Hawley Harvey Crippen

Hawley Harvey Crippen (1862-1910) was an American homeopath whose 1910 conviction for the murder of his wife in London became one of the most widely reported criminal cases of the early twentieth century. Born in Coldwater, Michigan, he trained in homeopathic and ear-and-throat medicine before moving to England in 1897 to work for a patent medicine firm.

In London he settled at 39 Hilldrop Crescent with his second wife, Cora Turner, a music-hall performer who used the stage name Belle Elmore. The marriage deteriorated, and Crippen began a relationship with his typist, Ethel Le Neve. After Cora vanished in late January 1910, Crippen told friends she had returned to America and died there.

Suspicious neighbours pressed the Metropolitan Police, and Chief Inspector Walter Dew searched the house. Human remains were later found buried beneath the cellar floor. By then Crippen and Le Neve had fled aboard the SS Montrose, with Le Neve disguised as a boy.

The captain, Henry Kendall, recognised the pair and used the ship's Marconi wireless to alert Scotland Yard. Inspector Dew boarded a faster liner, the SS Laurentic, and arrested Crippen at the mouth of the St Lawrence River in July 1910. The case is remembered as the first in which radio communication helped capture a fugitive. Crippen was tried at the Old Bailey, convicted, and hanged at Pentonville Prison on 23 November 1910.

The given name Hawley is an English surname-turned-first-name from Old English, meaning holy clearing or hedged meadow. Used chiefly for boys, it carries a quiet pastoral feel; he carried it through a life that ended in one of Edwardian London's most public scandals.