← After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal
Loading summary
Transcript74 lines
- [00:00]
Anthony Delaney
Hi, we're your hosts Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling and if you would like After Dark Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal ad free and get early access.
- [00:10]
Maddy Pelling
Sign up to History Hit with a History Hit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every week.
- [00:21]
Anthony Delaney
Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe how many discounts does USAA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi vehicle discount Safe driver Discount New vehicle discount Storage discount How many discounts.
- [00:37]
Holly Fry
Will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com autodiscounts restrictions apply.
- [00:42]
Hallie Rubenhold
This podcast is brought to you by Aura. By the time you hear about a data breach, your information has already been exposed for months. On average, companies take 277 days to report a breach. That's nine months where hackers have access to your personal data. That's why we're thrilled to partner with Aura. Aura is an all in one digital safety solution that monitors the dark web for your phone number, email and Social Security number, sending real time alerts if your info is found. It also includes a vpn, password manager and data broker removal to help keep you safe for a limited time. Aura is offering a 14 day free trial plus a dark web scan to check if your personal information has been leaked, all for free@aura.com safety that's aura.com safety to sign up and protect your loved ones. That's a u r a.com safety terms apply. Check the site for details.
- [01:35]
Holly Fry
Our Skin Tells a Story Join me, Holly Fry, and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:24]
Maddy Pelling
The Atlantic Ocean churned beneath the SS Montrose as it made its way to Canada. Captain Kendall was so far pleased with progress, though there was something that was unsettling him. On board, there was a father and son that had caught his eye. And although Kendall couldn't quite put his finger on it, there was something strange about them. About the way the boy's ill fitting clothes hung to his body. About the affection between the Pair, in fact, they were not father and son at all, but man and woman. Fleeing from Britain, Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen had shaved off his distinctive moustache while his partner, Ethel Laneve, had set aside her usual skirts and ornaments in favour of a boy's garb. Why the disguise? The pair were heading for what they thought was was a new life, their gruesome misdeeds left behind. In London, the authorities outwitted. As the nautical miles sped by, Crippen and Laneve began to relax. They'd gotten away with murder. The killing of Belle Elmore, to be precise. But little did they know. And despite the waves that separated them, the police were already in hot pursuit. As the Canadian coastline lunged into view on the horizon, it promised a freedom close enough to touch. Captain Kendall, though, had other plans. Emerging now through the ocean fog was a faster vessel, the SS Laurentic. On board was Chief Inspector Walter Dew, who'd been tipped off by Kendall, something only made possible through a new technology, the telegraph. Chief Inspector Dhu boarded the Montrose, his eagle eyes scanning the deck until he spotted Crippen. He had his man. As the sea calmed and land grew nearer, Dr. Crippen's world began to collapse. Seeing their game was up, he and Laneve surrendered. And part of them was relieved too. The suspense, Crippen told the inspector had been too great. I couldn't stand it, he said, any longer.
- [05:15]
Anthony Delaney
Hello and welcome to an After Dark that we think you're going to particularly enjoy. My name's Anthony.
- [05:21]
Maddy Pelling
And I'm Maddie.
- [05:23]
Anthony Delaney
And what you just heard there was the moment that Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen was arrested for the murder of Belle Elmore. Now this is the story that caused, I suppose, a sensation across the globe in its time. And it is the subject of today's Guest's brand new book, Story of a Murder. Now, if you've ever done any research, you'll that when you're stuck in books yourself, you find it very difficult to read for pleasure. But when this book came across my desk, it inveigled its way into every moment of my day. I was reading when I should have been researching. So if I'm late with deadlines, we can blame this book. And the guest that's responsible for my potentially late deadline is the utterly brilliant historian and author Hallie Rubenhold, whose work, as you may well know, challenges long held narratives and gives voice to those who history has overlooked. Her groundbreaking books like the Five don't just tell histories. They change how we think about those histories. If you're not reading her work. You're missing out on some of the most important historical writing and resulting conversations today. Halle, welcome to After Dark.
- [06:32]
Ethel Laneve
Thank you. That's quite an introduction.
- [06:34]
Anthony Delaney
Well, listen, we're fans on After Dark. It'll come as no surprise. So this is a really special one for us. So we're delighted to have you.
- [06:41]
Ethel Laneve
Thank you.
- [06:42]
Maddy Pelling
I have to say, as we are recording this, my laptop is sat on a pile of books, and making up this pile is the new story of a murder that we're here to talk about and the hardback copy of the 5. So you are literally holding up the work that I'm doing right now, Halle.
- [06:57]
Ethel Laneve
That's very flattering.
- [07:00]
Maddy Pelling
Let's begin with the world that this story is set in. Because the thing that I admire so much about the work that you do is not only that you take us into history that we feel we know something of, and you give us a new perspective on it, but also that you give us a panoramic view. You really build the world in which it is set. And this time we're in the Edwardian era in the UK and also in the US we're moving between both sides of the Atlantic. So can we just start with a sense of what this world looks like, feels like, what's going on in this moment?
- [07:33]
Ethel Laneve
I think it's such an exciting and interesting time period. It's a time of extreme change in everybody's lives, I think, you know, in terms of technology, but what that technology does to people in the way they perceive their world. So, I mean, you have to think that really from. I mean, the book kind of covers the 1880s roughly, but more the 1890s, 1900, the murder takes place in 1910. And in that period, especially the 1890s and, you know, turn of the century and certainly the decade before the First World War, there was so much intense and fast change happening. If you think about it, the automobile, the airplane, motion picture, X rays, Marconi, wireless or wireless technology, which is what we were talking about. All of these things that we tend to associate with the birth of modernity and also at the press as well. The media becoming much more modern in our sense, in that the updates that were possible through wireless technology and also through the telephone as well. People could phone their stories in if they wanted to, and news traveled incredibly quickly, which is one of the fascinating features of this story, is that the scene that you were describing with Crippen and Ethel on the Montrose and the Laurentic chasing after them with Inspector Jew on it, the Whole world was following that story. I mean, Crippen and Ethel didn't know that they had been found. They had been discovered by Captain Kendall, and he had used the Marconi wireless to wire back to shore to tell everybody this. And Scotland Yard knew about it, but also so did the press. And so they were actually tracking the positions of the ships, both ships, as they were pulling into Quebec. And, you know, newspapers were published twice a day, so you could get twice daily updates about what was going on. And you could imagine how riveting that was. That was like real time. It was almost like a reality drama. It was like the sort of O.J. simpson chase of the 1910s. And this is why the story was called, well, it was named the Crime of the Century at the time because, you know, this intersection of technology, you know, super fast ships, wireless technology, you know, and also psychology, this idea that people were coming alive to, you know, this is the time of Freud and trying to understand the criminal mind. And so there was a lot of discussion about that. And who was this person creeping and who was this woman in his thrall? And so all of these things were sort of intersecting at this moment. And the people writing about it became very excited about, you know, what does this say about the 20th century? What's going to happen?
- [10:24]
Anthony Delaney
I think that's a really good insight, Halle, into what people are reacting to within this story, on the ground at the time. And I love that idea of news at this moment in time, traveling around the world as fast as it possibly can, and there's this chase happening at the same time. It's so, so dramatic. And you can see why it appealed to people. And before we get into talking a little bit about some of those people and the events that unfolded, I just want to hone in on its draw to you because, you know, you finish a book like the Five, and it's incredibly well received, it makes a huge impact in the field. And I would imagine that there's a moment where you sit and you go, good Lord, what am I doing next? I know I would.
- [11:11]
Ethel Laneve
Yeah, you've read my mind. I mean, that is exactly what I said for years as I was doing this. And the terrible kind of almost crippling fear of, you know, the shadow of the Five being cast over this book. And, you know, how on earth could I top or even match the impact of that book? And at some point, I just had to reconcile myself to not doing that, you know, that this would be a. This would be a different book. And, you know, it was what it was and it will be accepted for what it is, or people won't like it, or they will like it. It's just, you know, it's just the way books are. But it's terrifying. It's like I can imagine being like a gold winning athlete at the Olympics and having won gold or triple gold or something like that. What do you do, you know, when you come back in four years? And that in itself, the psychology of that is difficult as a writer.
- [12:08]
Maddy Pelling
It's interesting, isn't it, though, that even in the Edwardian period, this case in particular, like you said, it was called the crime of the century. And it's kind of reflective of the, I suppose, the optimism, the self interest of that moment that, you know, only a little bit of the 20th century had elapsed at that point. And this is already the crime of the century. And you think about the Ripper case that the 5 is about and that it expands and sponges out in lots of ways, was the crime of the 19th century. And so I can see why this would interest you, Halle, as a sort of, I suppose, a natural progression of that. You know, that this is another massive case to sink your teeth into. And one, as we're about to find out, that has so many different viewpoints, perspectives, ways into it as well. Let's talk about some of the characters then in this. I don't want to start with Crippen, so let's start with Belle Elmore or Cora Crippen, as she's called. And can you explain first of all why she has those two separate names and tell us a little bit about her.
- [13:09]
Ethel Laneve
Well, I call her Belle Elmore for the better part of the book because that's how ultimately she liked to refer to herself. And that was the name she settled on. You know, it's interesting both of you will have come across this as historians and especially 18th century historians. I love how people just kind of shrug off names and put on new ones all the time. You know, it's just like, could you imagine if we could just all do that? And it's just the ease with which you can give yourself another name in previous centuries, I think is fascinating. And it really speaks to sense, an individual's sense of identity and how mutable.
- [13:47]
Maddy Pelling
That could be, particularly for women. Right?
- [13:49]
Ethel Laneve
For women particularly, yes. So Belle was born in Brooklyn. Her original name was, and this is quite a mouthful, Kunigund Makamotzi. Her mother was of German descent and they were immigrants and her father was Polish Russian. And so the Name Kunigund is German. I'm probably mispronouncing it because I don't speak German. But the problem with that is that it was a really ungainly name. And they realized that, you know, this. This is not a great name for a young girl born in America, because Americans can't speak, you know, pronounce it. And they quickly changed her name to Concordia, and she changed it to Cora, which is what she then came to be known as. Sometimes she called herself Corrine. And so she's constantly playing with her names. You know, she changes her last name as well. Her father, biological father, died shortly after she was born, and her mother remarried somebody called Frederick Mersinger. And just before Belle left home to go out to work as a servant, she was told by Frederick that she was his adopted daughter and he wasn't her biological father. And I think that must have surprised her in. In some way, because she then adopted the surname of Turner. And so she called herself Cora Turner. And the reason for that is, and I consulted a number of people, is in Brooklyn and all over the United States and in Germany as well. There were these societies called the Turnverin and the Ternvren were like. They were social societies. They were. They had gymnasiums, they had singing groups, they had schools. And they were kind of German cultural centers. And often people. Immigrants to the United States, German immigrants, changed their surnames to Turner because the Turnveryn were called the Turners. And I think that's where she got that. And then eventually she calls herself Cora Crippen when she marries Crippen. And then when she takes to the stage and becomes a musical performer, she reinvents herself as Belle Elmore. And that is the name she is happiest with and most comfortable with.
- [16:14]
Maddy Pelling
So how does she end up on the stage in the music hall? Harley? Because the Victorian music hall, certainly there's a certain image that's coming to mind, the sort of raucousness of it, the bawdy songs, the fun of it, I suppose, and the slight risk and potentially sort of sexiness is the Edwardian musical like that. And what is the route that she takes to get there?
- [16:37]
Ethel Laneve
Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, something really interesting had happened from about the. It was the 1890s. There was a real impetus to clean up the music hall. So all of these kind of bawdy songs and things like that, you know, the musical suddenly became a place where you could bring your family, and it was. It became variety, performance. And Variety performance was, you know, I mean, I remember when I was researching this, I really didn't know very much about the musical, even though, you know, my grandfather, my nana used to sing the songs, My cockney grandparents used to sing the songs. And my. I recently discovered in some of my grandfather's old. He's long passed away. But he had this big book of music hall history that I thought, oh, he'd be so proud of me doing this now. He'd love it, you know, so there was this desire to make it very family friendly, and it was a variety performance. So the thing about music hall is that it wasn't just people singing and dancing, as we would tend to think. You know, there were singers and dancers, but there were magicians and ventriloquists and animal acts and performing elephants and even weird motion picture. I mean, motion picture starts to feature in Musical Call at about the turn of the century as well. So it's like you can have dancing dogs, and then you'll have a woman on a high wire, and then you'll have somebody singing a kind of sad song, and then you'll have a pantomime, and then you'll. Then you'll have a mime artist. And, you know, and it's. It was this weird breadth of stuff, and it was kind of like the precursor to television. And that's where people would go. It didn't cost very much. You could all go and have a laugh and leave singing the songs. And so that's what it had become. By the time Belle Elmore had embarked upon a career in. In music hall, though, it's still, you know, women as performers, you know, still had a somewhat questionable reputation according to society. And, you know, this idea that, you know, they're all. They're all rather kind of a lascivious bunch and sleeping with each other and having illegitimate children. And they just had. They were bohemians. They had a completely different, you know, way of living.
- [18:55]
Anthony Delaney
One of the things I think musical does in the book so well, actually, and, you know, no spoiler to anybody who maybe does not know this history. But things, as we shall discover, don't necessarily end very well for Bell in so many retellings of this particular crime and this particular life. That's the kind of key part of the story. However, what music hall does for Belle, I think, is bring her back to life. You get this great sense of urgency, of vitality, of music, singing, dancing, creativity. And, you know, for most of the book, that's where we are living in that world. With her, that's where we spend most of our time. And I just think that's a really useful tool in Story of a Murder that gives her as much life as she possibly can, given, you know, that we're over 100 years removed from it. But we have another woman that's at the heart of this case as well, and that's Ethel and Neve. And Ethel is actually such a complex person. It's so easy to maybe think of these people as characters, but this is a person who lived and breathed and Aethel is very different to Belle in so many ways. Hallie, can you introduce us to Aethel and the complexities therein?
- [20:06]
Ethel Laneve
Yes. You've really kind of hit the nail on the head with Ethel. I have to say that that Ethel has haunted me. I have thought about her like constantly, even since writing this book. She's been a presence because she's so enigmatic in many ways. And, you know, throughout her life she told her story. On a number of occasions she told her story to the press and like so many things change in each account that she gives of herself. And as time goes by, she seems to implicate herself more and more in the murder. It's just almost unashamedly, you know, after being acquitted. So Ethel was born in Dis in Norfolk. Her parents were not well off. She was born in basically a two room cottage. Her father was, I don't want to say ticket taker. He was a clerk in part of the railway, the railway station in dis. And the interesting thing is, and this says a lot about social history and upward mobility in the late 19th century. For centuries, the Neve family, as they were known. I will explain the LE at the beginning of the name in a moment. But the Neave family were agricultural laborers. And something really interesting had happened about middle 19th century, which was Walter, Ethel's father's father, became a gardener to a kind of, you know, sort of lower gentry family, the Mannings, who were the vicars in dis. And in becoming a gardener, he suddenly attained more social status. And then he could put Walter, Ethel's father, into school, proper school. And at proper school he learned to read and write to a standard which would allow him to become a clerk. And once you were a clerk, you were no longer part technically of the working class. You were sort of very low middle class. So he had jumped in status very subtly. And Walter wanted this for his children. And so he moved the family to London and they lived in Hampstead. And he wanted to put his daughters which is quite surprising. I mean, Walter is a very interesting character because he is very conservative, he's very religious, he is, you know, paterfamilias, you know, Victorian pater familiars. And he's also rather stupid as well, because Ethel is a bit of a rebel. And he's just. The wool has been pulled over his eyes so significantly that it's embarrassing. So his sons get proper schooling, but he also schools his daughters and they are taught shorthand. They go to Pitman's Secretarial College, which was a type of continuing education for girls after they finished their education in school. And Ethel learned shorthand typing, which was a sort of entryway shorthand and typing, I should say. And lots of other things like, like, you know, bookkeeping and how to answer telephones and. And this was a gateway to getting what might be considered a respectable job working in an office. Because for women, the options were women of Ethel's class. I mean, you, you either worked in domestic service, you worked in a factory or you worked in a shop, but this was something altogether different. And you could, you could meet a man of a different class, you could meet a man, you know, kind of comfortable middle class who might even marry you. So it had a lot of benefits. And that is how Ethel met Dr. Crippen, because she was hired to work in one of his dodgy places of employment. Crippen was a con artist and a fraudster and he was involved in medical fraud and patent medicine. And Ethel and her sister were both working for the Drouet Institute, which purported to cure deafness with its plasters which you stuck behind your ear. And they managed to get themselves into a lot of trouble just, you know, fraudulently peddling medicines. But Ethel became Crippen's right hand woman and knew all of his schemes and helped out in them and became very important to his business. And then they became lovers as.
- [24:54]
Anthony Delaney
How many discounts does USAA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi vehicle discount, Safe driver discount, New vehicle discount, Storage discount.
- [25:03]
Holly Fry
How many discounts will you stack up?
- [25:05]
Ethel Laneve
Tap the banner or visit usaa.com autodiscounts restrictions apply.
- [25:09]
Hallie Rubenhold
This podcast is brought to you by Aura. By the time you hear about a data breach, your information has already been exposed for months. On average, companies take 277 days to report a breach. That's nine months where hackers have access to your personal data. That's why we're thrilled to partner with Aura. Aura is an all in one digital safety solution that monitors the dark web for your phone number, email and Social Security number, sending real time alerts if your info is found. It also includes a vpn, password manager and data broker removal to help keep you safe for a limited time. Aura is offering a 14 day free trial plus a dark web scan to check if your personal information has been leaked, all for free@aura.com safety that's aura.com safety to sign up and protect your loved ones. That's a u r a.com safety terms apply. Check the site for details.
