Saturday, January 12, 2008

How innocent was Dr. Crippen?

The Guardian reports that the dismembered body found in Dr. Hawley Crippen's coal cellar in 1910 was not that of his wife, Cora; so saith the DNA evidence. Here's the BBC account.

Was Crippen hanged, then, for murdering someone who wasn't even dead? Whose body was it? Who dismembered it and buried it in Crippen's cellar? What prompted Crippen and his mistress to flee England in disguise? And will the next edition of Erik Larson's fascinating best seller Thunderstruck, about Crippen and Marconi, include a new epilogue addressing the DNA claim?

One theory: Crippen was an abortionist, and the body was a customer whose procedure had gone horribly wrong.

No comments: