190. Hallie Rubenhold

0:01Hallie Rubenhold:This is a Global Player original podcast.

0:11Hallie Rubenhold:Well behaved women rarely make history. Bloody difficult women do. I literally can't count the ways I loved my conversation with Hallie Rubenhold, the social historian and best-selling author of many compulsively dark and gripping non-fiction books, mainly about murder. Wait till we get to the point where she describes having to research story of a murder, her new book about Dr. Crippin's foul murder of his former wife during lockdown. It's unbelievable. Welcome to Difficult Women.

1:04Hallie Rubenhold:Hallie Rubenhold is a social historian and best-selling author whose many compulsive and gripping books focus on the lives and experiences of women in stories that have been relegated to victim status. Now you'll understand what I mean when I tell you who they are. and the male murderers like Crippen or Jack the Ripper become celebrities. Crippen is actually in Madame Tussauds, I read. Hallie, you say that no murderer should ever be the guardian of their victim story and yet this is so often the case. You've helped the victims of Jack the Ripper reclaim their individuality. They're just seen as like, you know, murdered prostitutes.

1:43Hallie Rubenhold:and you tell the stories of the victims who, as you say, cannot speak for themselves because they've been murdered by men. I'm going to get you to read from your latest book, which is I do recommend everyone buy this book, not just because it's a ripping story, no pun intended, but because it's such an extraordinary looking book. Hallie, why did you call it The Story of a Murder? And remind us what it's about.

2:11Rachel Johnson:Well, story of a murder is quite literally, it does what it says on the cover, right? Most of the time when we read murder stories, we are reading the story of a murderer. It's told usually from the perspective of the killer. Sometimes it's told from the perspective of the police officer who is hunting that person, the detective who's hunting that person. it is rarely ever told in the round it's rarely ever told holistically so that everybody has a voice and a murder is not a single act it is like i try to describe it as throwing a stone into water and the ripples that spill out around that it touches everyone and everything it is not just a narrative that concerns a victim and a killer.

3:06Hallie Rubenhold:I was going to actually quote that bit back to you it's not an isolated incident it has ripples and ramifications that ricochet down the ages and end up between hard covers of a book that I think probably will be a Christmas bestseller today and have affect the relations and all those and the way that murder and victims are treated as well but when you were talking I was also thinking that a lot of fiction filmed and written in that fiction when there is a murder and most often of a female that is simply a dead body and the story and the interest is attached to the detective the Poirot to the you know Jack Reacher rather than to the dead female body so before we get into the new book can you say something about the role of the female as simply dead female body yeah

4:07Rachel Johnson:absolutely I mean in many ways the female I mean she's just collateral damage you know the story is about the man and the story is about male bravery or it's about villainy it's good and evil it's heroes and villains and and the woman is collateral damage or she is a stepping stone to telling a greater story which is the story of the mystery of why this killer did what he did and that's something i mean i think we're really kind of waking up to in the modern era but you

4:42Hallie Rubenhold:know actually women are more than just dead bodies and but so far you know if you still analyze the body count in a crime drama serial I mean it's always male two male detectives and several dead female bodies yeah I mean you say this but you know the the penny hasn't dropped yet no I know

5:05Rachel Johnson:But it is in part because I think we are so obsessed with crime drama and crime fiction. And, you know, the template for that has always been about the focus is on the detective or the killer. And as long as the focus is on one of those two things, we're never going to get a full picture of what a crime actually is. A crime is a lot of micro stories. It's a lot of micro dramas. And I personally think it's more interesting to tell it in the round than it is to tell it in this very linear, reductive way.

5:43Hallie Rubenhold:I totally accept that analysis. And your books are written in a sort of panoramic way, panoptic way as well, from different perspectives. But if you look, presumably somebody who's commissioning a drama series would say the crime statistics still tell us that the perpetrators are overwhelmingly male, that the detective force is overwhelmingly male and victims are overwhelmingly female. So we're just reflecting reality.

