Crippen Documentary 1 July 2008

[joelhall]

Fair enough, Joel. "Suggests grounds for a pardon" is fine - "Gives grounds for a pardon" is a different matter

touche

and im usually so pedantic over these things

joel

[Celesta]

OK me too- But I did think the programme was quite interesting and sort of made me feel a little happier about HHC being innocent...seriously complicated and I just can't help but think that B.Spilsbury may have just have been wrong.......but who was the fellow in the cellar?? and where did Walter Dew fit in??????

Suz x

Hello Suzi again,

The reason Cora didn't come forward is that she knew that the body parts found, were not only not those of a murdered woman, but those of a male, with whom, she had once had a personal relationship, or were those of a male whom her lover fell foul of. She either put them there herself or assisted someone else in putting them there. She couldn't come forward because then someone would have to explain whose bones those were. Since the body parts were buried, I hesitate to suggest that she was trying to frame Crippen, but coming forward would raise all kinds of questions. She stayed away and kept her mouth shut. Alternatively, who's to say that she was not later done away by her lover, as well, esp. if he was the killer and she just an accomplice. Of course, I have no evidence whatsoever for this theory.

[joelhall]

Hello Suzi again,

The reason Cora didn't come forward is that she knew that the body parts found, were not only not those of a murdered woman, but those of a male, with whom, she had once had a personal relationship, or were those of a male whom her lover fell foul of. She either put them there herself or assisted someone else in putting them there. She couldn't come forward because then someone would have to explain whose bones those were. Since the body parts were buried, I hesitate to suggest that she was trying to frame Crippen, but coming forward would raise all kinds of questions. She stayed away and kept her mouth shut. Alternatively, who's to say that she was not later done away by her lover, as well, esp. if he was the killer and she just an accomplice. Of course, I have no evidence whatsoever for this theory.

perhaps she fit him up due to his affair.

[dougie]

I think perhaps MAria might have something to say about this? after all spillsbury is an ancestor of hers.Didnt spillsbury, by the way identify crippens wife s remains from a scar on her stomach?I doubt whether there is any substance in these claims myself....seems questionable to put it mildly.
regards

[Ash]

I think to be honest, for all the programme's hyperbole about "it has now been proven that...", the best that can actually be said is:

IF there is a clear chain of transfer which proves that the slides in the London Hospital are the genuine slides from the case (it wouldn't be the first time a museum had been sold a pup, after all,)

AND IF it can be shown that the DNA on those slides has not been contaminated

AND IF it can be proven that all the body parts in that cellar came from a single body

AND IF the DNA test findings are correct and can be verified by other experts in the field, and can be reproduced and backed up by getting the same results by testing the remaining slides

THEN what has been provided would probably be enough, under current conditions, to introduce a reasonable doubt and thus not convict. Which isn't the same as saying that he didn't do it.

[Bob Hinton]

Crippen

I have always felt immensely sorry for Crippen as his haridan of a wife certainly deserved her fate.

However watching the programme last night the question that came to me was 'Can you prove that the slides contain the material taken from the cellar? It wouldn't be the first time that something has been mislabelled.

I remember watching the TV morning news a long time ago and there was an item about Christies auctioning the pistol that Madame Fahmy used to shoot her husband. As soon as I saw it I realised they had the wrong pistol. I rang Christies up and they said they were sure it was the right one as it had the official police label still attached. When I told them what was written on the label they took me seriously.

Later that day they announced that the pistol that 'possibly' was the one used in the Fahmy murder was being sold!

[Ash]

I have always felt immensely sorry for Crippen as his haridan of a wife certainly deserved her fate.

Hmmm, remind me never to piss you off Mr Hinton! I think I might have explored a few divorce options before going down the poisoning and chopping the body into oxo cubes route.

[Simon Owen]

The most damning evidence against Crippen is that he ran - first of all to Brussels and then he made an attempt to escape to Canada. Not just running either , he deliberately attempted to disguise himself by shaving off his moustache. Ethel Le Neve dressed as a boy as well. Crippen didn't want to be found by the police , that much is certain.

This suggests guilt to me , and I'm sure it would have suggested guilt to the jurors at the trial as well.

Another thing that the programme could not explain is - what happened to Cora Crippen if she wasn't murdered ? Why did she not come forward to proclaim that her husband was innocent ? This case was a celebrated one on both sides of the Atlantic , and all she would have had to do was walk into a police station or newspaper office and that would have been the end of it.

To suggest the police might have planted the body parts in the cellar was ridiculous , what if Cora Crippen had actually turned up alive ? Crippen was a nobody and I don't see why there would have been a lot of pressure to get a conviction in this case on the part of the police , above the norm I mean. To suggest Inspector Dew wanted to become a celebrity or something seems absurb , the case only really became a cause celebré due to the way Crippen tried to escape and was caught.

I believe Crippen ran because he knew there was incriminating evidence against him in the house at Hilldrop Crescent , and with the police arriving at his door to ask questions about the disappearance of his wife it was only a matter of time before he was caught.

