← Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
The Murder That Shook Edwardian Britain
00:49:31
Loading summary
Transcript179 lines
- [00:00]
Kate Lister
Hi, I'm your host, Kate Lister. If you would like betwixt the Sheets ad free and get early access, sign up to History Hit with a History Hit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every single week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe.
- [00:27]
Sleep Number Ad
They say opposites attract. That's why the Sleep Number Smart bed is the best bed for couples. You can each choose what's right for you whenever you like. You like a bed that feels firm, but they want soft. Sleep Number does that. You want to sleep cooler while they like to feel warm. Sleep Number does that too. Why choose a Sleep Number Smart bed so you can choose your ideal comfort on either side. Sleep Number Smart beds start at $999 Price Price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii. Exclusively at a Sleep Number store near you. See store or sleepnumber.com for details.
- [00:59]
Shopify Ad
When you think of skyrocketing brands like Aloe Allbirds or Skims, it's easy to credit their success to great products, sleek branding and brilliant marketing. But here's the overlooked secret. The real magic lies in the engine behind the scenes, the business powering their business. For millions of brands, that engine is Shopify, making selling seamless for them and shopping effortless for us. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Alo Yoga uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.comretail all lowercase go to shopify.comretail to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.comretail.
- [01:44]
Mazda Ad
Mazda Crafts cars for those who choose to do more. Because every day is a chance to explore, to experience, to feel, to find a path that's all your own. And in the Mazda CX50 Hybrid, you'll spend less time refueling and more time discovering. More range means more possibilities. And that means whatever you choose to do now, you can do more of it. The new Mazda CX50 Hybrid Move and be moved.
- [02:16]
Kate Lister
Hello my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. You are listening to Betwixt the Sheets and you are you and I am me. And I'm very glad that we are here together. But before we can go any further, I have to tell you this is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way covering a range of adult subjects. And you should be an adult too. And we call that the fair dues warning. Because if you listen to that, keep listening and then happen to get offended. Well, tough, because fair dues you were warned right on with the show. Join me on the deck of the SS Montrose. Let's take in some sea air as we approach the shores of Canada. Oh, it's good for what ails you. The year is 1910, and some of my fellow passengers are beginning to attract unwanted attention. They claim to be father and son, but I don't know, there's an odd level of familiarity between them. And as young boys go, he looks kind of womanly. But, hey, I guess that's none of my business. But it is most definitely the business of Chief Inspector Jew of Scotland Yard, who has journeyed all the way from London and is now making a beeline for these two suspicious characters. Now this is getting juicy. He's brandishing handcuffs. And the father and son duo, aka Dr. Crippen and his lover, Ethel Lanaeve, are looking like the game is up. Are you keen to know more? Well, I know I am. Let's get into it. What do you look for? A man.
- [03:54]
Hallie Rubenhold
Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.
- [03:58]
Kate Lister
I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning it up and pushing now. ERA Now.
- [04:11]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, my beautiful D. Goodness has nothing to do with it. Deari.
- [04:21]
Kate Lister
Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, with me, Kate Lister. You may not have heard of it, but the murder of Belle Elmore by Her husband, Dr. Crippen, gripped Britain in a way that only a true crime mystery can. It was an absolute sensation, in no small part because of the man at the center of it, Dr. Crippen. Well, today's guest is the wonderful Hallie Rubenhold, who has made a career reshaping historical narratives through a feminist lens. And she's done it again with this tale in her new book, Story of a Murder. But who was Belle? Why was she murdered? What influence did the women of London's music hall world play in solving this crime? And why has Belle's side of the story been sidelined for so long? I am ready to find out if you are. Hello and welcome back. It's Hallie Rubenholt. So nice to see you. How are you doing?
- [05:25]
Hallie Rubenhold
Really well. I'm getting very excited about this new book being published and talking about all of these things that I've been researching over the years and very excited.
- [05:40]
Kate Lister
I'm so pleased that you've got a new book out. I've been on tenterhooks for this one. Your last one, the Five, was just such a phenomenal Piece of work. That must have felt a little bit. I mean, obviously, everyone wants their work to do as well as that did. But after you'd written that, did you feel a little bit like, how the fuck am I gonna follow that one up?
- [05:58]
Hallie Rubenhold
Oh, absolutely. It was very, very daunting because I had. It's like I had this book sitting on my shoulder. I had the five sitting on my shoulder the whole time I was writing Story of a Murder, thinking, how am I ever gonna top this? And the 5 was such an enormous success that it just was like, wow, okay, how am I gonna. How am I gonna match that?
- [06:22]
Kate Lister
Well, Halle, you're gonna match it by writing about Dr. Crippen. Honestly, I didn't see that one coming. But, like, when I saw your first post, that's what you were writing about. I was like, that makes sense. That makes sense, actually. So I have been lucky enough to get a sneaky PDF copy of this, and I've heard some fabulous buzz amongst other historians about how much they love it. But I didn't want to binge the whole thing in one go. And I'll tell you for why. Because I know what you're really good at, and you're really good at busting myths and making you think about things in different ways. So I thought that I would come to you with some of the myths about the Crippen case.
- [07:00]
Hallie Rubenhold
Ooh. Okay.
- [07:02]
Kate Lister
So, like, what I kind of think about. So my knowledge of this is early Edwardian. There's a Dr. Crippin, and he's got this horrible, shrewish wife who's really overbearing and shouts at him all the time. And he's this little man who's like. Can barely say boot or a goose. And eventually he gets sick of it and he murders her and he runs off with his younger lover. And he almost would have got away for it as well, were it not for some police officers that stopped him on a ship or something like that. Am I close?
- [07:30]
Hallie Rubenhold
No, no. The police officers that stopped her on a ship. To a certain degree, you have basically just regurgitated to me everything that was in Filson Young's account written in 1920 of the trial. He wrote a summary of the trial for the Great British Trials series, and he wrote an essay introducing this. And in that, he kind of solidified this kind of picture of. I mean, first of all, he was the most gigantic misogynist and had a number of women in his life who he treated very badly. And that's not surprising. I mean, again, just as A sidebar to all of this. I kept thinking I was finding people who were genuine heroes, and then they turned out to be eugenicists or.
- [08:19]
Kate Lister
Oh, that's. That's awful. The historians bind for that one.
- [08:23]
Instacart Ad
I know.
- [08:23]
Kate Lister
I was recently researching the history of birth control, and every time you find a name, you're like, please don't be an asshole. Please don't be an asshole. Oh, no. And they are.
- [08:31]
Hallie Rubenhold
Maybe we can come back to this about, you know, like, how we treat people in the past, and we just cannot judge them by our standards at all. It's impossible. But having said that, I mean, Filson Young was absolutely determined. And we know this as early as 1910 because he wrote a letter to an editor of a newspaper saying that whatever you think of Ethel le Neve and Dr. Crippen, you know, when they were running away together dressed as father and son, you know, their love is the most important thing. And, you know, no matter what their crime, their love is, you know, is, like, sacred. And so he took this attitude in 1920 when he was doing basically an introductory essay for a very edited version of the trial transcripts. And he created this entire kind of myth, which was, oh, Crippen was this poor little downtrodden man, and he and Ethel was just this kind of wallflower. And their love was so noble and so beautiful, and this here's this kind of bitch and this monster who stood in their way. And so it was a good and noble thing to kill her.
- [09:43]
Kate Lister
That's the gist, innit? That's the narrative that's been handed down about this one.
- [09:48]
Hallie Rubenhold
I mean, the interesting thing, one of the interesting things about this, about the myth of it. And then, obviously, this catches fire and it just runs through the 20th century, and even women are jumping on the bandwagon. And Dorothy Sayers, for example, and a woman called Ursula Bloom, who became obsessed with Ethel. And they echoed all of this, you know, like, you know, horrible, shrewish woman deserves to be murdered. You know, this is. She's getting what's coming to her. And everybody's, you know, from 1920, but from the time when this story was published, everybody subsequent to that is kind of making it bigger, making it bigger, making Belle like this sexually voracious monster. And I'm sure we'll come back to this as well, because it's another major myth that needs to be busted about poor Belle. And, I mean, it's all about Belle's reproductive system. Unfortunately, there's so much of this story. The reality was, at this Time, you know, that in 1920, it was just after the First World War, and women's positions in the world had changed so much. I mean, we had just had the Sex Disqualification Removal act passed in 1919, which meant women could enter the professions. They could be solicitors and barristers and doctors, and women had got the vote, and women were wearing shorter hemlines and wearing makeup and bobbing their hair. And there was, like, there was a revolution that was happening. And I think in many ways, what Filson Young wrote about this as a myth was in response to this upsurgence of kind of women's voices. And there are a lot of people who are enormously uncomfortable with women, you know, finding their voice and asserting their sexuality as well and asserting their place. And I think this fits right in with that. That era.
- [11:39]
Kate Lister
I agree. So let's take this book, because then there'll be people listening to this that are going, Dr. Who? Sorry. So we should probably explain a little bit about what happened. And I have had a sneaky peek of your book. I told a little lie. And one of the things that I love is that you set out the beginning like a play program. And there's the cast of characters in the beginning. So let's try and do that. So There was a Dr. Crippen, and he was married to. Now, I did even know what her real name was, so you can tell me what her name was. And he did kill her.
- [12:09]
Hallie Rubenhold
Well, so you mean, are we talking about his first wife or are we talking about his second wife?
- [12:14]
Kate Lister
Oh, Halle. Right. Okay, let's just step this back, and we'll just go. First wife, who was Dr. Crippen, and who did he marry?
- [12:20]
Hallie Rubenhold
People will come to this story either knowing about Dr. Crippen, knowing a lot about Dr. Crippen, or knowing absolutely nothing. And for those people who know about the Dr. Crippen legend, a lot of people don't know that he was married before he had two wives. And Ethel, who was his mistress, was going to looks like, become his third. And his first wife, Charlotte Bell. We should start this in America because Crippen was American. That's another thing that a lot of people don't know. Crippen was American. He was born in Michigan. He grew up in San Jose, California, and his family moved all over the United States. And indeed, he moved all over the United States. In his youth. He studied medicine, so he had a legitimate medical degree, albeit in homeopathy, which was at the time considered a legitimate branch of medicine. And he married a woman who was an immigrant from Ireland, a Protestant Irish woman named Charlotte Bell, who came from a family who didn't have money, but behaved as if they did have money because of the strange peculiarities of the Irish system, landowning system. He married her, and she was a nurse. I mean, the amazing thing about Charlotte was that she had had two separate careers before the age of 30 in the late 19th century.
- [13:38]
Kate Lister
Wow. Okay.
- [13:39]
Hallie Rubenhold
I mean, all of the women in this story are so incredible. And in fact, that's, you know, one of the reasons why I wanted to write this is they. They are incredible women for their time. So Charlotte had trained as a teacher and had become a teacher and then immigrated to the United States with her mother and her sister to join her brother, who was already in New York, and then decided she would train as a nurse and then became a nurse. And, you know, the stuff that nurses saw. You had to have a pretty strong constitution and, you know, and the scales had to fall from your eyes about human nature to become a nurse. So she was not a kind of, know, weak person at all. And she married him, and they went out west, and a number of other things happened. But the long and short of it is in Salt Lake City in the early 1890s, she suddenly died. And she died under very mysterious circumstances. And he said she died of a stroke. But in a professional journal, when they were reporting her death, it was said that she died of a heart attack. Now, he had her buried in a pauper's grave in Salt Lake City, which I went to go and see, by the way, which is pretty amazing. Within 72 hours, in the height of winter, when the ground was frozen, you know, unmarked grave. What the hell was going on there? He had his friend sign the death certificate, and that was it. That was it. And he never talked about her again.
- [15:07]
Kate Lister
And spoke about her so little, in fact, that she is left out of the Crippen narrative. Because I knew that was going to come and talk to you today. So I did a bit of a binge watch of, like, random CRIPPIN Stuff on YouTube.
- [15:19]
Hallie Rubenhold
God help you.
- [15:20]
Kate Lister
Well, you know, I just wanted to, like, see, like, is my take on this story kind of what other people. None of them mentioned that he had a first wife. Not one.
- [15:28]
Hallie Rubenhold
I think there's a real desire to exonerate Crippen, and there always has been. A lot of that came from Crippen himself, who was basically given a lot of leeway as he was waiting to be executed to just write his own story in a sensationalist way. And Say, I'm innocent. I'm an innocent man. And I love Ethel so much, and Ethel loves me. And, oh, you know, we've done nothing wrong. And not. I was gonna say, not surprisingly. I mean, if you think about today and how people are swayed by the media, you know, I think people started to believe this. You know, how could somebody who loves like this be a monster? Well, maybe he's lying.
- [16:09]
Kate Lister
So his second wife. Let's talk about her.
- [16:12]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yes. Okay. So his second wife. So after Charlotte dies mysteriously, Crippen goes to Brooklyn. Crippen trained, you'll be interested to know, as a gynecologist and obstetrician.
- [16:27]
Kate Lister
And a homeopath.
- [16:28]
Hallie Rubenhold
And a homeopath. So when he goes to New York, he's working for a woman's doctor. And this doctor performed abortions, which were highly illegal at the time. I mean, you could go to. You could go to jail. In the state of New York, you could go to jail for 20 years for performing an abortion. Even if the woman wasn't pregnant, even attempting to perform an abortion, you could go to prison, but people still did it. It was one of these things that. It's been around since Eve, hasn't it?
- [16:58]
Kate Lister
It has.
- [16:58]
Hallie Rubenhold
And Crippen meets Belle because she has had an abortion. And, you know, he describes it in a way that was very sort of careful, saying, well, you know, it was a miscarriage, but, you know, she was living with this other man, and he put her up in lodgings, and it was so obviously an abortion.
- [17:16]
Kate Lister
Wow. Okay.
- [17:18]
Hallie Rubenhold
And this relationship developed between them, and it was a kind of whirlwind romance. And she was coming up on 19 at the time, and they went to Jersey City, which was like a Gretna Green, and they just got married within, you know, knowing each other for a couple of months, you know, so there must have been some actual genuine affection at the beginning of this relationship. But then it goes sour because they really are really quite an unsuited couple.
- [17:46]
Kate Lister
They do seem quite unsuited. I mean, from the. Admittedly, the limited amount that I know is. Would it be true to say that she was. But I know that she was a singer, she was into music hall, that she was quite. She's often painted as quite vivacious, quite loud, quite sociable. What's your take on that?
- [18:05]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah, well, so. So were most people who worked in the music hall. You know, I mean, that's. That there was absolutely nothing different about her from anybody else who worked in the music hall. You know, she didn't have some sort of Flawed character that was any different than anybody else. You know, and certainly the way she was described. All of her friends loved her.
- [18:23]
Kate Lister
She was really popular, well loved. But Crippen was not loud and vivacious, or have I got that wrong?
- [18:31]
Hallie Rubenhold
No, no. I mean, he was a very quiet man, but he was also. I mean, the important thing to bear in mind about Crippen was he was a fraudster. His medical career just didn't take off. We don't know why. He eventually turns to the dark side and turns to patent medicine sales, and then he moves to London. He gets into medical fraud and actual stock fraud as well, and all sorts of really dodgy schemes. And all the men who surround him are incredibly dodgy. People who are in and out of prison, who are violent at times. You know, birds of a feather flock together, Right? That is who he was. He was not a nice man. He was not a good man.
- [19:18]
Sleep Number Ad
And.
- [19:18]
Hallie Rubenhold
And he was also an incredibly accomplished liar. He was a conman and he conned people.
- [19:25]
Kate Lister
Okay, so they've ended up in the uk. Do we have any kind of sources as to what her name was? Belle, wasn't it?
- [19:33]
Hallie Rubenhold
Belle Elmore?
- [19:34]
Kate Lister
Yes, Belle Elmore.
- [19:35]
Hallie Rubenhold
She had several names which she changed throughout her life. Belle Elmore was her stage name, which she adopted as her name, and everybody knew her as that.
- [19:43]
Kate Lister
Okay, so Belle and Crippen are living together. Do we have any sources as to what their relationship was like?
- [19:51]
Hallie Rubenhold
Well, it's interesting because, you know, there is a lot of testimony from people who knew them, from their friends and said they had a perfectly, on the surface, a perfectly good marriage. And, you know, nobody ever heard them screaming at each other. You know, there were times when they would get angry with each other, but that was normal. You know, he wasn't violent towards her as far as anybody knew. Gosh, I mean, there's so many accounts. There are accounts from lodgers who lived with them. There's an account from Belle's sister who stayed with them for a while. Some of the things that her sister does say is that when Crippen lived with the family, when they first got married, they lived with Belle's family in Brooklyn, that Crippen basically molested all of her sisters when they were teenage girls.
- [20:43]
Kate Lister
Wow.
- [20:44]
Hallie Rubenhold
Would not surprise me at all. He was very interested in teenage girls, young teenage girls. But again, you know, this is the late 19th century and what is completely unacceptable for us was acceptable for them. You know, for a man to like 14 and 15 year olds. Girls got married, could get married at.
- [21:05]
Kate Lister
16, I think he still would have raised a few eyebrows.
- [21:09]
Hallie Rubenhold
A few.
- [21:10]
Kate Lister
A few. Whereas now if someone was dating a 14 year old, I think you, you'd probably remove them from your house immediately. But yeah, I think at the time it's more like, oh, a bit young, but no more than that.
- [21:20]
Hallie Rubenhold
Exactly. So he, he did have this thing for that. And I found somebody saying that before he married Charlotte, there was a young woman he was interested in pursuing whose mother basically broke off the relationship because she was too young. So he does have this history of. I mean, he is so creepy. He is a really, really creepy, disgusting man.
- [21:51]
Kate Lister
I'll be back with Harley after this short.
- [22:09]
Instacart Ad
I used to think buying foundation online was impossible. How am I supposed to find my shade when I can't even get it right in store? Then I discovered IL Maquillage. I took their AI powered quiz to find my custom match and wow. This foundation is literally my skin in a bottle. The undertone and coverage are spot on. It's so neutral and weightless I can't even tell I'm wearing makeup. Plus with Try before youe Buy, you can try your full size at home for 14 days. Take the Power Match Quiz now at ilmacchiage.com Quiz I L M A K I A G E.com Quiz if you're.
- [22:40]
Shopify Ad
A parent or share a fridge with someone, Instacart is about to make grocery shopping so much easier. Because with family carts you can share a cart with your partner and each add the items you want. Since between the two of you, odds are you'll both remember everything you need. And this way you'll never have to eat milkless cereal again. So minimize the stress of the weekly shop with family carts. Download the Instacart app and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus enjoy zero dollar delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees apply for three orders in 14 days. Excludes restaurants.
- [23:15]
Instacart Ad
Instacart is on a mission to have you not leave the couch this basketball season because between the pre game rituals and the post game interviews, it can be difficult to find time for everything else. So let Instacart take care of your game day snacks or weekly restocks and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes because we hear it's bad luck to be hungry on game day. So download the Instacart app today and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees apply for three orders in 14 days. Excludes restaurants.
- [23:45]
Sleep Number Ad
They say opposites attract. That's why the sleep number Smart Bed is the best bed for couples, you can each choose what's right for you whenever you like. You like a bed that feels firm, but they want soft. Sleep number does that. You want to sleep cooler while they like to feel warm. Sleep number does that too. Why choose a sleep number smart bed so you can choose your ideal comfort on either side. Sleep number. Smart beds start at $999. Price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii. Exclusively at a sleep number store near you. See store or sleepnumber.com for details.
- [24:30]
Kate Lister
Do you know something? I know I should. This is horrendously unscientific, and I shouldn't say it. It's a disgrace to myself and all other academics, but he looks creepy.
- [24:37]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah, he does look creepy.
- [24:39]
Kate Lister
I shouldn't say that, but he's got, like, the walrus moustache. Yeah. Like that sort of creepy mustache.
- [24:46]
Hallie Rubenhold
Creepy mustache.
- [24:48]
Kate Lister
Like little man, maybe? He wasn't little, actually big, was he?
- [24:51]
Hallie Rubenhold
Well, he was. He was. He was a small man.
- [24:54]
Kate Lister
Okay.
- [24:54]
Hallie Rubenhold
In that way, they are correct. But also, Belle was short also, so there's a lot of fat shaming around Belle, you know, and really, to be honest, if you look at Belle and all of the other women of her acquaintance, she certainly was, you know, more kind of robustly shaped. It's the fat shaming kind of comes subsequently, and it comes as a part of this. Oh, well, she was a depraved woman. You know, a fat woman can't control herself. A fat woman, you know, just can't control her desires. She desires food. She desires sex. She desires all of this stuff. She's depraved.
- [25:34]
Kate Lister
And it's also quite a clever way of, like, coding age as well. That idea of, like, the domineering, frumpy wife who is making her husband's life a misery. Yeah, like, you see that all the time. I was watching Fawlty Towers the other day. Like, this Basil faulted, Sybil faulty. She's lying. She isn't fat, but she's lying there with all these rollers in her hair and, like, smoking, you know, it's the idea of, like, you've got this domineering shrew in this poor henpecked husband.
- [26:01]
Hallie Rubenhold
Well, that's interestingly, as the image of Belle evolved through the 20th century as more and more people kind of piled on to kind of turn her into this sort of image of unacceptable womanhood. That's what she became in the kind of 1960s, 1960s, 1970s is this woman who laid about in her pajamas. And.
- [26:23]
Kate Lister
Pajamas was on the stage.
- [26:25]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah. And. And drank There is absolutely no evidence at all for any of this. I mean, really. You know, there's nobody says, well, she had problems drinking. There was nobody. You know, I mean, Crippen didn't even say that. And believe me, you know, in Crippin's witness statements and his interviews with the police, he has never, ever. I mean, he. He kind of pulled out of the closet, like, every possible defamatory thing he could say about his wife in order to save himself. And the one thing he didn't say was she drank.
- [26:56]
Kate Lister
Interesting.
- [26:57]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah.
- [26:58]
Kate Lister
So Belle disappears.
- [27:01]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yes.
- [27:01]
Kate Lister
What's the lead up to this, Halle? What is going on?
- [27:05]
Hallie Rubenhold
Okay, first of all, there's one thing I want to bring in which we haven't talked about, which is very, very important in terms of defining who Belle was. And shortly after they got married, when Belle was probably about 21, Crippen had her ovaries removed.
- [27:23]
Kate Lister
Holy fuck balls. What?
- [27:25]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah.
- [27:25]
Kate Lister
At 21?
- [27:26]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah. He had told her, you know, she had various problems and what she had. And I found the records of this. She had a prolapsed uterus, and her mother and her sisters both said she had no problems with her periods, she had no issues at all. Belle wanted children and quite frankly, Crippen didn't want children. He had a child from his first wife who he basically palmed off to his parents to look after. And he rarely ever saw Otto, his son, again.
- [27:59]
Kate Lister
Wow. Now, we should say that the removal of ovaries, the removal of the clitoris, a hysterectomy, this is all documented in Victorian quack medicine. It wasn't routine. I think we should point that out. It wasn't like, you know, if you went to the GP with a headache, they'd go, right, you're womb out.
- [28:18]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah.
- [28:18]
Kate Lister
But it is documented. But I didn't know it was carrying on. I thought this was a Victorian madness.
- [28:24]
Hallie Rubenhold
Well, it was.
- [28:25]
Kate Lister
It was.
- [28:25]
Hallie Rubenhold
This was about. Was about 1894 when this surgery was done. But at that time, there were a lot of doctors, even homeopathic doctors, speaking out against it and saying, this is not something we should be doing. They were. They were calling it the castration of women.
- [28:40]
Kate Lister
Yeah.
- [28:41]
Hallie Rubenhold
And so there was a move against it by that point, so it was unpopular, but still he did it and. And for the rest of her life, first of all, she's traumatized by the surgery and it was a terrible surgery and it took her months and months and months to recover. And she was traumatized by this idea that she'd always wanted to be a mother. She Couldn't now be a mother. She felt, you know, completely different in.
- [29:04]
Kate Lister
Who she was, like, forced into complete menopause, right?
- [29:08]
Hallie Rubenhold
Totally. And instantly. And I mean, surgical menopause is like that. And at 21 and, you know, all of these things happening to her body. And also that didn't cure the prolapse uterus. So she still had a prolapsed uterus. And what is so important about this is that Crippen says. So various times, Crippen leaves her for work, and at one point, he leaves her when they're living in London, and he has. He's called back to Philadelphia to be basically hauled over the coals by his employer for acting as Belle's stage manager. And they have a kind of. It's an agreed separation. And Belle meets this other performer called Bruce Miller. Now, this is really weird, and this is a really, really important part of this story, okay? That is often no woman has really kind of investigated. And I think it's really. And I'm saying this. It's very important that women look at these stories because so much is said about women that men don't pick up on necessarily. And the impacts of being forced into sterility, I think, is. Is something that most of the male writers just kind of breezed over in this story, which I found pretty incredible. But more to the point, she meets Bruce Miller and they are supposed to have had an affair. We don't know what exactly happened between them. He. The one thing he will admit to is that he did kiss her. And he writes letters to her, which he signs loving kisses to brown eyes. And this is basically at the time of the trial, this is the only evidence that Crippen can produce that his wife had an affair. Was a letter signed love and kisses to brown eyes. That isn't, you know, the impassioned, overflowing gushings of a. Of a. Of an adulterous lover. But anyway, they probably did have some sort of emotional affair. I mean, they probably were physically intimate in some way. But this is very, very important. Bruce Miller. And he was at the trial when he was asked, were you more than friends with her? And. And he used this phrase, and he used it several times. He said, I could not be more than a friend. I could not be more than a friend. Which to me sounds like a very guarded way of saying there was a physical impediment to sexual intercourse.
- [31:28]
Kate Lister
It does, doesn't it? And if she has had what sounds like an abortion at some point, possibly a botched abortion, they were very Dangerous. And she's had her ovaries removed, which is just butchery and prolapse. She has a prolapse, yeah.
- [31:42]
Hallie Rubenhold
And she's in menopause as well, without.
- [31:44]
Kate Lister
Hrt, as you said, instant surgical menopause.
- [31:48]
Hallie Rubenhold
So this is the thing. Crippen would have known if his wife had kind of sworn off sex or wasn't able to have sex anymore. Found sex very, very painful. And he would know that. And he would also know that in England he could not divorce her because the grounds for divorce were adultery. So he was stuck with her forever. Now, after he'd sterilized her, now he's stuck with her forever.
- [32:13]
Kate Lister
Absolute prick.
- [32:14]
Hallie Rubenhold
I know.
- [32:15]
Kate Lister
But I'll tell you someone who was having an affair, Hallie, that we know about was Crippen. Crippen, yeah.
- [32:21]
Hallie Rubenhold
So Crippen is at this time also having an affair. Well, is having an affair with Ethel Lanaeve, who is his. What was called a lady typhist. You know, women were entering the workforce at that time.
- [32:34]
Kate Lister
Time.
- [32:34]
Hallie Rubenhold
And she was a clock and shorthand taker and a typist. And, you know, they fell in love with each other. But I think Ethel initially really fell in love with the idea that at the time he was living in a 10 roomed house in Holloway and he was buying his wife diamonds and really nice clothing. And, you know, he had a lot of money. And Ethel came from social housing. She was born in Norfolk. Her family had no money. And they, you know, they really made a tremendous effort to kind of improve the lives of their children and sent Ethel to secretarial college. You know, they were having an affair. And in fact, I think. I really strongly believe it was Ethel who was the engine behind this murder.
- [33:25]
Kate Lister
Mic drop. Plot twist, Halle. Okay, go. Why would you say that?
- [33:30]
Hallie Rubenhold
Well, Ethel, I mean, she was a very dark and very complicated character. I mean, I have to say I'm completely haunted by her. I think about her so often. I mean, partially because she didn't die until 1967, which is amazing. And her children had no idea who she was. And there are audio interviews with her children in the 80s and 90s.
- [33:55]
Kate Lister
Wow.
- [33:56]
Hallie Rubenhold
And I mean, that, to me, was just absolutely stunning. You know, this story isn't that long ago. So Crippen was stringing Ethel along for you. I mean, they. They were involved for six years.
- [34:07]
Kate Lister
Oh, wow.
- [34:08]
Hallie Rubenhold
It's a long time. And they had a sexual relationship. And he kept saying, oh, Belle's gonna leave me for Bruce Miller. Belle's gonna leave me. Just, you know, just. Just hang on. Of course, she was never gonna leave him for Bruce Miller. Bruce Miller had gone back to Chicago, you know, and. And she occasionally got a letter from him. But this was a nice way of keeping your mistress, you know, And. But Ethel got tired of this. She got tired of it. And the real tipping point came when Ethel got pregnant, and Crippen obviously made her have an abortion. And that's documented that. Again, it's called a quote, unquote, miscarriage, but you had to call it that at that time because abortion was illegal, and you would be implicating yourself in another crime if you said that you had participated in that. And. And from that point, you know, just. The tension just ratchets up. He buys Ethel an engagement ring, even though Belle is still alive. So this is a couple months before she's murdered.