6:16Rachel Johnson:Yeah, but I mean, well, first of all, in drama, do we have to reflect that reality? No, we're not obligated to reflect any reality. but second of all why should that isn't necessarily the case I mean if you move the lens if you pull back you'll see that there is a bigger picture to be told and why why do we tell the same story over and over again because that's what I don't understand because it's a tale as old as time it is it is but you know there are other perspectives on that which is why I did want

6:47Hallie Rubenhold:to ask you about Lucy Letby but this is the moment do you think that the overriding obsession with Lucy Letby where you've got the Lucy Letby truthers against the Lucy Letby family believers you know she's either I've been victim of the worst miscarriage of justice in modern modern British history or she's the worst serial killer in modern British history I mean do you think the fact that this is a female perpetrator explains that twin obsession

7:18Rachel Johnson:Yeah, I think so. I definitely think so because it feels so unusual. And also, it's amazing that in the modern era, we still are not comfortable with the idea that women can be perpetrators of violent crime as well, which they can be. I mean, statistically less. Statistically vanishingly less. Yes, but it doesn't mean that women are perfect. And they're angels either. No, they aren't. And, you know, in fact, in this book, there is a woman, Ethel Laniv, who was almost certainly involved in the murder of another woman.

7:53Hallie Rubenhold:Well, let's get to the story of a murder, which is the tale, the sorry tale of the murder of Belle Elmore by her former husband, Crippen. But you set out what did you want to tell in this book, which is I'm just checking how many pages it is. well including including the index it's it's 490 pages yeah so this is a big book yes what did you

8:22Rachel Johnson:want to say in it i wanted to i wanted to talk about the transatlantic world at the turn of the century and how fast the world was changing and this story this murder story which was called the crime of the century against the backdrop of this really surprisingly modern time where it felt like within a handful of years automobiles were on the streets replacing horses and carriages um there were airplanes there was motion picture there was x-ray there were rate there was radio that and all of this stuff was happening so fast and the world was changing and who were these people and how were they living in this world and so you've you've zoomed in on the fame world

9:11Hallie Rubenhold:famous case i mean it was the crime of the edwardian era but i mean we still talk about crippen today yes he was a sort of bogus doctor yes um hawley harvey crippen doctor hawley harvey crippen and of course they lived in lived in america and then he was extradited here no he

9:30Rachel Johnson:He came here. He came here. So he was American and Bel Elmore was American. And he came here as part of his business selling homeopathy. Bogus. Bogus business. Like what kind of thing? Well, I mean, he trained as a homeopathist. Homeopathic medicine was recognized at the time as being a reputable alternative to traditional medicine. However, it had its very vocal critics. and homeopathy became entwined with patent medicine and patent medicine was just charlatanism. And he was a charlatan, but more important than that. Was he an actual doctor? Yes, he was. He did have his qualifications from Michigan, University of Michigan, University of Ohio as well.

10:18Rachel Johnson:So he was trained, but his qualifications were not recognized in this country. and it wasn't just that sort of fraud he was involved in he was an actual hardened fraudster he was involved in medical fraud stock fraud his friends were incredibly dodgy men who had been many of them imprisoned for fraud and violent crime and so this was the kind of pool he swam in with lots of other sharks and he was married to a kind of burlesque music hall she was incredible

10:51Hallie Rubenhold:woman called Belle Elmore and her image adorns the cover which as I said people have got to look at the way the Penguin have done this book it is completely groundbreaking and but she she wasn't his wife for long I mean there were a few years and then just explain what happened I don't want to give any spoiler alerts but this is one of the most famous murders there's ever been go on Wikipedia you can find out what happened

11:18Rachel Johnson:just give us the headlines So she was so Bell he had met her in in New York when she was younger than him and she just had an abortion and he was looking after her. And I mean, it's a kind of weird set of circumstances for romance to begin. But he didn't perform the abortion. He may have performed the abortion, but he was certainly working with a doctor who was an abortion. OK. And he was a gynecologist as well. Gynecologist and obstetric surgeon. So it's highly likely. And this romance just grew up around this. It was a genuine romance. It was a genuine romance and a whirlwind marriage. And I think then the couple very quickly realized that they were not really compatible.