- [26:02]
Holly Fry
Our Skin Tells a Story Join me, Holly Fry and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [26:50]
Maddy Pelling
You set out there two very different routes that these two very different women take. We've got on the one hand a story of an immigrant family and a woman who eventually ends up on the stage in a profession that is is questionable in terms of respectability even by the Edwardian period. And then you have this other woman who has opportunities, okay, certainly not handed to her. She has to work hard and circumstances align, but she has an opportunity to take that road to a more respectable life. And the thing that unites these women is Dr. Crippen himself. And one thing that I'm kind of curious about, Halle, is when you wrote the Five, obviously you sort of, to a certain extent, as much as possible really removed so called Jack the Ripper from that story, or at least removed his central starring role, I suppose, and the sort of monstrous presence that he has in those retellings. In this case, we know who the central male figure is of the story and there's presumably a lot already documented about him. So how did you approach how you're going to tell Crippen's story and get to who he was, knowing that he sort of, I suppose, having that information about him already and that identity already attached to him?
- [28:09]
Ethel Laneve
Well, I think it was about kind of repositioning Crippen because the whole concept behind Story of a Murder is that it is a story of a murder, not a murderer. And most true crime will take either the perpetrator and put them in the center of the story and it becomes their story. And why did they do this? And we follow them all the way through. Or it becomes the story of the police officer, you know, the detective or, you know, who catches the criminal. But it's such a one note telling of a crime story. And the difference with story of a murder is that is, is the acknowledgment that crime is an incredibly gosh, complex and potentially panoramic story which encompasses so many people and so many things, so many lives, so many subplots and so many stories. And, and, and, and a murder is never simple, and especially a murder like this, which becomes a historic event. And so the more you pull back the lens, the more you see and the more you understand. And so that is my approach. So I have kind of. I have de centered Crippen, of course, he's present in the story, but it is also equally Belle's story. It is also Ethel's story. And it's the story of the Music Hall Ladies Guild who would later pursue Crippen for the disappearance of his wife. The very strange disappearance. And, you know, so everybody plays a role in a story of a murder. And so it's an ensemble cast.
- [29:59]
Anthony Delaney
And it's not just people who are playing these roles. We also have the house in North London where becomes a really kind of a key. Well, it becomes a crime scene, but it also, before that is the domestic setting in which Belle and Crippen are living together as man and wife and they're entertaining their friends and you get this real sense of people coming and going. Also, incidentally, and this is not that important, but it just struck me when I was reading it how far people had to travel in cars at those times when I was like, we can just hop on the Tube and get there now. It's like, gosh, it's so far away, actually. But anyway, look, sorry, I digress. We have this, the house, and we have the home, and Belle and, and Crippen are there and they're entertaining and they're living this seemingly happy, although we know it's not quite so content life. Now. We also then have Ethel coming into that same domestic space at various times in this story and assuming, especially when, as we will learn, Korah and Bel goes missing, but she assumes some of those roles. She even claims to be the woman of the house at certain times. So I'm just wondering if you can take us into the house, Halle, and let us know the different dynamics that are unfolding There. And eventually we'll build up to what we think happens there. What does happen there, what we know happens there, but give us an idea of the setting that we're in.
- [31:29]
Ethel Laneve
Yeah, I mean, so Hilltop Crescent is, you know, it's funny when you talk about this crime and people remember a handful of things. They'll remember Marconi wireless and they'll remember Ethel dressed as a boy, and they'll remember the Montrose, and then they'll remember Hilldrop Crescent as being, you know, this address. 39 Hilldrop Crescent. Hilldrop Crescent. So the Crippens moved there in 1905, and before that they were living on Storr street in Bloomsbury in central London. You know, this was really what I mean by the sort of Edwardian expectations. You know, Crippen was expected to provide a proper house, a proper home for his wife, even though there would not be any children because he had removed Belle's ovaries when she was about 21 years old, because he didn't want children. And he made up some sort of excuse. But, you know, he. He had to give her effectively what was expected. And so he rented this house, although he pretended he wasn't renting it, he pretended he had bought it, but that's completely in keep keeping with his personality. And the Cribbbons were completely obsessed with keeping up appearances. And Hilltrop Crescent really fed into that as well. So this was an address. This is an address in Holloway. And if any of you are familiar with a contemporary book that was published kind of maybe about 10 years before the Cribbins moved there, called Diary of a Nobody, which is by the Grossmith brothers, which is about Charles Pooter, this, this Clark, who lives in Holloway and has all of these, you know, keeping up with appearances, you know, affectations and, you know, worries about his sherry glasses and his Christmas cards and. And his house backs onto a railway line, you know, and. And everybody laughed at the social satire. Well, the Crippens were living that. I mean, the absurdity of this is that, I mean, they had like walked right into Pooterville. It was this 10 room, massive house for them. And they lived largely in the downstairs, in the kitchen and what was called the breakfast room. Their English friends were kind of a bit sniffy about this because they thought they live with this sort of undue informality. Like they've got this big house. Why are they spending so much time down here? And they, you know, they only used the upstairs rooms when they had company and they didn't and they were very informal. And it's interesting because there was a lot of anti Americanism at this time. And this is really reflected in the. The commentary, the kind of sniping, catty commentary about, oh, well, you know, oh, she's so messy and she doesn't keep a maid. And she, well, she did keep a maid. She kept. She kept a char. Woman who came and went. They just wasn't a living servant. And so there was, you know, there's a lot of kind of snippiness about that. The two of them actually planted an enormous, like, kind of beautiful garden in the back which included, like, they kept. They kept chickens as well in. And birds and an aquarium and they had cats and they had a dog. And, you know, because Belle couldn't have children, and it always just played on her that she couldn't have children. So. But the house was a very comfortable and very nice house which they had parties in, all the music hall performers. I mean, you know, these people were really famous who were coming over. You can imagine, like, what your neighbors would say if, you know, suddenly you had like, you know, kind of Brad Pitt come over one night and. And all sort of famous people, you know, turning up at your house. And that's how they lived their lives. And so, you know, Ethel really, really, really, really craved this life. She wanted this and she wanted the nice clothes and the diamonds that Belle wore and the celebrity friends and all of these things. And that was behind a lot of what would happen now next.
