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  • Crippen to be Exhumed?

    11:30pm UK, Monday June 01, 2009
    Martin Brunt, crime correspondent
    Notorious murderer Dr Crippen could soon be exhumed from his prison grave as lawyers seek to prove his innocence with DNA evidence.

    Efforts to dig up his remains have moved a step closer after prison authorities gave his family the green light for re-burial.
    But they have been told they must first get permission from the relatives of three other killers whose bodies lie in unconsecrated graves next to his at Pentonville jail in London.
    Now the Crippen lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano is appealing for help in tracing the other families.
    And he says he is determined to get a pardon for the notorious poisoner thanks to DNA evidence from the murder scene.
    Mr Di Stefano wants to hear from relatives of two murderers hanged in 1910; George Perry, 27 and Andrew Woolf, 58.
    Perry was executed for killing his girlfriend Annie Covell while Woolf was convicted of murdering a man called Andrew Simon.
    Hawley Crippen, an American physician, was hanged the same year for the murder of his wife Cora, a music hall singer who had a string of lovers.
    He told friends his wife had gone to live in California, where she had died and been cremated.
    But a mutilated body was discovered buried beneath the cellar of the couple's North London home.
    At Crippen's Old Bailey trial prosecutors outlined the gruesome manner in which the body had been disposed of.
    They said Cora's bones and limbs were professionally removed and burned in the kitchen stove.
    Her organs were dissolved in acid in the bathtub, and her head was placed in a handbag and thrown overboard during a day trip to Dieppe, France.
    Crippen was arrested with his new girlfriend Ethel Le Neve as they fled aboard a ship to Canada.
    However forensic scientists in the United States have cast doubt on Crippen's guilt.
    They claim to have established through DNA that the body in the cellar was in fact that of a man.
    At the trial the pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury could not identify the remains or even discern whether they were male or female.
    Mr Di Stefano said: "Dr Crippen is clearly innocent of his wife's murder. It is the most serious miscarriage of justice in a 100 years."
    A cousin of Crippen plans to rebury the body in his native Michigan.

    Source: Sky News
    Regards Mike

  • #2
    No relation, Mike?

    Y'know, I LIKE Crippen (in a way) but I absolutely cannot see this innocence business. I'm about 99% sure it's flawed forensics. Still, if the family want to bury the body I'm all for that. Is there going to be anything much of him to rebury, though?

    PHILIP
    Tour guides do it loudly in front of a crowd.

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    • #3
      Well at least this SHOULD finally put an end to it and avoid all the speculation,although i would be very surprised if he was innocent.
      Very.

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      • #4
        Yep , I've caught this theory before, and it still rather beggers the question "then whose body is it?"

        What are the odds of one just happening to be there? by chance?

        Sounds like someone's got something wrong somewhere, or i'm a monkeys uncle.

        Pirate

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        • #5
          Note that Giovanni Di Stefano is the same attorney that the Michigan State University team wanted nothing to do with back in 2007, and in fact insisted that Stefano remove all reference to the DNA research from his initial court filings. They said that they wanted no part in the efforts to pardon Crippen or exhume Crippen's remains.

          But then came the cameras.

          JM

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          • #6
            I'm surprised it's gotten this far since we were discussing this just a few months ago. If the family wants him moved, then he should be moved.

            I'm much more interested in what was found in that basement.
            "What our ancestors would really be thinking, if they were alive today, is: "Why is it so dark in here?"" From Pyramids by Sir Terry Pratchett, a British National Treasure.

            __________________________________

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            • #7
              From my questioning of Dr. Foran, head of the MSU DNA team, on October 30th, 2007:

              Q: I obtained from the website of the Italian law firm
              www.studiolegaleinternazionale.com a chart that details Cora Crippen's
              family tree. The only problem is that the graphic is wholly illegible
              due to its size and the names and dates of the relatives are not able
              to be read. Could you possibly provide me with a decent quality chart
              of her family tree so I have a better understanding of Cora's siblings
              and half-siblings and their children? If you do not have a genealogy
              chart that reflects your groups research, hopefully you could inform
              me as to where I can find such a chart.


              A: I have specifically and very plainly requested that any mention or inclusion of my name, my laboratory, or my University (Michigan State University, and their misspelling of it) be wholly omitted from that document, in that I in no way support or condone their efforts. I have made this very plain to Mr. Trestrail, and he has claimed to have made it plain to Mr. Di Stefano. I believe Ms. Wills also requested that her name be removed, but she can address that.
              Certainly I did not in any manner give permission to be associated with Mr. Di Stefano, his website, or his scheme. The number of errors in that application, from the misnamed university to Mr. Trestrail's title, show what sloppy work Mr. Di Stefano conducts. Once again, neither I, my laboratory, my Departments, nor Michigan State University in any way support Mr. Di Stefano's efforts, and again request that mention of any of these, as well as any 'team' support for his efforts, through which I and the above are directly or indirectly implied, be fully removed from this and all further documents, releases, or statements.


