Trial of H.H. Crippen

By Filson Young

In The Trial of H H Crippen, Filson Young compiles the transcript of one of the most famous murder trials of the early 20th century. Young gives us a clear image of the quiet, considerate doctor, and why such a man might be driven to kill his frivolous, unfaithful wife, Belle Elmore. After fleeing the country in disguise with his young mistress Ethel Le Neve, he is dramatically captured by Inspector Dew, and brought back to face justice. Here is clearly laid out all the stages of the trial, from the gruesome act itself, to the final verdict.

First published in 1920, The Trial of H H Crippen sheds light not only on the elaborate layers of deceit used to cover up the heinous crime, but also on the intricate details of the trial, the fascinating word-for-word dialogue of the courtroom of 1910, and how, ultimately, a murderer was brought to justice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Jul 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781448214310

Filson Young

Filson Young was a writer and journalist best known for his work Titanic, published a scant 37 days after the ship’s tragic sinking. A dedicated modernist, Young, in addition to his writing, was an active motorist, pilot, composer, editor, and correspondent, and is credited with helping discover James Joyce. Filson Young died in 1938 at the age of 62.

Book preview

THE TRIAL.

First Day—Tuesday, 18th October, 1910.

The CLERK OF THE COURT—Hawley Harvey Crippen, you are indicted and also charged on the coroner’s inquisition with the wilful murder of Cora Crippen on the 1st February last. Are you guilty or not guilty?

The PRISONER—Not guilty, my lord.

Opening Statement for the Crown.

Mr. MUIR, in opening the case for the Crown, began by tracing the earlier personal history of the prisoner and of his wife, whom he married as his second wife in 1892 or 1893, and also the circumstances of their married life at Hilldrop Crescent, down to the end of last year. So far as their friends were concerned, the relations between husband and wife seemed to be of the best possible kind; they lived together apparently on affectionate terms. The prisoner had not for some four years, however, according to his own statement, cohabited with his wife, but had during three years of that period been carrying on an intrigue with a young woman, Ethel Le Neve, who had been in his service as a typist, and for three years he had been having immoral relations with her of a clandestine kind, never staying away from home at night, but meeting her in hotels in the daytime. That being so, the position was a strange one. The prisoner said he provided all the money for the home in which he and his wife were living. If that was so, he was keeping up an establishment for a woman towards whom, according to himself, he had no affection at all. As regards pecuniary circumstances, the prisoner and his wife during some years of their married life were putting by money. Between March, 1905, and March, 1909, they had deposited with the Charing Cross Bank various sums, amounting in all to £600. These were deposited, some in the joint names of husband and wife, and some in the name of the wife alone by which she was generally known—Belle Elmore. In the beginning of the present year the financial position was not so good. Up to November the prisoner had been in receipt of a weekly salary of £3 from the business known as Munyon’s Remedies, but that salary ceased, and he became their agent in this country on commission. On 31st January of the present year his relations with Munyon’s Remedies ceased altogether—a remarkable coincidence of date, because 31st January was the critical date in this case. The prisoner had some other businesses, but it was doubtful whether any of them was a source of revenue to him at all. It was quite certain that at the date referred to the prisoner was pressed for money. The position, therefore, was this—his affection fixed upon Ethel Le Neve, and himself desirous of establishing closer relations with that young woman; the physical presence of his wife an obstacle to those relations; the fact that he had no money another obstacle. If Belle Elmore died both those obstacles would be removed, because Belle Elmore’s money, and property which could be converted into money, would enable him to keep Ethel Le Neve, which at that time he was unable to do.

That was the state of things on 31st January. On that day the prisoner desired that Mr. Paul Martinetti and his wife should spend the evening with him and his wife. He pressed the invitation, and it was accepted. Mrs. Crippen was in the best of health and spirits. So there were Mr. and Mrs. Martinetti witnesses, if ever they should be required, to the fact that on the early morning of 1st February Mr. and Mrs. Crippen were on their usual affectionate terms, and if Mrs. Crippen should from that moment disappear from the sight of all who knew her, who would suspect the kind, attentive, and affectionate husband as being the cause? Belle Elmore was a woman who attracted friends—a busy woman, enjoying life for the pleasure it gave her and for the good she could do to others. She was described as a bright, vivacious woman, fond of life, fond—perhaps inordinately fond—of dress and jewellery. Her friends said she was a good correspondent; but from the moment that Mr. and Mrs. Martinetti left the house in the early morning of 1st February she passed out of the world which knew her as completely as if she were dead. She left behind her everything she would have left if she had then died—money, jewels, furs, clothes, home, and husband. The prisoner made up his mind that she had left never to return. He at once began to convert her property, and on 12th March Ethel Le Neve, who had been seen wearing a brooch and furs belonging to Belle Elmore, went permanently to live with him at 39 Hilldrop Crescent. Crippen was therefore quite certain that his wife would never return, but he did not tell her friends he knew she would never return. He started a campaign of lies to account for her disappearance. He knew that if his wife did not attend the meeting of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild on 2nd February inquiries would be made, and so he sent by the hand of Le Neve two letters to the Guild and to Miss May, one of the officials of the Guild. Then came the story of her disappearance to America, and the invention of further lies—because a visit to America might be expected to terminate at some time or other—to account for the fact that she was never to return. On 23rd March he told Mrs. Martinetti that he had very bad news, and was momentarily expecting worse. He said that if anything should happen to Belle he was going to France for a week. Mrs. Martinetti said, Whatever for? He said, Oh, I shall want a change, the truth being that at that time he had arranged an Easter trip to Dieppe with Ethel Le Neve. The slate had to be wiped clean of Belle Elmore before he started, and from Victoria on the early morning of 24th March he sent the telegram to Mrs. Martinetti stating that Belle died the previous night at six o’clock; and, that nothing should remain to interfere with the rest he was seeking in France, he sent the advertisement to the Era announcing that Belle Elmore had died in California—no nearer than that—on 23rd March. The object of the advertisement was to stop people asking a lot of questions. But Belle Elmore’s friends were not prevented from asking a lot of questions, and they got some answers. They obtained, too, the address of Crippen’s son. The ladies wished to send a wreath to their friend’s grave in California. They were told that the wreath was no use—she had been cremated, and her ashes were to be brought home; they could have their little ceremony then. And on 18th May he solemnly announced that he had the ashes at home.

