Crippen Documentary 1 July 2008

[joelhall]

Hi.


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

surgical skill? what skill exactly?

[Celesta]

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.

Which is why I wondered earlier if they might have missed something in the cellar. IE a second set of bones. The alternative, in my mind, was that Cora was not dead, and there would have had to be a strong reason for her not to come forward, when she heard of his arrest. That event was in the press in a very obvious way. One reason might have been that she was involved in some dramatic way in those bones being placed in the cellar.

[jmenges]

surgical skill? what skill exactly?

Well, for starts, lets take the removal of the sex organs (breasts and genitals). This was done with one single cut from the top of her torso down to below the abdomen. She was literally filleted. The entire front of her body was removed in one piece.

JM

[joelhall]

i was to understand there was a very small amount of physical remains found? where is this neatly cut torso?

if it was a male set of remains, how could female sex organs be removed?

[jmenges]

Well, it wasn't male remains. I'm sorry to disappoint, but those remains were of Cora Crippen, victim of domestic violence.

There was a substantial amount of flesh found, but most had rotted into a sludge. The piece that contained the scar was from the side of her lower abdomen that stretched towards her groin and had the start of her public hairs.

JM

[jmenges]

I'm posting from memory, let me grab my Filson Young and I'll give the transcript about the surgical skill and how they determined how the body was dissected.

JM

[joelhall]

Well, it wasn't male remains. I'm sorry to disappoint, but those remains were of Cora Crippen, victim of domestic violence.

There was a substantial amount of flesh found, but most had rotted into a sludge. The piece that contained the scar was from the side of her lower abdomen that stretched towards her groin and had the start of her public hairs.

JM

you can prove this i suppose? the testing done shows this was male tissue. where is your evidence that this was definitely coras body, as there is now room for doubting the original evidence?

sludge is something you couldnt get 'surgical skill' from. the abdominal scarring was told in court to belong to an operation shed been known to have had. how often have you heard of scar-tissue forming post-mortem? what about decomposing remains? and follicles do not form on scar tissue.

[jmenges]

the testing done shows this was male tissue.

Have the tests been verified? Replicated? Have the scientists released a white paper? Have they allowed any of their procedures to be analysed by a non-biased party? If not, then Crippen is still guilty. I question the motives of the research group as well as the level of contamination of the specimen.

how often have you heard of scar-tissue forming post-mortem?

I don't follow you here. How often have you heard of scars present on a living body disappearing when its dead?

JM

[jmenges]

Back to surgical skill...

Testimony of Dr. Augustus Joseph Pepper:

Q: Having examined the manner in which the viscera have been extracted from the body, are you able to say whether it was done by a skilled person or not?

A: Yes, it must have been.

Q: You mean the extraction from the body?

A: The removal of viscera from the body. It has been done by person skilled in removing viscera.

Q: That is dissection, I suppose?

A: Dissection.

Q: Of human beings?

A: Well, I would not like to go as far as that, but certainly in evisceration of animals. There is no cut or tear in any part except where necessary for the removal. It was removed all in one piece. All the organs I have described were connected together, and the diaphragm or the septum between the chest and abdomen had been cut round. In my opinion that would certainly require skill. There were no organs of generation there at all. It is quite likely that some of them may have been removed in life. The scar which I saw would be in that position if an operation was performed for the purpose of removing some of the organs of generation- the pelvic organs, the ovaries or the uterus, or all combined.

p49 N.T.S. Trial of HH Crippen Filson Young, ed.

JM

[anna]

Maria is in the pub at the moment! -
obviously feels there's no need to defend her ancestor.
We shall see!

[Sox]

regardless of any personal opinions, this now puts one of the bases of his conviction into doubt.

Nope, sorry but it doesnt. Trial by media is not evidence, all the claims that this programme made were either un-substantiated or un-corroborated.

Ever seen Crippens display at Tussauds in London? It is one of the few remaining waxwork figures that actually wears the clothes that the subject was executed in, left to Tussauds, for display in the Chamber of Horrors, by Crippen himself.

There was a school of thought, at the time, that the reason Crippen did not confess was for the same reason he remained tight lipped after his arrest - he did not want to incriminate his mistress, Ethel Le Neve, in the murder. I found the claim that Police 'fitted him up' because of their failure to catch the Ripper, just plain ludicrous to be honest.

[jason_c]

Nope, sorry but it doesnt. Trial by media is not evidence, all the claims that this programme made were either un-substantiated or un-corroborated.

Ever seen Crippens display at Tussauds in London? It is one of the few remaining waxwork figures that actually wears the clothes that the subject was executed in, left to Tussauds, for display in the Chamber of Horrors, by Crippen himself.

There was a school of thought, at the time, that the reason Crippen did not confess was for the same reason he remained tight lipped after his arrest - he did not want to incriminate his mistress, Ethel Le Neve, in the murder. I found the claim that Police 'fitted him up' because of their failure to catch the Ripper, just plain ludicrous to be honest.

There use of a memo from Churchill was a bit lame in my opinion. Any student of history knows Churchill was a "hands on" politician. The thought that he wouldnt wish to be kept up to date with events surrounding such a high profile case almost belies belief.

[Lord Buckley]

Poison is usually used to simulate natural death. So why hack up Cora's body in the first place?

poison would have been found in the body in the post mortem

[Lord Buckley]

wikipedia says "In 1981, Hugh Rhys Rankin claimed to have met Ethel le Neve in 1930 in Australia. On that occasion, she is said to have told him that Crippen murdered his wife because she had syphilis."

i would agree with the poster that said crippen running away suggests guilt

[Chris]

I thought the documentary seemed superficially convincing, though on consideration some of the arguments against Crippen's guilt were certainly spurious. If Trestrail thinks no murderer would have concealed a corpse (or body parts) close to his living quarters, he's obviously not familiar with the Christie case!

Surely the crux of the matter is the reliability of the DNA analysis. That's impossible for the layman to judge, certainly from the evidence I've seen. So if Trestrail and his colleagues are serious about this, surely the priority should be to have these findings confirmed by another laboratory.

One thing I'm curious about is the genealogical evidence. Maybe Jonathan can comment further on this. Is there real doubt as to whether the supposed great nieces shared the matrilineal descent of Cora Crippen? If so, that would make the DNA evidence presented last year worthless, and everything would hang on the reliability of the technique used to determine the sex of the body.