- [35:32]
Maddy Pelling
I have to say I did once see Josh Harkness in my street, Halle. So, you know, I do live in a pretty famous area. I don't. I live in the middle of nowhere. It's funny because you paint this picture of, on the one hand, sort of suburban mundanity, really, that this is, as you say, a life of affectation and aspiration, but just not quite attaining the level that the people living it would like to occupy, I suppose. And then on the other hand, you have the. This sort of creative energy and this community that's buzzing with aspiration, but also with genuine creativity that's fitting into this house in a slightly strange way. And then we get the same house being transformed into a crime scene. And it's strange to think about that architectural space functioning in all those different ways. And I think that must be very exciting as a writer, when you go into a story like this, spending so much time imagining that space, walking those rooms.
- [36:28]
Ethel Laneve
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, first of all, first of all. Well, as a historian now Now I'm going to get all nerdy and excited as a historian because you're in the.
- [36:38]
Anthony Delaney
Welcome to After Dark.
- [36:40]
Ethel Laneve
I know. So one of the reasons why I just think murder stories or crime stories are so fantastic for historians is that just the amount of documentation that a crime produces is like gold for us, because it's all firsthand accounts. It's people saying, well, I was living here, and I was doing this, and I was eating this, and I was wearing this, and I had this, and I saw this person. I said this to this person. I thought this, and I did that. And where do you get that? Normally, as a historian, it's so hard to find those things. Maddie, you just absolutely honed in to this. God, we are such kindred spirits. This is like you guys are just asking all the right questions. So I spent a lot of time thinking about this house and imagining it, but also, it helped to have these documents and these. And the neighbors, what the neighbors said about the house and what. And. And also the inventory, because at one point, everything the Cribbins owned was put on the market for. On auction to pay legal bills. And so you have a total inventory of, like, everything they owned.
- [37:48]
Maddy Pelling
So you can. You can refill those rooms.
- [37:50]
Ethel Laneve
Yes. In your mind, those rooms. In fact, I was talking to a curator the other year, I think about, you know, how do we know about house history and, you know, what sort of things did people have and how do they live in these rooms at these times? And I said, look at the old Bailey Sessions papers. Look at reports, look at, you know, any crime will tell you these things. You will know exactly how people occupied houses or businesses or anything, because it's all there in great detail. So that's really, really exciting for me. Thank you, fellow ner, for letting me do that.
- [38:29]
Anthony Delaney
You take as much time as you need, but you talk about, you know, imaginatively filling these rooms. Let's do that now. Let's fill those rooms. The night in question, the Crippens have visitors over on this key night, and they almost. Dr. Crippen, almost bullies these poor people into coming over that they, you know, just. They kind of don't want to go. But anyway, they end up being there. Give us a sense of that night.
- [38:55]
Ethel Laneve
Oh, that night.
- [38:56]
Anthony Delaney
Yeah. And then what unfolds thereafter?
- [38:59]
Ethel Laneve
Yeah. So, you know, I mean, this is a perfect segue from what we were saying, because there is this incredible document, which was written by Clara Martinetti, who was Belle's best friend, about the last night they spent with the Crippens at their house. And it is an eight page document where Clara writes down everything that happened that night. And like Scotland Yard, I had said to her, Inspector Jew had said to her, write down everything you remember about that night. And she did. And everything that she talked about, like, it's just so amazing. I mean, you know, she talks about like, well, you know, we were trying to decide whether we wanted to go or not. And Paul, her husband, Paul Martinetti. Paul wasn't feeling that well because he was being treated for some condition he had and she never really revealed what that was. And he came back from his treatment and he felt a bit queer, they said, and they didn't want to go. And Crippen was knocking on the door and saying, oh, come on, come on please. And you can kind of understand because the Crippens and the Martinettis used to see each other a couple of times a week. This a time before television, a time before, you know, obviously you could text your friends. People didn't spend that much time ringing each other on the phone. They did have phones but they didn't spend tons of time talk. You know, you spent your pasture evenings with your friends and, and it's so, so touching, this relationship. And what is so appalling later is just how Crippen exploited this and the way he treated the Martinettis afterwards is just disgusting. But so, you know, they were invited, the Martinetti's went very grudgingly. And then they recount their entire. Like they lived just off Shaftesbury Avenue in Mansion Flats and they recount their entire journey. How they got to Hilldrop Crescent in 1910 on the 31st of January, you know, and they walked and they. And it was one of those, I love that you just, you know, like they said, we know, you know, we walked and walked and we couldn't get a taxi. And I thought, oh God, anyone who lives in London knows that experience. And so we ended up, we ended up having to get public transportation, which is what she said. We got the tram and we got the tram all the way to Hill Direct present. And then, and then she says, and it's just so lovely because I often think of, you know, when you're going to see your good friends and there's the bance, the bance is recorded and you know, she turns up and Belle opens the door and she says, you call this 7 o' clock and they all start laughing and you're like, that's so timeless. That is such a timeless kind of expression of Friendship and the joking and the. And they take off their coats and their hats. Cats. And they sit down and. And, you know, and. And Clara and Belle are sort of, oh, Belle, you shouldn't have made such an effort. And she goes into the kitchen, she brings out, you know, meat, and she brings out. Oh, no, you really shouldn't. Let me get up and help you with. No, no, no, no. And, you know, that whole interplay and then what cigarettes they smoked afterwards, and then they go upstairs and they play bridge and then, you know, it's getting late and Paul isn't feeling well, and then Crippen is sent out to get a taxi and he disappears and they're waiting and it's getting later and then finally they get a taxi and they leave. And. And that's the last time she sees her friend alive. And it's hugely moving.
