Hallie Rubenhold

There are all sorts of statistics that show, you know, that women listen to true crime podcasts, they read true crime books and watch documentaries.

There is a desire to actually see who this type of person is and how we can avoid them.

Well, first of all, I call her Belle Elmore in my book because that's how she chose to be known.

Her name was Cora Crippen.

She had a number of different names.

She changed her name throughout her life.

Her stage name was Belle Elmore, and that's how her friends knew her, and that's how she wanted to be remembered.

I think she's quite an extraordinary person, really.

She was born to immigrant parents into a kind of Polish-German family in Brooklyn.

in the 1880s and grew up in a tenement and got a pretty good education, education for Americans at that time, much better than what was available here.

And so she grew up and at about the age of 16, 17, went to work and worked as a domestic servant.

And we don't know exactly what happened

But she ended up getting pregnant by the man who employed her.

And his wife at the time was in an insane asylum.

He had put her there.

So God knows he has an interesting past with women.

Belle ended up having an abortion.

And her abortion doctor...

and abortion was illegal at the time, was actually Dr. Crippen and a colleague of his.

And weirdly, the relationship between them blossomed from there.