DNA Proves Crippen Innocent

[DVV]

Some say Gilles de Rais and Báthory were innocent too.
Idle.
Modern.
Zimbelo...

[Bridewell]

You would have thought so! There's also the little matter of what did happen to his wife if he didn't kill her - and why he fled the country.

[Ginger]

Crippen may be innocent of the exact crime for which he was hanged, but this still leaves him with a mutilated corpse full of poison buried in his basement, and wrapped in his pyjama top. If there were an innocent explanation for this, I think he might have mentioned it during the trial.

[ukranianphil]

I think he was INNOCENT.
The police was under great pressure, and would Crippen be so stupid to take the time to cut up a body, then wrap it in a pair of pajamas, with a receipt in the pocket?
I think old Walter Dew needed a result and fitted him up good and proper.

It was a very good documentary and raised a lot of good questions.

[belinda]

Re Crippen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIFY9h8DImg

[louisa]

Hi again.

The part about sending the Administrator an email with the title A6 Permission? I've done that.....twice.

Maybe once I've made 100 posts then I'll go up a rank and be allowed in.

However, it seems as though the discussion about the A6 has gone off the boil now.

[louisa]

Thanks Jeff

I'll take a look.

[Mayerling]

I just took a look. Apparently Hanratty's Case raises dander to this day, and you do need special permission from the Administrator to post on it. When you next check out the entire thread for the A6 Murder, the topmost sub-thread explains this. Follow those rules.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Hi Louisa,

I really don't understand that. Contact the administrator to see what is the problem.

Good luck.

Jeff

[louisa]

Hi Jeff

I've just attempted to post on the A6 thread and a box came up with this message:

louisa, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

1.Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
2.If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

[Mayerling]

Hi Louisa,

I never heard that you had to have the rank of Superintendent on this board to post on it. Double check it out but I am sure you can post on it as a constable.

Jeff

[louisa]

Hi Caz

I've read every single post on the A6 thread and I still stand by what I said in my above post.

The A6 thread was the reason I joined these forums but unfortunately I'm not yet qualified to post on it. I think I need to achieve the rank of Superintendent - or something?

[caz]

Wrong thread, Louisa.

Check out the A6 thread and you will find little factual support for what you are claiming here about the handling, storage, testing and disposal of the vital material evidence in the case.

Sometimes, despite the worries about DNA evidence in general, there is no reasonable way round what it shows - or doesn't show.

Love,

Caz
X

[louisa]

The Crippen murder could have received sympathy from the public because it was a love story, and people had drab lives, especially in those days. However, everything points to his guilt.

I have read that there is no scientist in the world could can say that DNA testing is 100% foolproof.

With reference to the Hanratty case, in 1961 DNA testing had not been heard of. All the items from the victim and from Hanratty were stored together in the same box. (There is even a photo on Getty Images of a policeman carrying Michael Gregsten's holdall and Hanratty's pigskin case in the same hand). Nothing was kept separate. A small piece of the victim's (Valerie Storie) underwear was analysed for DNA. Just a piece. What happened to rest of the garment? This could have contained DNA from the other suspect - Peter Louis Alphon.

[Mayerling]

From my own point of view:

DNA testing is currently in it's infancy, and I believe some mistakes have been made against trial defendants and for convicted prisoners. Also those screaming loudest for it frequently scream against the results when they tend to support the results of a criminal trial (i.e. the DNA testing a couple o years ago regarding James Hanratty's A6 Murder coniction. It proved that Hanratty did it, and now the people who clamored for it - and were shocked when the result was not what they wanted - are screaming the police did something to hurt the results of the testing!).

Crippen is one of that small group of sympathetic killers whose victims are unlikeable (or so we are told). He was (on a personal level) a nice guy who killed his wife (how ironic to say that). But Belle, bossy towards Hawley, and frequently having affairs right in front of him, was well liked by the women who worked with her in her charity work. Hawley, by the way, was perfectly capable of being less than careful about the health of others. He did sell patent medicines and ran some "questionable" health "clinics" - one for ear problems was actually the subject of a newspaper expose. He could be quite callous in pursuit of an income.

There is only one killing that has ever been really tied to Crippen - Belle once did a bit of scab work during a strike of music hall artists in 1906 or so. It did not hurt her with her fellow music hall friends because she was so awful the public would leave the theatre rather than hear her vocalize. But one of her scabs at the theatre was a has-been music hall performer and actor named Weldon Atherston. Atherston was killed in an unsolved murder in a flat in Battersea in July 1910, the week Crippen fled with Ethel, and the police discoveriesss broke the case to a fascinated public.

Jeff