- [35:04]
Kate Lister
Okay.
- [35:05]
Hallie Rubenhold
And then the week before Belle is murdered, Ethel decides basically, bring this engagement ring out and tell all her friends she's engaged, while Crippen has gone off to buy the hyosine hydrobromide which he uses to poison Belle with. Yeah. She knew it was gonna happen.
- [35:24]
Kate Lister
And she is definitely. Well, maybe this is untrue as well, but wasn't she caught wearing Belle's clothes?
- [35:31]
Hallie Rubenhold
Oh, God. Yeah. I mean, it gets. It gets. I mean.
- [35:33]
Kate Lister
I mean, have a word with yourself. Wow.
- [35:36]
Hallie Rubenhold
Totally. This is where it gets, like, kind of. See, when I'm saying, you know, that she's a kind of dark and complex person. Bell has gone missing. Nobody knows where she is. Crippen says she's gone to America to deal with some family emergency.
- [35:49]
Kate Lister
Because one thing that he underestimated was she was missed very quickly by her friends. Very quickly.
- [35:56]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah. And her friends. So she was part of this organization called the Music Hall Ladies Guild, which was a charitable organization. She was the treasurer. All of her good friends were part of this. They met every Wednesday, and she was so close with her friends. Your friends are gonna know, you know, Kate. You disappear, and your best friends are like, hang on. She's not. What the hell's going on here? You know, this isn't.
- [36:19]
Kate Lister
Well, she's just gone. She just nipped over to America for some family business.
- [36:23]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah. And she's not even texted me. She's not sent me a message. You know, she's not. She's not. You know, what's going on? And it was like that with them. You know, they would send telegrams to each other every day. They would ring each other. They would. And so they were saying, look, something's seriously wrong, but then something really really did appear seriously wrong. When at a charity ball about a month or so later, Crippen turns up not with his wife, but with his lady typist, wearing his wife's diamonds, the rising sun brooch.
- [36:56]
Kate Lister
Jesus.
- [36:57]
Hallie Rubenhold
And they proceed to just kind of sit at the table with all of Belle's friends as if nothing's happened.
- [37:02]
Kate Lister
Could you even imagine? I know your mate has gone missing. Her husband has just said, oh, no, she's just gone to see some people. Don't worry about it. And then he walks in with this little bit of stuff that he's got. And she's wearing your mate's jewelry.
- [37:17]
Hallie Rubenhold
I know. I. Oh. And so. And that's how they felt as well. And so really, at that point, it was like, you know, the gloves are off. And at first, Scotland Yard just wasn't interested. Because Scotland Yard just, oh, these are bohemian people. You know, they have rap, musical. Yeah, music hall people. You know, they're all having it off with each other. They've all got illegitimate children, you know, so what, she goes missing. She's probably, you know, run off with her lover, you know, whatever. We're not interested. And so they kept agitating for this, you know, to have it investigated. And eventually, it took one of Belle's friend's husbands to go with Lil Hawthorne, her name was, to Scotland Yard to say, look, I'm a man, and I think there's something wrong here.
- [38:06]
Kate Lister
I have a penis, and I think this is important.
- [38:08]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah, exactly. I'm gonna throw my penis on the table and you're gonna listen to me. And exactly that's what happened. And then they decided to investigate it. And lo and behold, there was something in this. But it took a long time to get to that stage.
- [38:22]
Kate Lister
Am I right in thinking that we don't actually know what happened to Belle? They found human remains in the basement of their house, but we don't know what happened to her.
- [38:33]
Hallie Rubenhold
We know that she was poisoned with hyosine hydrobromide. What has been speculated, and certainly I think the best theory, comes from a man called Ingleby Oddie, who has a very bizarre name, but who was one of the junior barristers on the trial who had access to all of the documentation and then later became a coroner. And so has saw subsequent cases of poisoning and various other things. And Ingleby Oddie said that he believed what had happened was that this was a poisoning gone wrong, that the intention was. Hyosine hydrobromide is a sedative, and it will put you to sleep. And you can affect a very natural death that way through an overdose. And then he would just get a friend of his to sign the death certificate. That would be it. What actually probably happened was in too high of a dose and he did give her too much. I mean, he probably, because he was a homeopathist, didn't understand actual dosage. And what can then happen is your behaviour becomes manic and hyper. And I would say there was probably a struggle. And because there was a struggle, there were marks, there were injuries left on her body, which meant that when she did die, however she did die, it couldn't be passed off as a natural death. And so suddenly he had a body on his hands and he had to dispose of that body. And he wasn't expecting that. And then that's where it all comes unraveled and he has to literally chop up her body and take her bones out. And, I mean, he's probably burying her and disposing of her body at piecemeal in various places and then buries it under the brickwork of the coal cellar. The viscera, which he covers with quicklime, thinking it's going to, you know, kind of break down the body. But unfortunately, the quicklime became watered down and. And when water interacts with it, it acts as a preservative and so it preserved the viscera. So when Inspector Jew of Scotland Yard went looking after Ethel and Crippen took flight because he had come to interview them and they got scared. He found the remains in the cellar.
- [40:55]
Kate Lister
And so Crippen, I don't even know what his first name is. What is his first name?
- [40:58]
Hallie Rubenhold
His name is Hawley Harvey Crippens. And that's spelled H A W L E Y.
- [41:04]
Kate Lister
Okay, Hawley Harvey Crippens. Hawley is hauled ass with Ethel. They are on the run. And this becomes a media sensation, doesn't it?
- [41:14]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah.
- [41:15]
Kate Lister
Why?
