still protest my innocence.’
Lord Alverstone passed the dread sentence:
Hawley Harvey Crippen, you have been convicted upon evidence, which could leave no doubt on the minds of any reasonable man, that you cruelly poisoned your wife, that you concealed your crime, you mutilated her body, and disposed piece-meal of her remains; you possessed yourself of her property, and used it for your own purposes. It was further established that as soon as suspicion was aroused you fled from justice, and took every measure to conceal your flight. On the ghastly and wicked nature of the crime I will not dwell. I only tell you that you must entertain no expectation or hope that you will escape the consequences of your crime, and I implore you to make your peace with Almighty God. I have now to pass upon you the sentence of the Court, which is that you be taken from hence to a lawful prison, and from thence to a place of execution, and that you be there hanged by the neck until you are dead, and that your body be buried in the precincts of the prison where you shall have last been confined after your conviction. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!
Dew had been surprised at the speed with which the jury returned their verdict, as it was a murder case; but it was a verdict he agreed with wholeheartedly. The case had caused a sensation although, with perhaps the exception of the medical arguments, it had not been one of any great legal importance. Travers Humphreys admitted as much, and his junior Cecil Mercer described it as a ‘dead case’, meaning that Crippen had never stood a chance. The case against Crippen was so overwhelming that the prosecution never bothered to call the man who delivered the lime to Crippen. One of the few things to impress Mercer about the trial was Tobin’s vigorous defence of his client. He thought Tobin ‘put up an excellent show. How he contrived to do it, I have no idea, but he appeared to have convinced himself of Crippen’s innocence.’3 Alverstone concurred, thinking that Crippen had been ‘ably defended’ by Tobin.4
Dew summed up his view of Dr Crippen as follows:
Dr. Crippen was in many ways a modest man. In others he was egotistical. I shall always believe that he was vain enough to think he had the cleverness to commit the perfect crime. But murderers, however clever, invariably make fatal blunders. Crippen made many. I have never entertained a doubt as to his guilt. He was, as he was proved at the Old Bailey, a callously calculating murderer.
There were several positive aspects of Crippen’s character. He was generally well liked by everyone who knew him, he was exceptionally courteous and considerate, and his love for Ethel Le Neve cannot be doubted (although he also appeared to have loved Cora in the early years of their marriage). One early writer on the case correctly pointed out that Crippen ‘would seem to have been a man of many minor virtues and of one monstrous crime’.5 Bernard Spilsbury dryly observed that Crippen was ‘always considerate – even in the weapon he used to kill his wife’.6 However likeable Crippen may have been, Dew was absolutely correct. Crippen was a liar and a cold-blooded murderer who lived quite happily with his mistress at 39 Hilldrop Crescent for months, knowing that the mutilated remains of his wife were buried in the cellar beneath their feet.
Dew thought he knew Crippen as well as anyone by now, and had watched him closely throughout his trial. Despite this he was really none the wiser about the enigma of Dr Crippen:
To me he was still a puzzle. In my whole dealings with him I saw nothing which by the wildest stretch of the imagination could be said to suggest that he had in his make-up the capacity for so terrible a crime.
I noticed one curious thing about Crippen when he was giving evidence. He never once referred to the dead woman as ‘my wife’, or ‘Mrs. Crippen’. Throughout, he spoke of her as ‘this woman’, or ‘that woman’.
There never has been an adequate motive for murder. There certainly was no reason for Crippen to kill his wife. He had no strong ties to keep him in England, so he could have taken all he wanted in the way of jewellery and left for any part of the world, taking Miss Le Neve with him. If he had done this, I doubt if anyone would have tried to stop him or to bring him back.
I believe he harboured an intense hatred for his wife. The cause does not matter. It was, however, sufficient to cause him to take her life, and to do so in a way which he hoped would escape discovery.
17
Rex v. Le Neve
She denied all knowledge of the crime, and I am convinced that she told the truth.
F.E. Smith
With Dr Crippen awaiting his appointment with the hangman, Ethel Le Neve now stood trial at the Old Bailey. On Tuesday 25 October 1910 she was tried with being an accessory after the fact in the murder of Cora Crippen at 39 Hilldrop Crescent. She would have been found guilty if the jury could be satisfied that she had helped Crippen escape knowing that he was a murderer.
Once again Richard Muir, Travers Humphreys and Samuel Ingleby Oddie were the counsel for the Crown, but Le Neve had a different team defending her from that which had defended Crippen. Appearing for her was Winston Churchill’s best friend Frederick Edwin Smith, whom Dew described as a ‘brilliant lawyer and orator’. Smith, popularly known as ‘F.E.’, cut a singular figure. He was
strikingly handsome, six feet one inch in height, of a distinguished figure, slightly marred by sloping shoulders. His clothes, although not in any one particular out of the ordinary, gave the impression that he was over-dressed. The hat worn on the back of his head, the red flower in his button-hole, the very long cigar always carried in his mouth, made him a ready subject for the caricaturist.1
Arthur Newton had wished to brief Smith for Crippen’s defence, but F.E., who would later have the reputation of being ‘the cleverest man in the kingdom’, quickly realised what the outcome of that trial would inevitably be. He pointed out that, as Crippen and Le Neve would be tried separately, it would be necessary to employ separate counsel, and shrewdly opted to defend Le Neve instead, assisted by Mr Barrington Ward.
Richard Muir began by e
xplaining that Le Neve was charged ‘in effect, with assisting Hawley Harvey Crippen to escape from justice at a time when she knew that he had been guilty of the murder of his wife’. There was no question on either side that Crippen had been rightly convicted of the murder. Muir elaborated what the prosecution aimed to prove:
What was the state of knowledge that prisoner had, and what was her intention with regard to the acts which she undoubtedly committed. Guilty knowledge and guilty intention are issues in this case, and upon such issues a jury can rarely have direct evidence at all. It hardly ever happens that the state of a person’s mind can be judged by anything but that person’s actions, and, therefore, you will look at the facts in this case with a view to discovering what was the knowledge of the prisoner at the time that the acts in question were done, and what was her intention with regard to the acts which she herself did.
According to Muir, a vital point in the case was Le Neve’s behaviour around the time of Cora Crippen’s death. Le Neve had been lodging with a Mrs Emily Jackson in Camden Town since September 1908, and the pair enjoyed a close relationship. In correspondence Le Neve called Jackson ‘My dearest Mum’ and ‘My dear Ma’. Muir explained:
Mrs. Jackson says that about January last prisoner began to look ill and troubled, and that one night towards the end of January, or in the beginning of February – she did not fix any date – prisoner came home very ill. She would take no supper, and went to bed. Her appearance, according to Mrs. Jackson’s description, was the appearance of somebody who had suffered a great shock, who was stricken with horror at something that had happened. Prisoner was asked for an explanation, but little or none was forthcoming that night. The next morning, again, this young woman was in the same condition. She was practically unable to eat her breakfast, and her condition was such that Mrs. Jackson saw she was quite unfit to go to her work as a typist, and persuaded her to remain at home.
Walter Dew: The Man Who Caught Crippen Page 18
