Doctor Crippen: The Infamous London Cellar Murder of 1910 (16 page)

Tobin: Dealing with the question of the remains, must the person who removed the viscera have been a person of very considerable dexterity?
Spilsbury: He must certainly have had considerable dexterity, yes.
Tobin: And must that removal have been done by somebody with a very considerable anatomical knowledge, or somebody accustomed to evisceration?
Spilsbury: Certainly some one having considerable anatomical knowledge.
Tobin: And accustomed to evisceration?
Spilsbury: Yes, one who has done a considerable amount of evisceration.

Next to testify was Dr Marshall, the police surgeon. He concurred that the skin was from the lower part of the abdominal wall and stated, ‘I formed the opinion that it was a scar mark, and that is still my opinion.’

Crippen’s defence produced their own medical experts, who contradicted those who had concluded the mark on the skin was a scar. Dr Gilbert Turnbull, the Director of the Pathological Institute at the London Hospital emphatically stated ‘it cannot possibly be a scar’, but he conceded that the skin was from the lower abdomen. Another expert for the defence, Dr Reginald Wall, said that ‘in my opinion it is not a scar’.

The medical evidence turned to the issue of the cause of death. Dr William Willcox had tested the viscera of the corpse for poisons, eventually finding traces of the alkaloid poison hyoscine. Willcox had a slight speech impediment, so spoke in a slow and sometimes hesitant manner, which served to emphasise his testimony. Once described as ‘the most deliberate and painstaking expert witness who ever stepped into the box’,
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Willcox had ‘no doubt it was hyoscine’ which was ‘gummy syrupy stuff’, but used medicinally in the salt form of hydrobromide of hyoscine. He had found two-fifths of a grain of the drug in the organs he had examined, which he estimated would mean that there would have been more than half a grain in the whole body, easily a fatal dose. Willcox had never known hyoscine to have been used in a murder case before, but thought that in this instance it would have been taken orally and the victim would have lived for at least one hour but no more than twelve. Dr Arthur Luff, the honorary scientific advisor to the Home Office, who boasted ‘a peculiarly long experience of alkaloids produced by putrification’, agreed entirely with Willcox’s findings.

Connecting Crippen with large quantities of hyoscine proved simple. Charles Hetherington, a chemist who, like Crippen, worked in New Oxford Street, was acquainted with Crippen, who had been a regular customer at his shop. Around 17/18 January 1910, Crippen had called in at the chemist shop and ordered five grains of hyoscine hydrobromide, which he said he wanted for homoeopathic purposes. This was a huge quantity, and Hetherington had to place a special order, which Crippen collected on 19 January. He signed the reason for purchase column in the poisons register as ‘homoeopathic preparation’. Crippen had often bought drugs from the chemists including cocaine (for preparing dental anaesthetic), morphia and mercury, but never before hyoscine.

The Crown had completed presenting their case. Now it was the turn of the defence. Tobin pointed out that every witness who knew Crippen described his character in glowing terms. He was, according to people who knew him, ‘amiable’, ‘kind-hearted’, ‘good-hearted’, ‘good-tempered’, and ‘one of the nicest men I ever met’. How could such a man suddenly become ‘a fiend incarnate’? Furthermore, Crippen’s behaviour did not appear to have changed immediately before Cora’s disappearance and he carried on working as normal immediately afterwards. He said that Cora’s disappearance ‘was a strange thing, but strange things happen at all times, and would happen again to the end of time’. If this was all he could offer it was apparent that Tobin was going to struggle.

Tobin continued, ‘The position, therefore, was this. There was an illicit intimacy between Mrs Crippen and Bruce Miller, and an illicit intimacy between Crippen and Le Neve – the latter might be another reason for Mrs Crippen’s departure. Where was she now? Why did she go? She went because she had long disliked Crippen, and her dislike had turned to hate. Who knew where Belle Elmore was? Who knew whether it was Belle Elmore’s flesh that was buried in the cellar? Who knew for a certainty whether Belle Elmore was alive to-day or not? Who knew for certain whether she was abroad, whether she was ill or well, alive or dead? In a case of life and death, and in a charge of murder, they had to know, to know beyond all reasonable doubt, before they could find a verdict that would send a fellow-man to death.’

