On this
day in 1910 Dr Crippen, the first criminal to be apprehended using wireless
communications, was sentenced to death. Crippen, in reality not a doctor but a
salesman of homoeopathic medicine is thought to have poisoned his wife and
burred her in quicklime under his cellar before moving his lover in to his
house. The police were first allerted to the fact that something was amiss by a
famed circus strong woman known as Vulcana who was a friend of Crippen's wife.
Since the verdict, and Crippen's execution, several people have expressed their
doubts about Dr Crippen's guilt including Raymond Chandler who thought it was
odd that Crippen would take care to dispose of his wifes head, arms and legs but
preserve her torso in the cellar (this could be explained by the quicklime
getting wet and becoming slaked lime which acts as a preservative). Recent DNA
evidence has also thrown doubt on whether the remains found were that of
Crippen's wife, however as Crippen's lover claimed in the 1930s that he had told
her he killed his wife, I'm willing to bet that any discrepency in the DNA is
due to contamination of the sample, which was never kept under sterile
conditions by Scotland Yard.
And now
the news:
Here's a related song by the author Robert
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