Week 8 - 7 Dr. Crippen Case

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Do curso por Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Introduction to Forensic Science

505 classificações

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Introduction to Forensic Science

505 classificações

We have all seen forensic scientists in TV shows, but how do they really work? What is the science behind their work? The course aims to explain the scientific principles and techniques behind the work of forensic scientists and will be illustrated with numerous case studies from Singapore and around the world. Some questions which we will attempt to address include: How did forensics come about? What is the role of forensics in police work? Can these methods be used in non-criminal areas? Blood. What is it? How can traces of blood be found and used in evidence? Is DNA chemistry really so powerful? What happens (biologically and chemically) if someone tries to poison me? What happens if I try to poison myself? How can we tell how long someone has been dead? What if they have been dead for a really long time? Can a little piece of a carpet fluff, or a single hair, convict someone? Was Emperor Napoleon murdered by the perfidious British, or killed by his wallpaper? *For Nanyang Technological University (NTU) students, please be noted that this course will no longer be eligible for credit transfer.

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Case Studies

Opinion Poll 50:00

Week 8 - 1 King Richard III Case11:28

Week 8 - 2 Annie Le Case7:11

Week 8 - 3 June Devaney Case4:21

Week 8 - 4 JonBenét Ramsey Case14:30

Week 8 - 5 The Unabomber Case; Psychological Profiling9:19

Week 8 - 6 The Soham Murders Case8:47

Week 8 - 7 Dr. Crippen Case7:20

Conheça os instrutores

Roderick Bates
Associate Professor
Division of Chemistry & Biological Chemistry | School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences

[MUSIC]

Our last case is a very famous case.

It's the case of Dr. Crippen.

One of the reasons I think it's such a famous case,

is perhaps because of his name.

Crippen sounds like a quite spooky name.

But it turns out that Dr. Crippen was a very nice guy, and

just about everybody liked him.

One of the exceptions, one of the people who didn't like him, though, was his wife.

Dr. Crippen was married to a lady called Cora.

Although Crippen was an American, they settled in London.

He was working in a medical related business,

while she wanted to be in the music hall as a singer.

Their marriage started to break up,

and by 1909, Crippen was strongly attracted to his secretary, Ethel Le Neve.

January 31st 1910 was the last day that anyone saw Cora Crippen alive.

Well, Cora had lots of friends, and they asked Crippen, what happened to her,

where's Cora?

And Crippen gave various answers at different times.

He first said that she'd gone to the United States to visit a sick relative.

He said later that she'd gone to Los Angeles and died there.

And finally he came up with the story that she'd run off with another man.

Well, the police conducted investigations.

They interviewed Dr. Crippen,

and clearly the police involvement rattled him because soon after,

Dr. Crippen and Ethel Le Neve disappeared.

With their disappearance, the police searched their house.

And in the basement, when they dug up the basement floor, they found a grave.

The grave contained body parts.

So now, the hunt was on for Dr. Crippen.

It was in all the newspapers.

Where is Dr. Crippen?

Now, in those days, if you wanted to travel from Europe to the Americas,

there was only one way to do it,

and that was by passenger liner across the Atlantic.

One of these passenger liners, the S.S. Montrose, sailing to Canada,

the Captain became suspicious of two of his passengers.

One of these passengers was registered under the name of Mr.

Robinson, and the other passenger claimed to be his son.

Though the son seemed to be more like a girl,

and Mr. Robinson, it was noticed, had a very pale upper lip,

as if he'd just shaved off a thick moustache.

Well, the Captain was suspicious,

but there wasn't much he could do.

But the captain could communicate by wireless telegraphy,

and he sent a message to the police, that he thought Dr. Crippen and

Ethel Le Neve were on board his ship.

Well, the police officer in charge of the case, Inspector Dew, took the tip

and hurried to the port of Liverpool to catch another ship, the Laurentic.

Now, the Laurentic was a much faster ship than the Montrose,

and it was able to overtake the Montrose in

St. Lawrence River. Just got to Canada but hadn't quite docked.

Inspector Dew boarded the Montrose, and the story is

that when he arrest Dr. Crippen, Crippen said, "Thank God it's over."

He was taken back to England and charged with murder.

It's not a crime to cross the Atlantic Ocean under a false name,

and that's not enough to prove murder,

so questions remain.

The question, how was the murder carried out?

Who carried out the murder?

The murder is believed to have been a poisoning.

In those days,

highly toxic substances such as hyoscine, could be bought quite easily,

and Crippen, in January of that year had bought five grains.

That's about 300 miligrams of hyoscine.

In order to buy it, he had signed the poisons book.

When those human remains found in the grave in the house

were chemically analyzed, it was possible to detect hyoscine.

Then is the question,

who was the victim?

Because they did not find a whole body,

they only found body parts, including the torso.

This was one of the cases that made Bernard Spilsbury famous.

Spilsbury examined those body parts and he found, on those parts, an operation scar.

And this was the scar from an operation that had

been carried out on the ovaries of a woman.

Cora Crippen had had just such an operation,

and therefore, Spilsbury concluded that those body parts were from Cora Crippen.

Well, with these questions apparently settled, Dr. Crippen was found guilty of

murder, and he was was hanged on November the 23rd, 1910.

What about Ethel Le Neve?

Well, none of the evidence points to any involvement of her

in the murder of Cora Crippen.

All she had done was pretend to be a boy and take a ship to Canada.

That's not a crime, she was found not guilty.

She acquired a new identity,

acquired a new life,

even married and had children, and

kept her old identity secret, even until she died.

Her children didn't find out her real identity until after her death,

when it had been discovered by an investigating journalist.

And what about Cora Crippen?

The only parts of her ever found were those body parts in the grave.

For instance, Cora Crippen's head was never found.

So, perhaps it's still somewhere, buried in the city of London.

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