Crippen’s flight could be explained. ‘Feeling there was that high mountain of prejudice which he had erected by his lies against himself, he did what innocent men, threatened with a charge, have done before. He resolved in his folly to fly.’ Finally, Tobin reminded the jury that they had to be sure that the remains had not lain in the cellar of 39 Hilldrop Crescent for years and that they were indeed those of Belle Elmore.

When Crippen went into the witness box he explained that the reason he made such a large purchase of hyoscine was for ‘a nerve remedy in a homoeopathic preparation, that is, reduced to extremely minute doses’. He admitted purchasing the five grains of hyoscine on 19 January but claimed to have diluted them into 500 minute doses, two-thirds of which he had already dispensed. He had wanted ‘to prepare some special nerve remedies for some very obstinate cases’. Crippen was unable to provide any record of his disposal of over 300 doses of hyoscine. The remaining doses were allegedly in a cabinet in Crippen’s private room at Albion House. Arthur Newton went there to look for them but found nothing.

Crippen claimed to be very familiar with the use of hyoscine, having first used it at Bethlem mental hospital in England, and had since used it as a nerve remedy in homoeopathic preparations. Muir asked him if he knew of any medical textbook that advised the administration of hyoscine orally for any disease. Crippen cited Hempel and Arndt’s
The Dictionary of Homoeopathic Materia Medica
. Alverstone said that the Court would have to obtain a copy of that book but by the fifth and final day of the trial a copy still had not been found. Tobin had found another book,
Retrospect of Medicine
, that contained references to the use of hyoscine.

Despite the failure to find a copy of
Materia Medica
, John De Villiers, a senior member of staff at the British Museum, wrote an account of the book search in his 1931 autobiography. De Villiers said that one Saturday morning Crippen’s solicitor turned up at the museum pleading for a copy of the book as it was the only one that could be found in London. The British Museum at that time held the vast library that is now the British Library. It was not a lending library so De Villiers had to take the book to the Old Bailey without permission. As he would not be parted with the volume, Alverstone allowed him to take a seat on the Bench.
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While the debate over the book did take place on a Saturday, De Villiers’ story is contradicted by the trial transcript in which Tobin states that efforts were made to obtain a copy until eight o’clock the previous night (Friday). But Tobin did say to Alverstone that he had a copy of Braithwaite’s
Retrospect of Medicine
‘which has only this minute been handed to me’. Perhaps that was the book brought by De Villiers.

Crippen stuck rigidly to his story about returning home from work one day at his normal time of 7.30 p.m. to find his wife gone, and that the statements he had subsequently made concerning her death had all been false. When examined by Huntley Jenkins, Crippen explained his motives for saying Cora had died:

Crippen: I said that my wife had left me, that she afterwards became ill, and that subsequently her death took place. I admit all that.
Jenkins: Were those statements true or false?
Crippen: The statements that I made were false.
Jenkins: Why did you make those statements?
Crippen: She told me I must do the best I could to cover up the scandal, and I made those statements for that reason; I wanted to hide anything regarding her departure from me the best I could, both for my sake and for hers.
Jenkins: Was the statement that you made to Inspector Dew a false or a true statement?
Crippen: It was quite true. Inspector Dew was very imperative in pressing upon me that I must produce my wife, or otherwise I would be in serious trouble. He also said that if I did not produce her very quickly the statements I had made would be in the newspapers the first thing I knew. I made up my mind next morning to go to Quebec, and, in fact, I did go.

Dew had not told Crippen that he would be in serious trouble if he did not produce his wife, nor did he say anything about publishing details in the newspapers. ‘Obviously, this was a thing I should never have dreamed of doing’, was Dew’s indignant response. Crippen was lying under oath, just as he had lied to Cora’s friends and lied to the police.

Crippen also gave an account of his arrest:

Jenkins: Was Inspector Dew’s coming on board at Father Point a surprise to you?
Crippen: It was at Father Point – well, I did not expect him at all. I thought there had been a cable to the Quebec police; I did not expect Inspector Dew; that was a surprise to me.
Jenkins: Inspector Dew says that you said on arrest, ‘I am sorry; the anxiety has been too much.’ What were you referring to then?
Crippen: I was referring to this, that I expected to be arrested for all these lies I had told; I thought probably it would cast such a suspicion upon me, and perhaps they would keep me in prison – I do not know how long, perhaps for a year – until they found the missing woman.

