Thunderstruck - Erik Larson [156]
Misled by Spilsbury’s youth and his pampered appearance, the defense attacked headlong and brought forth two physicians who swore the mark could not have been a scar. Spilsbury held fast. He spoke with such quiet confidence and aplomb that he won the jury and became the darling of the press. The episode launched him on a career without parallel in the history of forensic medicine.
The scar, the pajamas, and Crippen’s purchase of hyoscine were damning, but there was broad agreement that what clinched the case for the Crown was an exchange between Crippen and the prosecuting barrister, Richard Muir, at the start of the second to last day of trial.
Muir asked, “On the early morning of the 1st of February you were left alone in your house with your wife?”
Crippen: “Yes.”
“She was alive?”
“She was.”
“Do you know of any person in the world who has seen her alive since?”
“I do not.”
“Do you know of any person in the world who has ever had a letter from her since?”
“I do not.”
“Do you know of any person in the world who can prove any fact showing that she ever left that house alive?”
“Absolutely not,” he said.
The jury stayed out for twenty-seven minutes and returned with a verdict of guilty. As the judge prepared to read his sentence, he donned a black scarf.
Ethel’s trial took place soon afterward, but her jury decided she had known nothing of the murder and set her free.
ON OCTOBER 25, 1910, Crippen was transferred to Pentonville Prison, in his old neighborhood. A warder took his money and jewelry, made him take off his clothes, and examined his ears and between his toes, then gave him a prison uniform. The fact of his incarceration did not stop one woman, Adele Cook, from writing to prison officials to ask if he might be allowed to write her a prescription. The reply: “The applicant should be informed that if she wishes to write letters for Crippen she may do so.”
He filed an appeal but failed to reverse his conviction. In a letter to Ethel he insisted he was innocent and that someday evidence would be discovered to prove it. He acknowledged, however, that his fate was sealed. He wrote, “It is comfort to my anguished heart to know you will always keep my image in your heart, and believe, my darling, we shall meet again in another life.” On November 23 he awoke to the certainty that he would never see another dawn.
Prison authorities filled out the required execution form, which they gave to the executioner, John Ellis, a village hairdresser who moonlighted as hangman. Ellis took careful note of Crippen’s weight, then consulted the “Table of Drops” to determine how far Crippen’s body should fall to ensure a death that was instant but not gory. Ellis was known to be an efficient hangman, though with a tendency to add a few more inches to the drop than strictly necessary.
Ellis saw that Crippen weighed 142 pounds. Next he checked the entry under “Character of prisoner’s neck” and found that Crippen’s neck was quite normal. Ellis saw too that his build was “proportional” and that he was only five feet, four inches tall. He set the length of drop at seven feet, nine inches.
For his last request, Crippen asked the prison governor, Major Mytton-Davies, to place a number of Ethel’s letters and her photograph in his coffin. The governor agreed.
At precisely nine A.M. Ellis released the floorboard, and an instant later Crippen’s neck broke, quite cleanly, at the third cervical vertebra. Happily for all present, his head remained attached.
The prison warder took note of the possessions he left behind: one overcoat, one coat, one waistcoat, one pair of trousers, two hats, four shirts, one pair of underwear, four socks, six handkerchiefs (one silk), ten collars, two bows, one pair of gloves, one gladstone