Rewriting True Crime with Hallie Rubenhold

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1:33Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci, and this is Open Book, where I talk to some of the brightest minds about everything surrounding the written word. That's everything. That's from authors and historians to figures in entertainment, political activists, and of course, Wall Street. Before we dive in, make sure to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to leave a review. Good or bad, I want to hear from you. I want to hear whether you're enjoying it or where we can improve. And I can take the hits. So let me know. If you don't like something, say it straight. Now let's get into it.

2:16Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. Joining me today is Hallie Rubenhold. What a phenomenal book this is. The title of the book is Story of a Murder, The Wives, The Mistress, and Dr. Crippett. Am I going to see this streamed somewhere? Probably, right? I hope so. It's been optioned. So, you know, fingers crossed. Yeah, no, this is going to be streamed somewhere. This is going to be a good stream. Okay. By the way, congratulations on this. And you are also the bestselling author of the book, The Five, which I now have to go back and read after reading this. And so why don't we start with you, if you don't mind.

2:57Tell us a little bit about your background and your journey into writing. And I know you're a bookworm and a book nerd because I can see a stack of books behind you. So tell us a little bit about your affection for reading and writing. Well, I mean, this is, you know, it's interesting. So I grew up, my dad is English and my mother was American. My mother is no longer with us. And so I was born in Los Angeles, but I've now lived the majority of my life in the UK. So I'm truly a dual national. And my parents loved reading and they loved history. And my dad got me very interested in history because he used to talk about his time living in London growing up during the Blitz.

3:40And what it was like being evacuated. and my grandparents were Cockneys and they used to do, you know, they used to sing musical songs. And my mother, you know, she came from Kansas City, Missouri. She was American. And so, you know, she also loved reading. And I say at the beginning of my book that I dedicate my book to my mother because she taught me to love books. And I love storytelling and history is an extended story. Well, first of all, I'm sorry about your loss of your mom. I lost my dad a couple of years ago. It's a painful process to go through. But unfortunately, it's a rite of passage in our lives, right?

4:24We can't escape life without experiencing death, including our own eventually. But this is, start here. Why did you write about, first of all, this is an unbelievable story, which makes it so good. But where did the apple hit you in the head to write about this story? Well, I mean, interestingly, there is one commonality between Story of Murder and The Five, which is the book that I wrote before. And that is Inspector Walter Dew of Scotland Yard. and Walter Dew was a junior police officer and he worked on the Ripper case. And however, he wrote his memoirs and he is best known for his memoir, which was entitled I Caught Crippen.

5:16And so I had to dip into his memoirs when I was writing The Five. And then, you know, I read, well, what's this other story about? And I just thought this was the most phenomenal story because not only is it a story which is about the transatlantic world really at the birth of the modern age, but this is also a fantastic story of, you know, two fugitives on the run from justice. It was a story that everybody was following in the news. And also, consider the source. This is a police officer's memoirs. You know, it's going to be embellished. And I thought, there's really got to be something more to this story than this.

5:58You know, I mean, who is, you know, this guy wasn't necessarily a hero. You could tell from what he was writing that he got a few things wrong. And the more I dug into this case, the more incredible it became. It just kept opening up. It was like a sort of Russian doll of more and more stories within this story? Well, I don't want to give away the book. I just want to encourage people to go out and read it. And I know there's so many plot twists in this book and there's, I mean, so much action in this book. And also the thing about your writing style, which I give you a huge credit for, you understand people and you understand the darkness in people, the light in people, and you understand that we can be mendacious with others and ourselves.

6:40And it's all here. So give me a description without giving away the book, but give me a description of Edwardian society for the contemporary viewer, the contemporary reader. Well, it's just quite an interesting time for a lot of people. And, you know, I always give the caveat as a historian that just because some people were experiencing some set of circumstances didn't mean that everybody was experiencing it. You know, we tend to use very broad brushstrokes. And this is one of my complaints with history, the way we tell histories. We assume, oh, this was the time when X was happening. This was the time when this was happening.