Crippen was at pains to point out that all he had told Ethel Le Neve about the affair was that Cora had left him and that she had died.

The third day of the trial concluded with Jenkins once again questioning Crippen. Jenkins may have doubted that his client realised the urgency of his predicament, for when he visited him in prison to discuss the defence, Crippen made him wait, saying, ‘I have a cup of cocoa here and it’s just as well to drink it before it gets cold.’
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In court Jenkins almost casually asked Crippen an obvious but necessary question:

Jenkins: Those remains that were found at your house in Hilldrop Crescent – have you any idea whose they were?
Crippen: I beg your pardon.
Jenkins: The remains that were found in the cellar at Hilldrop Crescent?
Crippen: I had no idea. I knew nothing about them till I came back to England.

The judge could barely contain his incredulity at Crippen’s defence. At one point he asked the prisoner, ‘Do you really ask the jury to understand that your answer is that, without your knowledge or your wife’s, at some time during the five years, those remains could have been put there?’ Crippen weakly replied, ‘I say that it does not seem possible – I mean, it does not seem probable, but there is a possibility.’

One of Arthur Newton’s clerks despairingly described Crippen’s defence of ignorance as a ‘preposterous story’.
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If Crippen could not even persuade his own defence team of his innocence what chance was there that the jury would believe him?

On the fourth day of the trial Crippen was recalled and this time he was cross-examined by Richard Muir. Whispers passed around the court. ‘What is Muir like as a cross-examiner?’ someone asks. ‘Very slow, but very direct,’ is the reply, ‘with a wonderful way of asking awkward questions.’
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Muir’s incisive questioning was a stark contrast to what Crippen had experienced the previous day with Jenkins:

Muir: On the early morning of the 1st February you were left alone in your house with your wife?
Crippen: Yes.
Muir: She was alive?
Crippen: She was.
Muir: And well.
Crippen: She was.
Muir: Do you know of any person in the world who has seen her alive since?
Crippen: I do not.
Muir: Do you know of any person in the world who has ever had a letter from her since?
Crippen: I do not.
Muir: Do you know of any person in the world who can prove any fact showing she ever left that house alive?
Crippen: Absolutely not; I have told Mr Dew exactly all the facts.
Muir: But you have made no inquiries?
Crippen: I have made no inquiries.
Muir: It would be most important for your defence in this case on the charge of murder if any person could be found who saw your wife alive after the Martinettis saw her alive; you realise that?
Crippen: I do.
Muir: And you have made no inquiries at all?
Crippen: I have made no inquiries at all.

Muir later elicited from Crippen that when Dew charged him with the murder of his wife, Crippen didn’t even ask him about how she had died even though he claimed he still thought Cora was alive at the time.

The crucial evidence of the pyjama top found with the remains made Crippen’s already fragile defence seem all but futile. Dew had told the prosecutors that the Messrs Jones Brothers, who sold the green-striped pyjamas to Crippen, could only say that the jacket was similar to those they occasionally sold to Crippen and that they could not give a precise date as to when Crippen had bought them. Muir and Humphreys felt sure there was more information to be gained from Jones Brothers and on the eve of Crippen’s trial they sent Sergeant Mitchell back to the store with a series of questions explaining why they thought the information was obtainable. The answers showed that the pyjamas had been delivered to the shop on 7 December 1908 and sold on 5 January 1909. Crippen told the court that he had bought all of the pyjamas that Dew had found at Hilldrop Crescent since he and Cora had moved to that address. Crippen thought that the newer pyjama suit had been purchased by himself in September 1909.

Regardless of the date of purchase, Muir had established one fact. The material used in the pyjama trousers that Dew found and its accompanying top found with the remains were not manufactured and could not have existed until November 1908, therefore the jacket, produced in the court in a glass jar, could not have got among the remains prior to November 1908, well after the Crippens had moved into Hilldrop Crescent.

It was such a vital piece of evidence for the Crown’s case that Muir had been worrying whether he could establish the facts about it in their favour and hoping that the defence would not find out what he was doing. As the information had arrived at such a late date the prosecution thought it would be unfair to produce it without giving the defence prior warning. The defence could have asked for the trial to be postponed while they found experts to examine the pyjama evidence.
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When asked how the pyjamas could have ended up in his cellar, Crippen replied, ‘I don’t know.’