- [42:21]
Maddy Pelling
It's such a gift as well. I mean, not to bore people too much with the process of writing, but so often when you sit down as a historian to write and you are responsible for reporting the facts as you can find them out, and of course, you know, we can argue about the distance of time and how much of fact and truth we can actually recover, but when you sit down to write your. You start to think, okay, I need to describe the scene. I need to describe. Were the birds singing? Was it raining? Was it sunshine? What time of year was it? What time of day was it? Was it dark? Was it light? Could you hear the church bells? And to have someone record all of that. And you don't need to imagine or make clear that you're imagining a conversation or as you say, a bit of banter, a bit of friendly joking. It's all there and you just need to bring it to life on the page and the job is half done for you. I mean, that's.
- [43:06]
Ethel Laneve
That's.
- [43:06]
Maddy Pelling
That's so satisfying and so rare to find.
- [43:08]
Ethel Laneve
So satisfying and it's so. But this is the thing, is that this stuff, I mean, this is. This is a gift for social historians. And, you know, this is. It's the very, very essence of the human experience. It is the very essence of our life experience. To me, history is about the human experience.
- [43:32]
Maddy Pelling
It.
- [43:32]
Ethel Laneve
It is that experience. It is what we do every day. It's what we feel, it's what we say to our friends. It's the stuff that we can relate to, and also the stuff that feels so distant and so weird and so bizarre and to try to understand why that feels so weird and bizarre and what the other Contexts of an era were. And so that's why these documents are so fantastic. I remember having a very similar experience when I wrote the. One of the books I wrote, Lady Worsley's Whim, which was about a very infamous criminal conversation trial in the 18th century. I found that enormous cache of documents about what, Lady Worsley and George Bissett's elopement to London. And it was told in the round by the servants who witnessed it, you know, every step of the way. These were the servants at the hotel. This was the private investigator and what he saw. This was the hotel owner, and this was this person's story. And it, like, told the story in the round. But the conversation, I mean, the dialogue, you know, that came out, you know, the bits of dialogue that. Genuine bits of 18th century dialogue that people spoke to one another and how they felt about the situation and what they saw. It's arresting. It is. It is like. It is like. I think it's as close as we can get to time travel, to be honest.
- [44:56]
Anthony Delaney
Oh, I love that. That's exactly how it feels. And sometimes you can get that in historic properties as well, where you kind of. I often talk about putting my hand on the jam of a door, that somebody has put their hand on that door 300 years earlier. And you're like, what? I'm literally traveling through time right now. The other thing that was really striking about this house, and then we'll kind of move beyond the house a little bit and move on with the story. But you're saying that that's the last time the Bell was seen alive. And we don't really know what's happening, what happens that night after the Martinetti's leave. But there's something so haunting about this idea that your friends leave, all seems well. And the next thing we know of Belle is that she is occupying a space in a cellar in the house. And I guess that the secrecy, the privacy, and then the mundanity of everyday life behind that closed door and the way in which that can conceal something so monstrous for quite some time. Because at this point, people don't know where Bell is. That's where these women come in from the musical society. And we'll talk about them in just a moment. But there's something so haunting about that. And I think when we're saying that, you know, certain things appeal, that is this location. I think that that's potentially one of those reasons, because. Because it's so affecting and it's so haunting to think that was in her home. As is still so often the case for so many women in violent situations.
- [46:39]
Hallie Rubenhold
This podcast is brought to you by Aura. Imagine waking up to find your bank account drained, bills for loans you never took out, a warrant for your arrest. All because someone stole your identity. Hackers aren't waiting. Why are you? That's why we're thrilled to partner with Aura. Your personal data is a goldmine for hackers, and Aura helps lock it down. Aura monitors the dark web, blocks data brokers from selling your information. Includes a VPN for private browsing and a password manager to secure your accounts before criminals break in. For a limited time, Aura is offering our listeners a 14 day free trial plus a dark web scan to check if your personal information has been leaked. Leaked, all for free@aura.com safety that's aura.com safety to sign up and start protecting yourself and your loved ones. That's a u r a.com safety terms apply. Check the site for details.
- [47:31]
Holly Fry
Our Skin Tells a Story Join me, Holly Fry and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candidates personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [48:20]
Anthony Delaney
So what happens thereafter then? Hay is because Belle is missing, people start to question where she is. She's not the type of person to just go and Crippen invents this story that she's very suddenly had to go to America to deal with the family matter. And I'm skipping forward ever so slightly here, but just to kind of get us to the women really in order to do this. He then says, actually yeah, when she was there, she, she also died. She also happened to die. And then suddenly the Martinettis and others are going, hold on, this is not Belle. This is not how this would go. Tell us how important you think that group of women were to uncovering what had happened to Belle Elmore.
- [49:07]
Ethel Laneve
Absolutely fundamental. Crippen would have got away with this had it not been for those pesky meddling women. You know, I mean they raised the alarm. They were the ones who said this. This story just does not fit. This is there is what you're saying is so Completely out of character for our friends. And what you're doing is so weird that we don't believe what you're telling us. And we think there's more to the story. You know, of course, they would later say, we had no idea she'd been murdered. We just thought something strange had happened. I think they were starting to suspect there could have been foul play. But, okay, so it gets especially weird. So he lies. He says, she's had to go to America. Somebody's ill in. In California, and she's gone all the way there, and, oh, you can't contact her. And these women knew. I mean, she was. They were her very good friends. So Belle was active with the Musical Ladies Guild, which was a charitable organization which raised money for women and their children who were out of work as musical performers. And they gave them clothes and they raised money for them so they could pay doctor's bills and legal bills and their rent and all sorts of like that. And. And. And she was the treasurer of this organization, and they met every Wednesday, and this would. Became the center of her life and these friendships and these relationships. And she was very close with a handful of women, including Clara Martinetti, who was one of the vice presidents. And very interestingly, on the 2nd of February, Ethel appears instead of Belle at the meeting of the Musical Ladies Guild, which is just, by the way, down the hall from where Crippen has offices, because Belle had arranged for offices in Albion House, which is where the offices were. And Ethel turns up with a resignation letter which she hands over. And. And the women were kind of like, what? This doesn't make any sense. I mean, imagine. Just imagine, you know, your closest friend, somebody who's always in touch with you, just suddenly stops messaging you, doesn't call, doesn't answer your calls, doesn't pick up their messages. And their partner or spouse just, oh, yeah, yeah, they. They've had to go to, you know, Tierra del Fuego or something like that, where, you know, they can't get a signal or, you know, and. And you're just. That. What. That's weird. And then what's even weirder is that there is a charity ball ball which is held and, you know, Belle's been gone for about a month. And Crippen buys two tickets to this charity ball organized by his wife's friends, with all his wife's friends present, and takes Ethel to the ball filled with musical performers. And Ethel is wearing Belle's diamonds, and she's wearing the Rising sun brooch, which becomes. Which factors into this story because. Because it's quite a. A unique piece of jewelry that her friends all recognize, and. And she's wearing clothes that she had remade that Belle owned. And later she's identified as wearing Belle's furs. And they're dancing and laughing and pretending that, you know, nothing. Nothing here is strange at all. And from that moment on, I mean, that was a deliberate insult.