7:17And actually, it was happening for a segment of society. It may not have been happening for everybody. But what I will say, certainly about the people in this book, is that certainly in the United States and in Britain and really in most of Europe at this time, people were experiencing more access to education. They had more economic freedom. They were able to earn a bit more money. So the middle classes were growing. And along with this growth in the middle classes came a desire for respectability, you know, keeping up appearances. And, you know, there is a theme that runs through this book about, you know, this these kind of ambitious middle class people who have come up really from nothing and desperately wanting to better their lives.

8:05But at what expense? Dr. Crippen, tell me a little bit about him. Interesting person. I would say Crippen, in many ways, was very much a product of his era and was very much a product of the United States in the late 19th century. Born in the 1860s, he was born in Michigan. And his parents, really surprisingly, I did not learn until I really started looking at the documentation, were not married until they were in their 50s. So they were not married until the 1890s. They got married in New York. And so that meant that Crippen was illegitimate. And I think this is quite an interesting thing, considering that Crippen's grandfather was quite a respected man in Coldwater, Michigan.

8:50He was quite religious. They were Methodists. And somehow they managed to slip this one under the radar. There was something quite unusual about his family in the sense that they moved around a lot. And that, well, that in itself isn't that unusual in the United States, because one of the things that I find fascinating about American history is that people constantly try to reinvent themselves. And it's very easy to reinvent yourself. You could screw up in one city somewhere and then get on a train or, you know, get on a wagon train and go somewhere else and become somewhere else. And you could do that repeatedly and nobody would ever know anything.

9:40Well, this is something that Crippen's family opted to do. His father opted to kind of take them all over the country. And we don't know why. And that's why I said this is strange. We don't know what Myron Crippen was hiding. And we know that his mother lived apart from his father quite often. She paid for Crippen to go to medical school, which he did. He went to medical school in Ohio and also in Michigan, and he studied homeopathic medicine. And homeopathy at this time was considered a reputable branch of medicine. It was an alternative to orthodox medicine, traditional medicine, which could be quite brutal.

10:15You know, imagine people dying on operating tables. Imagine, you know, post-operational infections. And homeopathy promised a kind of safer and gentler way of curing disease. And so people were drawn to it. And he was drawn to it. And he was really determined to make a name for himself as a reputable physician. And then eventually he gives up on this. And we don't know why, but much like his father, he moves rather mysteriously from city to city. He gets really good opportunities. And then the next thing you know, he's somewhere else. And why has he left this teaching hospital? Why has he left this position?

10:57And there's no explanation. But he does end up working in something called patent medicine for a man called James Monroe Munyon, who was a multimillionaire and basically sold sugar pills and sugar water. And interestingly, lived in Palm Beach, Florida with various wives that he had at various times in his life. And so Crippen in him saw a mentor, saw somebody he wanted to emulate, and threw himself into patent medicine and later medical fraud and later stock fraud. I mean, you know, it's just so much going on here. The other thing I love about the book is that it's the story of a murder. It's not the story of a murderer, which is usually what happens, right?

11:45We focus on the killer, but we don't focus on the victims, and we don't focus on the aftermath of the murder. So tell me from your perspective why that was important for you, Hallie. I really wanted to take a panoramic look at really true crime. And I think I have some issues with the way in which we consume true crime, the way in which so many of us so kind of thoughtlessly plunge into this and don't ask whether these stories are true. We become obsessed with the idea of, you know, the inspector as, you know, this hero who solves the crime. You know, so we're getting part of the story. We're never getting the full story.

12:31And so I wanted to tell the story in the round, kind of, and show, first of all, you know, how important the justice system is. You know, it doesn't matter if you have a star detective who can collar this criminal. if you don't have the evidence, then you can't convict. And then if you can't convict, then you haven't actually solved the crime. You know, people tend to forget that when we tell crime stories. But also, we often tend to glamorize, you know, sometimes inadvertently, the murderer in these stories. We like to take their perspective because actually we have a lot of questions. You know, why did this person do what they did?

13:14But in taking that line and following that narrative, we exclude so many other perspectives that are so fundamentally important to really understanding what a murder is and the impact it has on people, on families, on communities, and even the imprint it leaves on history. it's incredibly well said is why i'm i'm i'm letting you run here miss ruben hold because it's incredibly well said i want to go to the young mistress though yes and uh it's ethel and you'll pronounce it for me but it's laniv ethel laniv ethel laniv is she without giving too much of the plot away knowing conspirator or just flat-out mistress oh no i mean And my, gosh, my sense when I started looking at this, and I really think this is, anybody who has really done work on this case, I mean, it's very obvious that Ethel was guilty.

