Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen was everything a Victorian gentleman should be—soft-spoken, well-dressed, impeccably polite. His neighbors in Camden Road, North London, knew him as a devoted husband who doted on his flamboyant wife Cora. So when he appeared wearing her diamond brooch and giving away her expensive furs after claiming she'd died suddenly in America, suspicions began to mount.
Host Carman Carrion explores the case that shocked Edwardian London and changed criminal investigation forever. This wasn't just about escaping a bad marriage—Crippen's intent was to commit the perfect murder, to erase his wife so completely that he could build a new life with his young secretary, Ethel Le Neve, on her grave. What he didn't count on was that the same modern technology that made his crime possible would also make his capture inevitable.
From the basement burial at 39 Hilldrop Crescent to the dramatic wireless chase across the Atlantic, this case reveals how a mild-mannered doctor's desire for respectability without consequences led to dismemberment, deception, and the world's first international manhunt conducted by radio. When Captain Kendall spotted the disguised fugitives aboard the SS Montrose, his wireless message to Scotland Yard made history: "Have strong suspicions that Crippen London cellar murderer and accomplice are among saloon passengers."
Join us as we examine how Victorian propriety collided with modern detection methods, and how one man's intent to have it all—love, respectability, and freedom—led to his place in criminal history as both murderer and the star of the world's first wireless manhunt.
Content Warning: This episode contains discussions of murder, dismemberment, and domestic violence.
Listen: https://carmancarrion.buzzsprout.com
Episode Hashtags: #CrippenCase #WirelessChase #VictorianMurder #ScotlandYard #DeadlyIntent #TrueCrimeHistory
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