Chapter 1: What is the background of the Crippen case?
I'm Alice Levine. And I'm Matt Ford. And this is British Scandal, an Audible original.
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So Matt, in summary, we've met Dr Crippen, found a corpse, followed him and his typist over the Atlantic, heard him deny murdering his wife, and then he got hanged. What have you learnt?
Oh, a number of things. Stick with the NHS, stick with my wife, stick with my natural teeth.
And are you an all-time stan of Inspector Dew?
I do question some of his choices. I mean, dressing up as Sherlock Holmes while undercover on a boat wasn't his greatest moment. But all things considered, he caught Crippen. Yes, I'm a fan.
A shining star in the force. But telling the story, I think you will agree, opened up a lot of questions, not a straightforward one. One of them being, are we 100% sure that Crippen actually did it? Was Du right? So I thought we could enlist an expert who knows this story probably better than anyone else in the whole world. We're speaking to historian and author Hallie Rubenhold after this.
So I have to ask, what got you interested in the Crippen case in the first place?
Well, it's such an interesting story. And it occurred just at this time in both the history of Britain and the United States, where everything was really sort of at this point of change.
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Chapter 2: Why does historian Hallie Rubenhold believe Crippen is guilty?
I know why people say, oh, well, there is some doubt. This is because in 1920, Alexander Bell Filson Young wrote an introductory essay to the trial transcripts of the Crippen trial. And he made Bell Elmore into this monster.
And he turned Crippen and Ethel into these kind of poor, pathetic characters and suggests that Crippen was driven to kill his wife because he was such a nice man and a nice man couldn't have done this. Alexander Belfieldson Young was an extraordinary misogynist.
And stated before he even wrote this, and this was, I mean, in 1910, when they were fleeing on the Montrose, that no matter what Crippen and Ethel had done, their love was the most important thing and should be respected. Killing another human being was less important than romantic love. This is the position that he's coming from. So he invents love.
this absurd notion that Crippen was bullied by his wife, which he wasn't, every single thing that was written from that point on referenced Filson Young's story and built a fiction on top of this that he was somehow this little harmless man And his wife was this terrible, shrewish, unfaithful alcoholic. I have done four years of research and I have had absolutely no evidence of any of this.
And to the contrary, I have found tons of evidence that Crippen was a fraudster, was a practiced conman and a criminal and highly capable of killing his wife.
And what do you think it tells us about wider society, that rewriting of the narrative and the eagerness of people to accept it?
Because people want to believe that women push men to kill them. And really, that has been with us from the beginning of time. People want to believe that Eve was the one who tempted Adam. Women make men do terrible things. Well, I don't think so. I think we're all human beings and men are completely capable of making their own decisions. They don't need women to tempt them into things.
And so this is just something that plays out really well. And unfortunately, a lot of people have bought into this because people don't question true crime. A crime that happened in the past is a historical event and should be interrogated as a historical event. You know, it's not just a good story to tell.
So you think it's, as well as the sort of underlying misogyny, that there's an issue with effectively the genre of true crime creating a sort of illicit thrill around alternative narratives around all sorts of criminal cases?
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Chapter 3: How did Belle Elmore's portrayal affect public perception?
And for... Young women who were of the working class or lower middle class, this was a pretty steady man. And women were looking for steady men because women didn't technically have careers. They weren't supposed to. So they saw Crippen as quite a nice looking meal ticket.
And would that have been an unusual pairing in Edwardian times, a music hall star and a doctor?
Not in the least. In fact, there were many such combinations. When they lived on Store Street, there was another couple who they knew who were also similar in their match. Musical performers could lead completely normal lives. I mean, they...
often led bohemian lives as well and they were noted for that and people were always rather suspicious of performers and their so-called morality as well and the rackety lives that they led. But a lot of them lived in the suburbs like the Cribbins did.
How was Belle portrayed in the media after she disappeared?
Well, she wasn't portrayed in the media after she disappeared. She was portrayed in the media after her remains were uncovered because Scotland Yard was not interested in investigating her disappearance. And in fact, it took her friends at the Musical Ladies Guild months before they could get Inspector Dew interested at all in investigating this case.
Because, you know, here's this musical floozy, as they would think, and God knows what these people get up to. And she's probably run off with somebody or she's gone somewhere and she probably hasn't really disappeared. And then it was down to the Musical Ladies Guild to actually start the investigation. They hired a private investigator. So nobody really cared that she had disappeared.
The media only started to care once her body had been or parts of her body had been uncovered.
The Guild's proactivity is really incredible.
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Chapter 4: What evidence challenges the narrative surrounding Belle Elmore?
So they wouldn't have the added expense of paying for dental bills. If you just have dentures, you don't have to worry about tooth decay.
Easy breezy. Yeah. The guilt of Crippen, as discussed, should be under no question, but should we have any question marks around Ethel?
Oh, we should absolutely have question marks around Ethel. I mean, Ethel was acquitted and her barrister gave the most extraordinary speech about this innocent girl who was seduced by this kind of Svengali and was completely ignorant of everything and was helpless. And, you know, all the evidence pointed to exactly the opposite. I mean, Ethel was absolutely involved in this.
She knew this was going to happen. Crippen bought her an engagement ring, which she hid away and she showed her landlady, Emily Jackson, who she was quite close with. But other than that, she kept it hidden away until the week before... Crippen murdered Bell.
And then she brought it out at her birthday party and showed everybody that she was engaged and she was getting married, but she wouldn't say to whom. But the timing was quite amazing because Crippen at that point was buying the hyacinth hydrobromide. So obviously she knew what was going on. She had this total nervous breakdown about Belle Elmore around the time of her murder.
I have no doubt that she was there. She would not have been there during the poisoning, but she would have been there for the cleanup because Crippen... Couldn't have done it himself and he couldn't have done it in that short span of time. And he would have needed Ethel's help. And there was plenty of evidence of some pretty extreme cleaning going on in the wake of this murder.
You know, the dustmen were all interviewed and said they were taking away piles and piles of ashes, which both Crippen and Ethel were burning in the garden at Hill Drop Crescent. Wowee. Yeah.
Yeah.
What happened to Ethel after the Crippen trial?
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