Harvey Crippen
From Conservapedia
Harvey Hawley Crippen was an American quack medicine practitioner who posed as a qualified medical doctor and worked in London as a representative for a patent medicine company. He was married to Kunigunde Mackamotski, a music hall artiste who went by the stage name of Belle Elmore, and the couple lived, unhappily, at 39 Hilldrop Crescent in north London. Belle was last seen alive by friends on 31 January 1910; Crippen told callers that she had returned to the US and died there; and he excited comment by moving his mistress, Ethel le Neve, into his home. A friend of Belle's reported her suspicions to the police; Crippen was interviewed and the house searched. Rattled, Crippen and le Neve fled, reawakening the suspicions of Chief Inspector Dew of Scotland Yard who had been mollified by Crippen's previous explanations. The abandoned house was again searched, and partial human remains - proved to be those of Belle by the pathologist Bernard Spilsbury - found buried in the cellar; the cause of death was poisoning. Descriptions of the fugitives Crippen and le Neve were circulated, and they were spotted on a transatlantic liner, the SS Montrose, even though le Neve was posing as a boy. This news was radioed to the UK and Dew, traveling on a faster vessel, was able to meet and arrest Crippen and le Neve upon their arrival at the mouth of the St Lawrence River in Canada. The pair were brought back to Great Britain and tried at the Old Bailey for murder. Ethel le Nevve was acquitted but Crippen was found guilty and hanged at Pentonville Prison in London on November 23 1910 by John Ellis.
Erik Larsen's 2006 book, Thunderstruck, interweaves the stories of Guglielmo Marconi and the early development of radiotelegraphy with the story of the Crippen murder and the two-vessel chase. The couple believed they had escaped, had dinner with the captain and even admired the Marconi room, unaware that thousands of newspaper readers knew all about them and were following the progress of the chase in their daily newspaper.