              JM

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              • #8
                Wasn't Crippen's wife having an affair? I am wondering if the body could have been that of her lover and then he went on to kill his wife.

                c.d.

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                • #9
                  Can anyone tell me if Mr. Di Stefano has any sort of theory as to what became of Cora Crippen if that wasn't her body that they found?

                  And does he think that Dr Crippen just happened to have ANOTHER dead body lying around his basement??

                  (or maybe it was "already there" when he moved in)

                  Thanks, Archaic

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by c.d. View Post
                    Wasn't Crippen's wife having an affair? I am wondering if the body could have been that of her lover and then he went on to kill his wife.

                    c.d.
                    The body of her lover strolled into the courtroom and testified at his trial.

                    JM

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Archaic View Post
                      Can anyone tell me if Mr. Di Stefano has any sort of theory as to what became of Cora Crippen if that wasn't her body that they found?

                      And does he think that Dr Crippen just happened to have ANOTHER dead body lying around his basement??

                      (or maybe it was "already there" when he moved in)

                      Thanks, Archaic

                      That is discounted by the pyjama top that was in the grave with the torso (The matching pants for which were found with Crippen's clothing in an upstairs room) The suppliers for them - there was a label in them - only sold them from 1906, the year after the Crippens moved in.

                      He did it .

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                      • #12
                        The DNA may not match if another story I heard is true.

                        Crippen was hanged at Pentonville in 1910. In 1917 another prisoner was executed by hanging in Pentonville, but this other man would subsequently be "resurrected" and handed over to interested parties for a different kind of reburial. It was "Sir" Roger Casement (don't forget he willingly forfeited the British knighthood in 1916). Casement, a traitor in England, is a national hero in Eire. His remains are in an impressive tomb there in Dublin (I believe).

                        But a friend of mine heard they may have dug up the wrong corpse. Crippen was buried next to Casement, and my friend said there was a possibility that the former's remains were dug up. In which case, if the DNA is not a match it may be due to an earlier blunder.

                        If there was a blunder.

                        Jeff

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                        • #13
                          You know I hate it when people in positions of power and authority screw up this badly. This is going to be used to taint every DNA analysis from here on out. It's clear the lab played games and they probably figured no harm, no foul, long dead cold case, drum up some publicity. But it's just ludicrous. They totally botched this, everyone knows they botched this and it's irrelevant in any event.

                          Everyone knows it's Cora and even if it wasn't Cora, as has already been pointed out, he clearly killed someone and so he's still a murderer. The end.

                          Let all Oz be agreed;
                          I need a better class of flying monkeys.

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                          • #14
                            Excuses, Excuses...

                            Originally posted by Caliban View Post
                            That is discounted by the pyjama top that was in the grave with the torso (The matching pants for which were found with Crippen's clothing in an upstairs room) The suppliers for them - there was a label in them - only sold them from 1906, the year after the Crippens moved in. He did it .
                            Thanks, Caliban. I have no doubt that Crippen murdered at least one person & maybe more- I sure hope you didn't think I was serious when I said "maybe the body was already there when he moved in" -!

                            Retarded as it is, it's actually a REAL excuse a Serial Murderer gave when the police started digging up bodies in his house & garden. (Might have been Fred West; can't recall.)

                            That excuse was so incredibly bizarre & so absurd that it stuck in my head. Makes the old "my dog ate my homework" line look quite sophisticated, doesn't it?

                            But I don't understand why Crippen even has a lawyer when he's been dead so long- is this case De Stefano's personal crusade? He has a video on YouTube that's only a few minutes long; I tried to watch it, but the guy is such an excruciating drip I only lasted about 2-1/2 minutes before I screamed & hit the Stop button. He didn't really say anything anyway.
                            Best regard, Archaic

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                            • #15
                              From what I understand, De Stefano's attempts to get Crippen a pardon coincided with Michigan State University's original test results. ie that the remains in the cellar were not those of Cora Crippen (based on the preliminary DNA results excluding the supposed great half-nieces of being maternally related to Cora). When the MSU team revealed that further testing proved male DNA in the tissue sample, De Stefano was either approached by, or he himself contacted, the great nephew of Dr. Crippen, and it is this nephew, with De Stefano, who is pushing to have the remains returned to Michigan for burial. Reburial of the remains was never to my knowledge a part of the initial attempts to give Crippen a postmortem pardon.

                              This whole thing started off as Trestrail's crusade, not De Stefano's. It was Trestrail who always believed Crippen was innocent and it was he who hired his friend Beth Wills to do the genealogy and convinved MSU to do the testing based on her discovery of who she claims are living blood descendants. And when you read De Stefano's letter to the Home Dept., he says "Dr. Trestrail has asked us specifically to provide you with the University of Michigan website" etc. Which may indicate Trestrail recruited De Stefano as well.

                              JM
                              Last edited by jmenges; 06-20-2009, 07:15 AM.

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