This audience member came to see us at Hailsham Library in July 2024 and suggested we write song based on the story of a famous murderer who lived in a house where she once (later) lived but could not remember his name. Later she emailed us the details:
Of course I remembered the (spurious homeopath(?) who buried his murdered wife ( poisoned and cut into pieces) under the cellar floor (early in 1910) where I once lived at Hilldrop Crescent Islington …it was Doctor Crippen!!!He said the wife had moved to America..then his girlfriend moved in and used to wear his wife’s clothes and jewellery…Dew was the name of the chief inspector who, after lots of fruitless searches believed Crippen was innocent..but they panicked, disguised her as a boy and after going to Europe they sailed to Canada…The NEW radio telegraph was used to apprehend them because someone realised the character in first class on board was a girl and used the ships telegraph. Dew got ahead on a faster ship(!) and entered their ship to arrest them..Apparently if he’d gone to America he might not have been extradited and subsequently hung at Pentonville Gaol (..Nov 1910) but Canada was still in ‘ British’ hands!!Pretty colourful because his wife (Cora) was a failed music hall singer (called Belle Elmore) and Ethel Le Neve( his girlfriend) was a young typist. The jury took just 27 mins for their verdict..she was aquitted..her picture was placed with his remains and she lived until 1967..If you check it out this story it has lots of fascinating details e.g.bits of the victims skin and pieces of his pyjamas ..I think they came from John Lewis which I used to frequent, nearby on Holloway Road!!!
More details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawley_Harvey_Crippen
IMAGE:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dewcrippen.jpg
See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons