True Crime

[freddydingo]

I was just wondering, is the idea that DeSalvo didn't do it more of a fringe thing or does it have actual merit?

I think it's got a lot of merit, personally, based on reading these books I've heard that he confessed in the hopes he could make money for his family from selling his story, but he was never convicted of or charged with the killings and in fact many of the details of his confession were inaccurate.

[bklynred]

Holy crap, freddydingo, I'm having nightmares from your link font alone. Welcome, btw.

[Deleted]

Freddydingo, thanks for the info! I thought it was pretty interesting and I'll have to look into those books.

[freddydingo]

Crippen didn't do it! But, then, whose body was under the house?

[sugaree]

The theory that he was doing illegal abortions and the body belonged to a patient is reasonable. But where did Cora go? The Crippen case got OJ-level publicity. If Cora were alive anywhere, she would have heard about her supposed murder. How heartless could she be to let him be found guilty and executed? And why would Crippen go on the run?

Also, is there a possibility that her tissue sample was mislabeled, or that there was a hushed-up adoption somewhere along the way and her supposed great-nieces were not in fact her genetic relatives?

The biggest mystery remains. Where was the rest of the body?

[Shanmac]

That's fascinating -- I had never heard of the Crippen case before. I wonder if it was her, if the sample was mislabeled, or if he was telling the truth. Such a mystery -- how frustrating!

[livviebway]

The body was found with no bones Yeesh!!

[cantienne]

Surely he must have had something to do with his wife's death - if she was still alive, it seems like either she or someone who knew her would have come forward, and she wouldn't have had a reason to conceal her identity. Plus, why would he have been nervous enough to make a run for it? The trial presented evidence for how he disposed of her body parts - so were they hers, or the unnamed basement woman's? Weird.

[ennui]

cantienne said:

Surely he must have had something to do with his wife's death - if she was still alive, it seems like either she or someone who knew her would have come forward, and she wouldn't have had a reason to conceal her identity. Plus, why would he have been nervous enough to make a run for it?

Maybe the wife was afraid of him. That would be a good reason to hide. I think it was a lot easier to hide and create a new identity in those days.

I can understand him running -- it was 1910, and he could see how this was going to go.

[sugaree]

From what I've read, the police made the most perfunctory interview of him. Cora's friends were concerned and suspicious about her disappearance and went to the police. The police dropped in on Crip and asked a few questions, filed a report, but really weren't all that worried. They thought it was just another runaway wife until they learned that Crippen had r-u-n-n-o-f-t. That's when they searched his house and found the bits of body.

If Crippen had killed his wife, yeah, sure, he's going to freak out when the police drop by and shoot him a few casual questions. Then I'm thinking that if Crippen had killed or disposed of somebody else, and his wife knew about it or had helped him, and he knew she was out there alive, he would have freaked and ran. In either case, he'd think the police knew and cared more than they did.

There's a lot of stories about how he disposed of the body, but if Ethel Le Neve wasn't in on it and he maintained his innocence, where did the stories come from? The partial body in the basement makes no sense at all. Why keep a deboned torso after successfully getting rid of arms, legs, head, and skeleton? Unless he was one sick SOB who liked a particular kind of souvenir, in which case Crippen might be a serial killer who got away with it.