Show Notes
On 1 February, 1910, vivacious music-hall performer, Belle Elmore, suddenly vanished from her north London home, causing alarm among her circle of female friends– the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild– who demanded an immediate investigation. They could not have known what they would provoke: the unearthing of a gruesome secret, followed by a fevered manhunt for the prime suspect: Belle’s husband, medical fraudster, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen and his mistress Ethel Le Neve.
In this episode of the podcast, prizewinning social historian Hallie Rubenhold joins us for an epic examination of one of the most infamous murders of the twentieth century, and gives voice to the women who have never properly been heard. Shifting focus away from the sensationalised male perpetrator, Hallie centres the lives of the women involved: his murdered wife Belle Elmore, his first wife Charlotte, and his mistress Ethel Le Neve. Hallie also discusses the Crippen case as an early media spectacle, and how a historian’s perspective can help us question the myths, biases, and assumptions that shape the true-crime stories we tell.
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