ABSTRACT
On 15 July 1910 the front page of every major London daily featured the grisly discovery of a filleted human torso buried in the coal cellar of a North London suburban home. The remains were presumed to be those of Cora Crippen, last seen at the end of January. After she disappeared, her husband, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen, had earlier notified her friends, first, that she had been called to the United States on family business, then, that she had been taken ill, and finally, that she had died in California shortly before Easter. However, inconsistencies in Crippen’s stories raised suspicions which only escalated when Crippen’s typist, Ethel Le Neve, began to accompany him to social events - wearing Cora’s jewellery - and soon moved into the Crippen home at 39 Hilldrop Crescent. Cora’s friends went to Scotland Yard. When Chief Inspector Walter Dew interviewed Crippen, Crippen admitted that he had lied. His wife had left him for another man, he said, and he had made up the story to avoid the embarrassment of scandal. Dew was largely satisfied, but shortly returned to clarify a few small points. He found, first, that Crippen and Le Neve had fled, and second, the decomposing human remains in the coal cellar.1