14:11I think Ethel was up to her eyeballs in this murder. She may not have actually physically helped him commit it. I do not think she did. I think he thought she was too, well, I think she basically played the wilting violet. She played the wallflower for most of her life. And that was a way I think she could manipulate men. And I think that was a way in which she could manipulate Crippen. And I think he, you know, he didn't want to involve her in getting rid of her love rival. And I think, well, something obviously went very wrong. And I think he then had to involve her. And I think she was involved in the cleanup.

14:51But I also think she knew it was coming. Not only did she know it was coming, he went out and bought her an engagement ring, which she then started showing everybody about a week before the murder. And I think if that isn't an indication that somebody is guilty, I don't know what is. But, you know, she was, I think, fully cognizant of what was going to happen to Belle Elmore. And not only that, she demonstrated absolutely no remorse in later years at all. Never a kind word said for the victim or her family.

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16:26Incredible. I mean, it's just such an incredible story. It's a, I don't know, when I read the book, I guess I'm getting older, Holly. I read the book and I was like, yeah, that's how the world works. It's not the way that I want the world to work, but that's how the world works. And so, I have to ask this question. Should we be cynical or hopeful about life? oh that's so difficult um you know if you'd asked me this maybe two years ago i would say more hopeful than cynical um right now i'm feeling a little bit more cynical however i do have enormous faith in human goodness if we can remove all of the detritus we pile over our good intentions, I think, and our natures.

17:25I don't think everybody is bad. I also think murderers, for example, nobody is born evil. I think people make a series of very bad decisions in their lives. And that's what it comes down to. you know i mean you know i'm the reason i'm hesitating is that i'm i'm um we've all been there right maybe maybe you haven't but i have been there where i've done something stupid regrettable i mean i once worked for donald trump which i'll have to regret for the rest of my life so i'm not saying that we don't do stupid things and i you know my friend robert green who wrote the 48 laws of power has been on our podcast he does explain in the book that there is a dark side to all of our personalities, right?

18:11Herman Hesse writes in the book, Damien, that there's an Abraxas in us. We live with light and darkness in our personalities. But when you read a story like this, there's a lot of darkness in this story, but there's a lot of real world stuff. So let me reframe the question. Let me say it to you differently. As we walk through life, as we walk through life, are people good generally? Or are people operating in a nefarious way and we just like to think that they're good? I think I like to believe that most people are good. I do not believe it is as black and white as that. I think we are nuanced beings.

18:57And I think this idea that there was, you know, even if you can think of some of the worst people in the world, I know you often think of one of them. You know, these people are human beings. I think the problem is that it becomes very easy, especially in, for example, crime narratives, because we want to simplify these things. We want black and white. We want to think that there is good and bad. And, you know, it's as easy as putting people in boxes. And therefore, we can understand the world that way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's easy. I mean, listen, I generally think people are good as well.

19:40But when I read this book, it is a bombshell of a book. And it's beautifully written. I want to go to a couple more questions, if you don't mind. The case was one of the first to rely on forensic evidence. And so what do you make of forensics and the more recent debate over forensics? And some people are held guilty that maybe through forensics were innocent. And give me your thoughts on forensics and give me your thoughts on the efficacy of forensics in a case. I mean, interestingly, I mean, it's nothing is a silver bullet. And I think - That's very well said. You know, and science is flawed as well.

20:26And, you know, there's always room for human error. And frequently, you know, again, we like to put things in boxes. We like to say, oh, the science says something, therefore it must be. Because science is the last word on everything. You know, and this is, I think a lot of people have problems, you know, recently with believing science in scientists. because science itself will say, look, we have some answers, but we don't have all the answers. And you know what? Because there's research ongoing all the time, answers will change. And I think a lot of people, I think society doesn't necessarily like that.

21:02We want absolutes, and that's a problem. So I think, you know, as far as the verdict of this trial goes, I think it's pretty cut and dried. Now, interestingly, around 2007, 2008, there was a documentary which was called Executed in Error, which was shown in the US and the UK. And in it, they basically found that, well, they decided to retest Bell Elmore's DNA, which existed on a slide in the London hospital, well, a skin sample. And I think the people behind the documentary had read so many books about Crippen over the years, which a lot of them are really no different than pulp fiction. And, you know, try to paint him as this poor man who is so terribly put upon by this heredin of a wife.