- [52:38]
Maddy Pelling
That.
- [52:39]
Ethel Laneve
That was deliberate. You know, we have to remember that, you know, this is, again, a very bohemian circle, very tolerant of a lot of things. People had quite what would be called irregular relationships. You know, they had affairs, they had children out outside of marriage, and everybody knew about that. But this was something else. You know, when you turn up with your typist to a ball and your wife is gone, I mean, that's a very clear sign that this person is your mistress. That was pretty shocking. It wasn't that she was the mistress. It was that it was being done. It was flying in the face of all these friends.
- [53:17]
Maddy Pelling
What do you think's going on in Crippen's head in this moment? What is the thought process behind this? Because it's so brazen. It's so remarkable.
- [53:25]
Ethel Laneve
It's so brazen. I think he is reacting in part to Ethel and Ethel's demands. This is Ethel's debut. You. Ethel has waited six years for this moment because Crippen has been telling her, oh, you know, Bill's gonna leave me. She's gonna leave me. She has a man in America. She's gonna go and see Bruce Miller. She'll be with him. There was no. There was no proof that they were having a sexual relationship. And certainly by the time Bruce Miller had left in 1904, bear in mind, it's 1910. They would correspond occasionally. And the interesting thing is when the one piece of evidence that he tried to show that they were having an affair was. Was produced in court, you know, it was this letter which was signed love and kisses to brown eyes. That was the most. The steamiest thing he could find as proof of their affair, which is hardly some sort of impassioned declaration. Ethel's been waiting for Belle to leave for ages, and now she's gone. She. Ethel finally gets what she wants.
- [54:32]
Maddy Pelling
She's.
- [54:32]
Ethel Laneve
She gets a house, she gets the jewelry, she gets the identity of Mrs. Crippen. She's even mistakenly called Mrs. Crippen by the press and, you know, on the seating chart and everything, she's loving that. I think this is all Ethel behind the scenes pushing this.
- [54:51]
Anthony Delaney
It feels like that. But if Ethel had been patient up until that point, or just. Just patient enough. Let's say the women of the music hall guild are less patient, and rightly so. And they are pushing and pushing and pushing and they eventually, even though Inspector Dew is initially a little reticent, he's like, well, I'm not seeing this. I don't know. Enough comes together eventually that he does decide to pay a visit to the house. Where am I right in thinking, he encounters Ethel, first of all.
- [55:21]
Ethel Laneve
Yes.
- [55:21]
Anthony Delaney
Yeah. So Ethel's there and she's playing this. It's an odd scenario to find her there in the first place. And then Drew leaves, but he. He still then thinks he's gonna come back. This is after the disappearance, isn't it? And that's where the discovery is made. So maybe just talk us through that sequence of events. Halle.
- [55:43]
Ethel Laneve
It takes due a while. I mean, first of all, Scotland Yard ignores what all of the women have been saying. You know, a number of them go to Scotland Yard and they just don't want to know. To them, it's like, well, you know, what evidence do you have of anything? And so they start their own investigation. They hire a private investigator and they're not really able to come up with anything. But ultimately. So Lillian Nash, her husband is friends with somebody at Scotland Yard, quite high up, and they will listen to a man. So he comes in and says, look, you know, my wife and I believe that something strange has happened here. And they finally listen to him. And that's when Inspector Dew still is not, as you said, he's a bit on the fence about this. This takes his time to finally go and investigate. 39 Hill Drop present meets Ethel and then takes Ethel to Albion House, you know, so she can. So he can interview Crippen. And some really kind of bad policing happens at this point, which is. It's. It's like. And he. And du writes his memoirs and he just glosses over this. And again, this is. This is. Okay, okay, a pause for history nerding. One of the exciting things is when you get sources that you can corroborate or compare to one another. So we have Jew's actual memoirs that he wrote and then his police report that he wrote up of what happened on that day. And then also you have Ethel's account of what happened. And so you can line all of these up and you can see. And then you have Arthur Mitchell, who is his sergeant as well, telling the story. And you can line these up and you can see where the holes are and you can See, who's. Who's actually, you know, Ethel was a really difficult witness. I mean, she was a really. She was a really difficult person to deal with. And she was trying to slow everything down. She's throwing spanners in the work. She's. God. And you think, my God, this woman is really practiced at putting people off the scent. And it's not surprising. You know, her job was working in fraud. She was in business with a fraudster. They had people turning up all the time going, this medicine doesn't work. You know, come. You know, I'm gonna report you to the police. And people asking questions and reporters coming by and, you know, of course she knows how to deal with these people. So she treats Jew and Mitchell the same way. And so she tries to stop them from going into Albion House. She tries to delay them. And then, annoyingly so Juice says to her, she says, oh, should I call him and tell him you're coming? You know, before they leave? Leave? Before they leave, he'll question. He said, no, no. I want it to be a surprise. And so they turn up at Albion House, and she says, let me just go upstairs and tell him that you're here. And he says, well, I don't know. And then she runs upstairs, and he's just standing there, and Ethel is running up the stairs to go and tell Griffin the police are here. That's what she's doing. So it's like, okay, activate plan A. So whatever that is, you know, all the lies that have been put in place of what we're going to say in case. Case the police come looking. And it was so obviously all this was discussed and orchestrated. And he interviews them. He interviews Crippen for several hours, and then he interviews Ethel. And then they go to the house and they look things over. And then that is what basically makes Crippen and Ethel decide they better hightail it out of there, and they leave the next day.