- [41:16]
Hallie Rubenhold
Well, I mean, there are lots of reasons. There are lots of reasons why. What doesn't come out until slightly later is that they are dressed as father and son, which certainly adds a whole other heightened level of sensationalism to this, because they've gone incognito and Ethel is dressed in a boy's suit and wearing a hat and has cut her hair short and he shaved off his mustache. What people found so shocking was the brutality with which her body was completely desecrated and the fact that a husband had completely dismembered his wife's body and then put on his, you know, hat and got on the tram and went to work as if nothing had happened. And that was such a kind of assault on people's sense of decency and dignity and that it had happened in this neighborhood, you know, which means, you know, this could be you newspaper reading public, you know, sitting there having your tea and your toast and your. In the morning, this could be you, this, these people, the Crippens could be your neighbors. You know, there's all sorts of scary things happening behind the woodshed, you know, in your neighborhood. And so people became obsessed with this, but they also became obsessed with the fact that Crippen had gone to ground.
- [42:35]
Kate Lister
With Ethel and no one knew where they were.
- [42:38]
Hallie Rubenhold
Nobody knew where they were. And so this international manhunt took place. And this was in all the newspapers. And it was in the newspapers like twice a day because there were two editions published. And so people were kind of following this in real time. And especially when Crippen was discovered to have been on board the Montrose, which was a ship bound for Queen Quebec. And the captain, Captain Kendall, figured out that the weird looking father and son who were holding hands, I mean, who holds hands with their teenage son, right, were the fugitives. And so he got on his newly invented Marconi wireless. Well, he had his, his wireless operator get on and wire the shipping company who wired Scotland Yard, who got in touch with Inspector Dew, who hopped on another ship called the Laurentic, which left from Liverpool and he hoped to get to Quebec before the Montrose got there. And lo and behold, he did. And he boarded the ship and he arrested Crippen and Ethel, Ethel incidentally, who started screaming even before the charges of murder were read out to her, screaming and collapsed and went absolutely berserk. So, you know, that's not the behavior of somebody who claimed to be as innocent as she was, who had no.
- [44:03]
Kate Lister
Clue what had happened at all.
- [44:05]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah.
- [44:05]
Kate Lister
Was she charged? He was charged. Was she charged?
- [44:08]
Hallie Rubenhold
Well, they were both charged with murder initially. He was found guilty. And she, and this is, this is the real kicker. She had her, her charge reduced to being an accomplice to murder. And then it was decided before her trial. They didn't really care about her, whatever happened, but the real problem was they had never, ever bothered to gather all of the evidence against her because Jew from the very start was just interested in the man, despite the fact that, I mean, Ethel was, she was obstructive to his efforts to interrogate Crippen. She was, she was obstructed from the very beginning. She just, it's believed she destroyed evidence on the Montrose when she was arrested. Also.
- [45:00]
Kate Lister
I'll be back with Harley after this short break.
- [45:19]
Instacart Ad
Instacart is on a mission to have you not leave the couch this basketball season because between the pre game rituals and the post game interviews, it can be difficult to find time for everything else. So let Instacart take care of your game day snacks or weekly restocks and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes because we hear it's bad luck to be hungry on game day. So download the Instacart app today and enjoy. $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees apply for three orders in 14 days. Excludes restaurants.
- [45:49]
Sleep Number Ad
They say opposites attract. That's why the Sleep Number Smart bed is the best bed for couples. You can each choose what's right for you whenever you like. You like a bed that feels firm, but they want soft. Sleep Number does that. You want to sleep cooler while they like to feel warm. Sleep Number does that too. Why choose a Sleep Number Smart bed so you can choose your ideal comfort on either side. Sleep Number Smart beds start at $999. Price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii. Exclusively at a Sleep Number store near you See store or sleepnumber.com for details.
- [46:33]
Kate Lister
Just listening to you talk. And again, I know that you should never be an absolute absolutist. Being an even minded academic story leaves space for doubt. But she definitely was in on this in some way.
- [46:44]
Hallie Rubenhold
Absolutely. And the lies she told, I mean lie after lie after lie to her parents, to her sister, to her friends.
- [46:53]
Kate Lister
That's just not credible. The way she behaved and the way she acted and these lies that she's telling, that she knew nothing at all, that she was as surprised as everybody else. No.
- [47:01]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yes. And she claimed she knew absolutely nothing and she was completely innocent. She was just dragged along in this kind of evil man's plan. And that was effectively the line that her defense barrister played and he got her completely acquitted of everything.
- [47:21]
Kate Lister
And what's Crippen saying is at any point he's saying, hang on a second, Ethel, that's not quite right.
- [47:26]
Hallie Rubenhold
Well, no, no, because it was a complete pact of silence between the two of them. I mean, it was so obvious at various points. It's just so obvious that the story was so rehearsed and discussed between them beforehand. Whatever happens, Ethel, say nothing. Just be silent. Say nothing. Say I know nothing. That's all she kept saying was, I know nothing. I know nothing. I know nothing. And she knew she knew everything. And actually there are contrary statements about what she knew in the witness Statements of other people, you know, her sister, her landlady, who said she came home from work one day around the time when the murder took place and had a complete nervous breakdown and. And cried out, oh, it's Elmore.
- [48:08]
Kate Lister
Oh, come on. Like this wouldn't stand up in court today. I've got a bit more faith in the judicial system that should have been nailed for this today.
- [48:15]
Hallie Rubenhold
But Ethel was written off, I mean, literally written off as a hysterical woman and that was it. She would have been incapable of keeping a secret, it was said, because she was so hysterical.
- [48:25]
Kate Lister
So you've got one woman, Belle Elmore, who the police don't care about all that much in the beginning because she is a music hall person and who is denigrated as being the wrong kind of woman. And then you've got another woman who might well have helped kill her, and she's going to get away with it because she's a different type of wrong woman.
- [48:43]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah, exactly. That's exactly it. And it was believed she had this type of hysteria that was just the right amount of hysteria. It was the sort of hysteria, just the right amount of hysteria that polite women had. You know, the sort of hysteria that made you take to your bed with headaches and, you know, you had menstrual problems and you didn't eat and, you know, you were very weak, fainting, that kind of stuff. Yeah. And that was an appropriate type of hysteria for a woman to have.