Then the ladies became still more curious. They wanted to know the name under which Belle Elmore sailed for America, but Crippen was not at all sure about it. It must have been obvious to Crippen then that his statements with regard to the disappearance of Belle Elmore were being doubted, and it was perfectly plain after his interview with Chief Inspector Dew that it was useless to proceed with the stories he had told. He said to the inspector, It is untrue what I have told them about her death. So far as I know she is alive. Crippen then made a long statement giving quite a new version of his wife’s disappearance. He said that in 1902 or thereabouts he had to visit America, and that while he was away his wife had formed the acquaintance of a man named Bruce Miller, becoming attached to him; that upon his return her manner changed, and that she threatened in outbursts of temper to leave him and go to Bruce Miller; and that she had said that when she left him she would pass altogether out of his life, and that he would never hear from her again. He went on to say that because of a lack of courtesy to Mr. Martinetti at the dinner party on 31st January his wife said that this was the finish of it, that she would go, and that he could do what he thought best to cover up the scandal with the Guild and their mutual friends. On 1st February he returned from business to find his wife gone, and then he said that he sat down to think how he could account for her absence. Crippen in this statement said that he had never pawned any of his wife’s jewels. That he must have known to be false, as were also the statements which he gave to account for his wife’s disappearance. He said that she had gone to join Bruce Miller. Bruce Miller would be called, and he would say that he had not seen Belle Elmore since 1904.

Almost while he was in the act of making those statements in order to gain a few hours’ delay from the police officer who was making the inquiries, the prisoner was preparing for flight. The jury had to ask themselves why Crippen left, what it was he had to fear if his statement was true, that as far as he knew, Belle Elmore was alive. If that statement was true he had nothing to fear. He had nothing to fly from. But he fled. What he fled from was found on 13th July, when under the brick floor in the cellar of the house in Hilldrop Crescent where Belle Elmore was last seen alive on 1st February, where she was left alone at half-past one in the morning of that day with the prisoner, the police found human remains. It would be for the jury to say whether that was what Crippen had fled from.

Whose were the remains so found? On 14th July they were carefully examined where they lay in the cellar by Mr. Pepper, the eminent surgeon, and by Dr. Marshall, the police surgeon; and, having been examined so that those gentlemen were able to speak to the position of things as then existing, those human remains and some other things that were found with them were removed to the mortuary, and there they were subjected to a critical examination. The remains were headless, limbless, and boneless, and the sex could not be certainly determined on anatomical grounds. But some Hinde’s curlers, with long human hair in them, and some feminine under-garments might be said to indicate that the remains were those of a woman. On the other hand, there were also in that grave with the remains some pieces of a man’s pyjama suit and a large handkerchief which was probably not a woman’s. The identification of the remains was almost impossible; but there were certain indications. The human hair in the Hinde’s curlers was naturally a dark brown, and it had been bleached to a lighter colour. Belle Elmore’s hair was a dark brown, and she was in the habit of bleaching it to a lighter colour. Those facts were undoubtedly true of many other women besides Belle Elmore. The under-garments had been seen by some of Belle Elmore’s friends, and they were such as Belle Elmore was in the habit of wearing, but they were also such as many other women besides Belle Elmore would wear. One piece of flesh was identified as coming from the lower part of the abdominal wall, and it had upon it an old scar. Belle Elmore was, in fact, operated upon in that region in 1892 or 1893, and the scar remained upon her body up to the time of her death, and was seen by two persons who would be called. The place of burial was significant. It was in the house occupied by Crippen and Belle Elmore together from 21st September, 1905, up to 1st February, 1910, and by nobody else, and in the house where Belle Elmore was last seen alive alone with the prisoner. Upon those facts it was for the jury to say whether they were satisfied that those remains were the remains, and could only be the remains, of the missing woman Belle Elmore.

Another question that the jury would have seriously to consider was, who put the remains where they were found? In endeavouring to answer that question they would ask themselves, who but Crippen had the opportunity to put them there, if the surgeons were accurate as to the date of the burial—some period of between eight months at the longest and four months at the shortest? Belle Elmore disappeared on 1st February, five and a half months before 13th July, when the remains were unearthed. The remains were mutilated in a way which indicated to the skilled mind of the surgeon that the person who did it had some acquaintance with anatomy and some dexterity in dealing with the dead bodies of either human beings or other animals. Crippen had a very good degree; he practised in America, and, according to his own statement, before he took his degree in America he spent some time in London visiting the hospitals. The putting of the remains in the place described and the preparing of the hole in the cellar was an operation which would require both considerable time and entire freedom from observation. And from 1st February onwards for some considerable time Crippen was alone in the house. There were grounds for saying that the pieces of a pyjama jacket found with the remains belonged to Crippen. That was what Crippen left behind when he fled on 9th