If the body parts in the cellar were male then the most likely scenario , I believe , is that Crippen murdered both Cora and a male lover , and had to use the cellar to dispose of some of the remains.

[Simon Owen]

Another fact about the case is that the body in the cellar had been poisoned with hyoscine/scopolamine , and that this was a drug that Crippen had in his possession.

[anna]

Thank you Simon,top man.
It is so obvious that Crippen was a guilty as hell of doing something,to suggest otherwise is ludicrous.
Yes,he did run,not because he was worried of being framed,but because he was guilty.
The programme for me selected facts to fit their purpose.
It is obvious also that the body would be the lover.I think Cora and Crippen were in it together,she tries to double cross him and does a runner.Perhaps her lover had money they pursuade him to part with,for some scheme or other.Then set about murdering him and covering it up.Cora tries to double cross Crippen by trying to empty the bank account instead of half each.An idea not too far away from Celesta's.
There is actually a famous Victorian case of 1849,which would have been very well known to people of this generation.It even had street balads made of it.A few details differ,but basically they mirror each other.
The programme for me went into la-la land when they produced these body parts as unidentified male body parts,when the investigator would have naturally suspected them of being the lover.But that,of course,would made their case "wobbly".
This programme did absolutely nothing to pursuade me of Crippen's innocence.
All it did was to confirm for me Cora's involvement, by a family that has enough money to manouver facts,to try to get their family name cleared.
Which I hope this country will have the SENSE to see through.
Bob,with reference to Maria.....that explains a lot!!!Oh boy,oh boy...I can't wait for her reply...this thread is gonna rock!!!!!!!!

[anna]

By the way,welcome to the boards Simon.

[Suzi]

Spilsbury's descendant is remarkably quiet........

[Kelly]

If that DNA is male, then perhaps Cora was a man?!

[joelhall]

regardless of any personal opinions, this now puts one of the bases of his conviction into doubt. it does not prove innocence, though we do not live in a country where innocence is what needs to be proved, but guilt.

and this throws up some doubts as to how secure the prosecutions case was. if this were a modern case, and the remains of a male had been used to prove the murder of a female, the judge would dismiss this line of evidence as inadmissible.

this leaves us with circumstance only, and it will need to be the job of the pardons committee to study this to see if there is enough to uphold the conviction.

joel

[jmenges]

Hi.

I'll be able to watch the documentary later today and so may be posting more comments. I do want to say a few things (some of which has been said before above by Hinton and Owen) that we must keep in mind when judging this evidence produced by Michigan State University.

First, on the origin of the tests.

John Trestrail was well know by colleagues and friends for years to have believed, on a hunch, that Crippen was innocent of the murder of his wife. It was a pet theory of his. One of his friends who was aware of his bias for Crippen was amateur-hobbiest genealogist Beth Wills. Trestrail literally had to beg Ms. Wills to look into the genealogy of Cora Crippen. When Wills did this, she was unable to solidly trace Cora back to her birth parents. No record of the marriage of her parents nor birth certificate was ever located. Dispite this lack of genealogical evidence, David Foran (who likes to call his forensic science labratory at MSU CSI: East Lansing) agreed to do the tests and acquired one of a few slides that exist from the case. The DNA, as we all should know, was tested on great half-nieces of Cora's second family, supposedly from her birth mother's remarriage.

This whole investigation was biased in seeking Trestrail's favored results from the very beginning, starting with the very selection of his "team".

The slides.

I have little doubt that the slides are genuine and from the body found at Hilldrop Crescent. Crippen covered the remains in lime and while the body was still exposed in its grave, it was doused repeatedly by the police with industrial grade disinfectant to combat the smell. The remains that made up the slide were then soaked in formaldehyde and coated with pine tar to seal the slide. Foran had to crack through the slide's glass and scrape away the pine tar in order to get at the flesh sample.

Their conclusions.

As has been alluded to in this thread, and as I had written in my article for Ripper Notes, instead of producing a white paper on their results, the group at CSI: East Lansing instead put out a press release and a website, with a downloadable pdf of a magazine (probably in violation of the publications copyright) and streaming audio interviews with themselves. At no time has the group from MSU said they were intending to release a white paper on their study or have their results peer reviewed. They have also never come forward to say whether or not their tests had been replicated (a condition when proving exclusion in MtDNA tests) nor have they said whether or not their lab followed proper procedure in conducting the tests (like having the cleanliness of their lab examined by a non-interested party). Contamination by the lab itself is the most important and most occurring issue when dealing with MtDNA testing and those results throwing up false negatives. MtDNA is used for exclusion purposes only.

As far as the remains being male, recall that, although the gender could not be determined from sex organs, there was a substantial amount of long hair (matching Cora's) found in the grave with Cora's hair rollers and pajamas. Obviously, if the police were going to plant a body, one would think that they would plant a female body.

And finally, for now, I dispute the notion that Cora could have committed the murder at Hilldrop Crescent since she did not possess the surgical skill displayed by the killer.

JM