21:51And I think the underlying set of beliefs here were, how could such a nice man have actually committed this crime? Well, Crippen wasn't a nice man. He was a practiced fraudster. He was a really unpleasant person. But that aside, you know, The decision was that they would retest this skin sample from Bel Elmore's body. And lo and behold, it turns out it's not Bel Elmore. It wasn't Bel Elmore who was in the basement. Therefore, Crippen must be innocent. And because Bel Elmore went to the United States and she didn't raise the alarm, the victim has become the murderer because Crippen was executed.

22:31And the murderer has become the victim. So, you know, I think it's highly unlikely that that DNA was not hers. And in fact, a news story has just come out about from a famous geneticist has actually looked at her, has looked at the white paper for this and has said, you know, there are a lot of problems with this DNA testing. And she didn't believe it was conclusive. And that actually appears in an appendix in my book. So, you know, science is not the magic bullet all the time. It's so complex, though, isn't it? You said that the murderer is the victim. And if you think about this case that's going on in the United States right now, there's an assassin shows up in front of a hotel, and he murders a health care, health insurance executive, and he's celebrated.

23:30He's become the victim. and it's just this weird thing about life. I mean, you know, and I think we're fascinated. Let me ask you this and then I'm going to switch to another topic. Why are we fascinated with murder and murderers? Why are we fascinated with them? You know, I often ask myself that question. I mean, I think there is something in the human condition which really craves the darkness, which really wants to understand what this is that we find so terrifying. You know, everybody's afraid of death. Everybody's afraid of being murdered. Everybody's afraid of some terrible act of violence happening to them.

24:10And I think part of it, especially, you know, a lot of women are really interested in true crime. And I think part of this is just a desire to, weirdly, to be informed. You know, what does a killer look like? What does a killer of women look like? So I know if I encounter him, you know, to stay away. And I think there's that. I think it's a very basic instinct. And I also think people are drawn to the darkness. We want to know what makes these people tick. Yeah. They're drawn to the darkness because they like to see themselves as not being dark and they find it purient to be the rubbernecker. They find it purient to be the onlooker to this stuff that goes on.

24:54Okay, so I have five words or five themes that we put together, me and our producers, and I'm going to say the name or the word and you're going to react to it. You give me a sentence or two, you can give me a word, whatever comes to your head. If I say Jack the Ripper, you say what? Big sigh. Jack the Ripper, time to move on. Okay, time to move on. Well, you did exhaustive research on that, and you won prizes for that book. Belle Elmore. I say Belle Elmore. You say what? Someone whose reputation really needs to be restored. Someone who has really quite, you know, suffered a lot of degradation, and someone who I hope we will all become more familiar with as a result of reading this book.

25:49Ethel Laniv. Guilty. Yeah, interesting. Dr. Crippen. Fraudster and murderer. Yeah, wow, that's powerful. We sort of touched on this, but I'm going to say the word, and I want to get your immediate reaction to the word murder. You know, my response to that was kind of, I really, really have to think about this because my first response is, this is something we should all be frightened of. But yet at the same time, that wasn't my gut instinct. It was part of the human condition, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen, I mean, we see it in the animal world. We see it in the human world. We have to kill for our food.

26:42Holly Rubenhold, we have to kill for our food. And so can we project that into other things? Obviously, we hope through our morality that we can prevent ourselves from our worst instincts. Absolutely. What's next? What are we writing next? Well, it's kind of under wraps because it is, you know, the deal has not yet been nailed down. Okay. You take your time. Well, hopefully you'll come back with whatever it is that you're writing next. Yeah. This is a phenomenal book. The title of the book is just an incredible book, Story of a Murder, The Wives, The Mistress, and the very immoral and partially insane Dr.

27:26Crippen. And I got to tell you, it's a phenomenal book, and I really enjoyed every minute of it. And thank you so much, Hallie Rubenhold, for joining us here on Open Book. Thank you. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you so much for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. While you're there, please leave us a rating or review. If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on X or Instagram. I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you back here next week.

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