12:12She was quite an amazing woman.

12:15Rachel Johnson:So one of the other things he did to her, and this is a really important thing to mention, is that he had her ovaries removed at the age of 21 because he didn't want any more children. And he came up with some excuse to have her sterilized. He was married before. I will not talk about that. You can read the book and find out what happened to that wife. But he did have a child from a previous marriage, which he handed off to his parents. He didn't want anything to do with. And so she was sterilized at 21. devastated but decided she'd become an opera singer instead so trained to become an opera performer then when they moved to London trained again to go on the musical stage and and was pretty good at it was you know you know there was there's a it became very fashionable in the wake of the murder to deride Bill Elmore she was not a bad performer she just was not Mary Lloyd and And she eventually found her feet in a charity organization called Music Hall Ladies Guild, where she became the treasurer.

13:22Rachel Johnson:And they raised money for poor women who were music hall performers and their families. And she was celebrated for that, for her work.

13:31Hallie Rubenhold:When it comes to the first wife, Charlotte, I think. Yes. Do you prove that he murdered her too? Or is that still an open question?

13:40Rachel Johnson:I think it's an open question. I think there's a lot of circumstantial evidence. I went to Salt Lake City to the archive there to see if I could see what was left, if anything, in the police records, because there was some statement from her family that they had tried to start an investigation that went nowhere. Really? And there was nothing. You could cold case it. Yeah, you could. But there's not very much information. and she was very strangely basically thrown into a pauper's grave. She was dead and buried within 72 hours. So we don't know where her grave is? No, it's unmarked. I mean, they found roughly where it is.

14:19Rachel Johnson:Oh, that's convenient for Clippin. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That's fascinating. Yeah, it's fascinating and deeply creepy.

14:44Hallie Rubenhold:So the story of a murder, why did you call it that? Because I know it is. Yes, because it is a much bigger.

14:53Rachel Johnson:I mean, it's a panoramic epic story. So it is the story of a murder. That murder is the murder of Belle Elmore. And it's not the story of a murderer. and that's the main point. Yes, yes. So it is about the time, it is about the people, it is about the mindset, it is about this world and this crime that happened at this moment in time.

15:20Hallie Rubenhold:The book is pretty light on dates and I noticed that because I've been trying to find, you know, when did Charlotte disappear, when did he hook up with Belle, i.e. when was Belle's abortion and all that. And I think it makes the book actually really readable that you're just it's not although of course it is a moment in time and you're you're a historian and it's incredibly meticulously researched you allow the reader to take the story in as fast as they can now I was wondering whether you want to just spin forward and tell briefly the life and death of Belle before I get you to do the reading from a bit where which is so vivid that I felt as if I was there so why don't you just quickly tell everyone what happened to Belle so what happened

16:06Rachel Johnson:to her was um basically it was decided Crippen had fallen in love with his uh well she was called a lady typist at the time today we might call them a PA and her name was Ethel Laniv and Ethel was from Dis in East Anglia and Norfolk and yes in Norfolk um was brought up in a well was born in a two-room cottage and then her father brought them to London to try to have a better life. And he was incredibly progressive in the way he thought about women's education. So she went and had further training in a secretarial college. In the 1890s, that was quite progressive. And so he had fallen in love with Ethel.

16:50Rachel Johnson:And Ethel wanted the house, the lifestyle. She wanted to be married to a rich American doctor, which he presented himself to be. He wasn't always wealthy. The money came and money went in his life. But Bell was the one who had this glamorous life with all these musical performers going to these incredible parties and balls.