- [59:09]
Maddy Pelling
Do you think, Haley, that there's an element of denial with Crippen and Ethel, where they simply live in this world of their own creating of lies and deception? As you say, that's normality for them. That's their everyday job. That's how they make their bread. Is there a sense that they have just. This is just another lie. This is just something else they've had to think about. Plan for work, as a team. Do they even know they've done this crime? Like, are they deluded? Because the way that they behave, I mean, it is so brazen. They're so obviously, you know, we're looking from the perspective of knowing what happened and knowing that they are guilty, but looking at it, it. Even from the perspective of an Edwardian, surely it's so obvious what's happened. Do they simply think they're going to get away with it because they are delusional? I don't, I don't understand what's happening in their minds.
- [59:56]
Ethel Laneve
I know, I know, I know. I feel like. Okay, so my, I have, you know, obviously ruminated over this for a very long time. I think that in terms of dealing with the actual, the gruesomeness of the murder, I think Crippen just disassociated. I think that was part of it. He, he knew exactly what he was doing. But Crippen's modus operandi as a fraudster was, and he was very good at what he did was always do exactly the opposite of what people will expect you to do. So if people expect you to, you know, lie, confess, you know, and, and confess to something else else, you know, but don't, you know, always. It's a three dimensional chess game with him all the time. And you can see what's going on. And you can especially see it becomes very, very clear when he's put on the stand and he's trying to. Oh God, it's a gorgeous cat and mouse game. He's trying to outmaneuver Robert Muir, who is the prosecutor. And Muir is so sharp and he's got Crippen in corners and this, this cross examination goes on for about three hours, Powers, and he's wearing him down and wearing him down. And Crippen is lying and he's tripping over his lies and, and you can see his whole modus operandi and how he works. It's complete denial. It's just keep denying, just. I think he knew what he was doing. He was just. This is how he operated. And I think Ethel learned this too. I have often suspected and again, you know, with, with history, one has to be very careful. Ethel. I'm not a psychologist. I, I wouldn't be. I'm not a criminologist. But my instinct is that Crippen was a sociopath and that Ethel was a psychopath. And Ethel showed absolutely no remorse for anything. She never, ever had an ounce of remorse for Belle Elmore or her family or her friends. She never expressed any, any of that until not even the day she died.
- [62:04]
Anthony Delaney
I think there is so much in this history, I think so often people are so easy to say so much in this story and it is a riveting story, but what it also is is a history. And the facts that come with history are often so much more bizarre than fiction, and they're more. Haunting seems to be the word that keeps coming back to me. And you said it first, Halle, but I think it's so fitting in a case like this. But those facts are just so haunting, and you can see them spread out in such incredible narrative detail in Halle's new book, Story of a Murder, which is available now. Halle, before we let you go, if listeners could take away one thing from the book about Belle, what would you like them to remember of Bell? How would you like them to see Belle in their mind's eye when they come and open this book? And, yes, there's some grisly details that come later, and that's very much the truth of her history. How would you like them to take Belle's life away with them after they've closed the final page in your book?
- [63:07]
Ethel Laneve
I just think she was a kind of remarkable and resilient woman, and I hate using this terminology as a historian, and you will feel this, too, is when I say, oh, she was such a modern woman. She feels very modern. She does. I mean, in this kind of way. I think if. If Belle were alive today, she'd be sort of an Instagram influencer because she, you know, here's this woman who went into life feeling as if, you know, she was going to. She wanted to be a mother, she wanted to be a wife. She wanted to be the good Victorian wife, and she wanted to have all of the Victorian trappings. And that isn't what happened for her, that she had that taken away from her. And her story is, you know, this is this. Well, this is what women were supposed to be in the Victorian era. They were supposed to be mothers and wives, and that was it. She had that. She had that taken away from her. She could not be a mother. Instead, she chose a career, and at first it was opera, and she couldn't make it an opera. And then she chose music hall, and then she wasn't making the progress she wanted in music hall. So she worked as part of the Musical Ladies Guild and then found her metier. She found the people she wanted to be with. She found a cause and a meaning in life. She kept reinventing herself, herself. And I just think what an extraordinary woman to have faced that level of adversity and to still come out on top and to shape her life at a time when, you know, so many doors were closed to women. And women faced so many hurdles. She is an extraordinary person and I hope everybody who reads this book gets to know her.
- [64:46]
Maddy Pelling
Harle, it's just been absolutely fantastic to speak to you. Thank you so much. And listeners, if you want to hear more interviews like this on this podcast, you can get them. Wherever you get your podcasts, we always appreciate a five star review. So leave one of those wherever you can and we will see you next time.
- [65:13]
Ethel Laneve
You are no dummy, but you're kind of acting like one. You used to crush it in school, outsmarting opponents on the field, and now, well, you're still smart, but not exactly challenging yourself. You could be advancing nuclear engineering in the world's most powerful Navy. You were born for it. So make the smart choice. You can be smart or you can be nuke smart. Become a nuclear engineer@navy.com nukesmart America's Navy.
- [65:40]
Hallie Rubenhold
Forged by the Sea this podcast is brought to you by Oracle. Imagine waking up to find your bank account drained, bills for loans you never took out, a warrant for your arrest. All because someone stole your identity. Hackers aren't waiting. Why are you? That's why we're thrilled to partner with Aura. Your personal data is a goldmine for hackers, and Aura helps lock it down. Aura monitors the Dark Web, blocks data brokers from selling your information. Includes a VPN for private browsing and a password manager to secure your accounts before criminals break in. For a limited time, Aura is offering our listeners a 14 day free trial plus a dark web scan to check if your personal information has been leaked. All for free@aura.com safety that's aura.com safety to sign up and start protecting yourself and your loved ones. That's a u r a.com safety terms apply. Check the site for details.