The Crime Book

216

See also: Lizzie Borden 208–11 ■ O.J. Simpson 246–51

I

n February 1910, music hall

singer Cora Crippen vanished.

The wife of Dr H.H. Crippen,

she was last seen at a small party

at their home on 31 January.

Asked about Cora’s whereabouts,

Dr Crippen said that she had

returned to the US, their birth

country, and died unexpectedly.

Cora’s friends were suspicious, and

convinced London’s Scotland Yard

to investigate. When interviewed,

Crippen admitted that his wife had

not died; rather she had left for the

US with her lover, Bruce Miller. He

had lied out of embarrassment.

On the run

A few days later, Crippen fled with

his young mistress Ethel La Neve,

who was disguised as his son.

They boarded the SS Montrose,

destined for Canada. The police

searched his home and discovered

a human torso – head and limbs

missing – under the cellar floor. A

pathologist was unable to identify

the sex of the body, but concluded

that it was Cora’s, based on a scar

she was said to have. The body also

featured traces of a poison that

Crippen had bought shortly before

his wife’s disappearance.

Meanwhile, the ship’s captain,

who had been following the case,

spotted the couple on board and

sent a wireless telegraph to

England to alert the authorities.

British police caught a faster ship

to Quebec and arrested the couple

on their arrival. Crippen was found

guilty of his wife’s murder and

hanged in November 1910. ■

IN CONTEXT

LOCATION

London, UK

THEME

Uxoricide (wife killing)

BEFORE

29 bce In an attack of intense

jealousy stirred by his sister,

Herod the Great, King of Judea,

kills his beloved second wife

and members of her family.

1871 In London, scholar and

translator the Reverend John

Selby Watson kills his wife

by beating her over the head

with the butt of a pistol.

AFTER

1935 London doctor Buck

Ruxton strangles his partner

and kills the maid who sees

him do it. The bodies are

dismembered before he travels

by car to a Scottish ravine to

dispose of the remains.

2002 American Scott Peterson

murders his pregnant wife. He

is later convicted for her death,

and that of their unborn son.

THANK GOD IT’S OVER.

THE SUSPENSE HAS

BEEN TOO GREAT

DR CRIPPEN, 1910

Crippen and La Neve stood trial

together. She was acquitted, and he

protested his innocence to the end. In

2007, DNA tests on “Cora’s” remains

suggested the victim was male.

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217

See also: Phoolan Devi 46–47 ■ O.J. Simpson 246–51

G

aston Calmette’s Le Figaro

was not the only Paris

newspaper with doubts

over the integrity of Joseph

Caillaux. The left-wing politician

(and former French prime minister)

was dogged by allegations of

corruption. But no other journal

could match the zeal shown by

Le Figaro’s right-wing editor, who

led a smear campaign against him.

In December 1913, Calmette

threatened to publish love letters

exchanged between Caillaux and

his second wife, Henriette, while

he was still married to his first wife.

On 16 March 1914, Henriette went

to the newspaper’s offices and shot

Calmette six times; he died later.

During her testimony at her

trial, Henriette Caillaux skilfully

evoked the prevailing image of a

woman as a creature of emotions.

The all-male jury was convinced

that she had shot Calmette without

premeditation or criminal intent –

that when she pulled the trigger on

the Browning pistol she was a

temporary victim of “unbridled

female passions”. Perhaps her crime

had, in fact, been an act of “passive

aggression” against a potentially

restless husband. It certainly

stalled Caillaux’s public career,

and quashed any realistic chance

of a life beyond his marriage to the

woman who claimed to have risked

all to restore his reputation. ■

MURDER CASES

I WAS DRIVEN BY

A WILL THAT HAD

TAKEN THE PLACE

OF MY OWN

MADAME CAILLAUX, 1914

IN CONTEXT

LOCATION

Paris, France

THEME

Crime of passion

BEFORE

1859 US politician Daniel

Sickles shoots dead his wife’s

lover. He stands trial, but is

acquitted on grounds of

“temporary insanity”.

1906 Albert Lemaître, a

French racing driver, shoots

his wife after she files for

divorce. After an unsuccessful

attempt at suicide, he is tried

and acquitted of what is

deemed a crime of passion.

AFTER

1955 London nightclub

hostess Ruth Ellis shoots and

kills her faithless lover. Her

family unsuccessfully attempt

to have her murder conviction

reduced to manslaughter on

the grounds of provocation.

She is the last woman in

England to be executed.

Henriette shot Calmette at point

blank range. Afterwards, she told

police: “Since there is no more justice

in France... I resolved that I alone

would be able to stop this campaign.”

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