17:17Rachel Johnson:And Ethel became pregnant. By Crippen. By Crippen. Had an abortion. And really from that point, it was kind of decided, right, we've got to get rid of her. And he went out and he bought hyacinthhydrobromide, which, by the way, is in quells if you take seasickness medication. And it is a sedative, but in very, very high doses will stop your heart. And so he bought enough to do that several times over. And he wanted it to look like an accidental, oh, just a normal natural death. Poisoned her one night after a dinner party. but something went wrong it was a poisoning gone wrong and whatever happened whether there was a struggle whatever he couldn't pass off the death as natural and so suddenly he had a body he had to get rid of the body um and he buried it well he dismembered her body and got rid of it piecemeal we don't know where exactly but he buried parts of it under the brickwork of his cellar at 39 he'll Drop Crescent.

18:26Hallie Rubenhold:Okay, this is where I want you to read, everybody. This is page 251, a chapter called Pieces. This is when the inspectors had come and investigated the cellars. So Crippen and

18:37Rachel Johnson:Ethel had been living at 39 Hill Drop Crescent for a while together. And they had said that Belle had simply gone to America. She disappeared. But her friends at Music Hall Ladies Guild didn't believe that and eventually after several months they managed to get interest from Scotland Yard to go and do a site visit to do a site visit and Hill Drop Crescent and and Crippen and Ethel legged it dressed his father and son and they went to Belgium and with the house completely vacant This left Inspector Dew and Inspector Mitchell, his right-hand man, free to prod around. And they dug away. And they dug away.

19:22Rachel Johnson:When the post-mortem had been concluded, Belle's organs, her strands of hair with their hair curler, as well as the assorted pieces of underclothing, pajama top and handkerchief, were placed in five stopper jars. Arthur Robinson, the mortuary keeper, then sprinkled her parts with carbolic powder and placed a sheet of wallpaper lining over them. From this date, Belle Elmore ceased to be a person. Instead, she became a series of pieces, clues, body parts, other people's memories. On Monday, the coroner's inquest was held to determine to whom the remains belonged and how, where and when the individual had died.

20:04Rachel Johnson:This event would be covered extensively by the press, who would reveal to the public the true horror of what had been inflicted on the woman hidden beneath the cellar bricks. The utter brutality of the killer, the ruthless and inhumane treatment meted out on her lifeless form, was enough to shock even the coroner. Danford Thomas, who had been involved in roughly 40 ,000 such inquiries over the course of his career, stated that he had never seen anything like it. It must have been an awful business taking the flesh from the bones, then burying it in the cellar, he said. I do not remember such a case.

20:43Rachel Johnson:The nature of the atrocity that had been committed at 39 Hill Drop Crescent stunned the public. That a man could not only extinguish the life of one entrusted to his care, but then desecrate her body, a woman he had once loved and held in his arms, was unthinkable. It was bestial, subhuman, a profanely evil violation of moral and social order. Many wondered at how he could have performed such a barbaric act. How could a civilised, educated, professional man who had lived in a ten-room suburban house with a verdant garden dismember his spouse's body and then continue with his ordinary existence, catching the tram car to his office and attending the theatre?

21:29Rachel Johnson:How could he have sectioned it and detached the joints as blithely as a high street butcher? What sort of fiend stripped down the fingers that cooked his meals, sewed dresses, made music, stroked his face? He silenced her songs. He shuttered her eyes. He removed her breasts, her vagina and what remained of her reproductive organs. How an intimate family member brought himself to amputate and then destroy the head of the woman whose face he once animated with happiness was inconceivable. How he could have found it in himself to defile her further, to burn her bones and grind them down or dispose of them in a body of water as dew suspected, was soul-chilling.

22:18Rachel Johnson:Crippen's objective was to eradicate any trace of Belle Elmore, to make it seem as if she had vanished into the breeze.

22:27Hallie Rubenhold:I mean, I felt as if I was in that dank cellar with those inspectors, with the kind of, those rough implements, getting between the bricks and then finding a kind of clay, claggy clay patch and realising that there was something underneath and then hitting flesh. It's absolutely, it's made my skin crawl. But when Crippen, when you imagine what Crippen was thinking was that I think you just say for him, this was an elimination of a problem. Yes. He wouldn't have thought any of those things that you said about her touching his face or the fingers that had cooked his meals. For him, he had compartmentalized the issue so much and his need to be with Ethel and Eve.