- [49:10]
Kate Lister
Crippen was executed for this, wasn't he? He was. When was that?
- [49:15]
Hallie Rubenhold
23Rd of November 1910. And what Ethel does after Crippen is found guilty and she is acquitted, Ethel then kind of takes up the gauntlet of trying to get his trial overturned, you know, the verdict overturned, and, you know, does everything she can and is really aggressive. You know, she kind of thrusts herself on the governor of Pentonville, you know, goes to his door and says, you must listen to me. You must. You know, I mean, this is not a wilting violet, and the fact that anybody took her for that is ridiculous. And then, of course, she sells her story to the press and in her stories, you know, she says, oh, this idea that we go dressed as father and son, I just thought it was a lark. It was just fun and I had a great time. And, you know, and. And no, I never let him completely influence me to do things that I didn't want to do. And. And so she's kind of overturning her own story and undermining her own story. She's interviewed in the 1920s as well. And the story keeps changing over and over again. And she's admitting a little by little throughout the kind of decades that she was actually much more totally.
- [50:30]
Kate Lister
She's totally in it.
- [50:31]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah.
- [50:32]
Kate Lister
So I could talk to you about this forever and ever, Halle, but I'm not allowed to. So, as sort of a final question, one of the things that you've really sought to bring out of the book and that you've spoken about is that this, it was the role of women that really nailed this case. Although a lot of it is kind of, you know, it was the police detectives and it was the ship captain. What role was it that Belle's friends had in this? Cause she had some show busy friends she had. Was it Vulcana, the strongest woman in the world?
- [50:58]
Hallie Rubenhold
And again, this is unfortunately one of these things that has made it into the legend. I mean, Vulcana, her name was Kate Williams, was part of the Music Hall Ladies Guild, but she wasn't part of this group who investigated the murder.
- [51:11]
Kate Lister
Ah, I see.
- [51:12]
Hallie Rubenhold
She wasn't part of the executive committee. So, no, Vulcana did not investigate Belle Elmore's murder.
- [51:19]
Kate Lister
There we go. That's another one. Put that to bed.
- [51:21]
Hallie Rubenhold
Yeah, yeah.
- [51:22]
Kate Lister
But what was the role of women in this?
- [51:25]
Hallie Rubenhold
Well, I mean, the thing is, one of the things that occurred to me as I was writing this, especially during, when I was writing the bit about the trial is that women had really no voice in justice at all. They couldn't be in the police, they couldn't be solicitors, they couldn't be barristers, they couldn't be judges, they couldn't sit in parliament, they couldn't vote, you know, they couldn't make laws. They couldn't participate in anything legal in that regard. And what is so interesting is the amount of women who testified in this trial against Crippen to kind of seal his guilt was pretty impressive. So these are the friends of Bell who were the ones who agitated at the very beginning. Something's terribly wrong here. And tried to get Scotland Yard interested and they hired private detectives and they investigated themselves and they questioned Crippen and they chased him literally through buildings and down the street and knocked on his door and really made a nuisance of themselves for a good end, obviously. But that they did other things as well. And this is important. So their president, Mrs. Jeanette, who was an equestrian performer, happened to be in New York at the time and got in touch with Belle's sisters and helped to create a dragnet on the other side of the Atlantic, hoping to catch Crippen, when he was on the ship and then went to Quebec to identify him and Ethel, speak to Ethel, identify the jewellery that was found on them. And then finally, they paid for Belle's funeral. They paid for her grave, assisted her sister. And also finally, most importantly, they had inheritance law changed in this country because Ethel was supposed to inherit. So Crippen had written a will. So Crippen had inherited all of Belle's worldly goods.
- [53:16]
Kate Lister
Oh, fuck. Right.
- [53:17]
Hallie Rubenhold
And then he had bequeathed it all to Ever.
- [53:21]
Kate Lister
I very much think not.
- [53:22]
Hallie Rubenhold
Well, exactly. And that's what the Music Hall Ladies Guild said. They said, no, we're engaging a solicitor, we're going to completely challenge this. And they did. They had inheritance law change.
- [53:31]
Kate Lister
Amazing. Halle, you have been incredible to talk to. I knew you would be, you always are. But I think you've smashed it out of the park again. If people want to know more about you and your work, and they will after reading this, where can they find you?
- [53:43]
Hallie Rubenhold
Well, I am online in the usual places, Instagram, Blue Sky, Facebook. And the book is available for pre order now from any bookshop. It will actually be on the shelves on the 27th of March.
- [53:56]
Kate Lister
Let's give it its full title.
- [53:58]
Hallie Rubenhold
It is called Story of a Murder, the Wives, the mistress and Dr. Crippen. Also it is available in the US and it is coming out a couple days earlier in the UK. So it's available on the 25th of March in the US. 27th of March in the UK.
- [54:13]
Kate Lister
Amazing. Holly, thank you so much. You've been spectacular.
- [54:16]
Hallie Rubenhold
You're welcome.
- [54:23]
Kate Lister
Thanks for listening and thank you so much to Hallie for joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like review and follow along wherever it is that you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject or maybe you just wanted to say hi, then you can email us@betwixtistoryhit.com Coming up, we have got the final episode in our limited series, Real Wives of Dictators. Chung Jing, Wife of Chairman Mao and the History of Gonorrhea. This podcast was edited by Tom Delaghi and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again Betwixt the sheets, the history of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.
- [55:12]
Mazda Ad
Mazda crafts cars for those who choose to do more. Because every day is a chance to explore, to experience, to feel, to find a path that's all your own. And in the Mazda CX50 Hybrid, you'll spend less time refueling and more time discovering. More range means more possibilities, and that means whatever you choose to do now, you can do more of it. The new Mazda CX50 Hybrid Move and be moved.
- [55:42]
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 transformation formative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.