any time I pointed out something interesting resulted in a larger tip.
If I continue on down Queensgate we come across the Onslow Court Hotel. This hotel featured prominently in the escapades of the mass murderer John George Haigh, the Acid Bath murderer. He was a long-time guest here and charmed elderly widows and spinsters to invest in his manufacturing outlet in Croydon. The business did not even exist but he did have a run-down premises in Croydon. He would lure these vulnerable people to his so-called factory and shoot them dead.
He then placed their bodies in a vat of acid. After a week or so he would pour away the remaining sludge on the ground at the rear of the factory. Haigh made the classic mistake of thinking that acid would dissolve everything and that if there was no body, there could be no charge. He was so wrong. One of the top police pathologists, Dr Keith Simpson, discovered plastic false teeth, gallstones and fingernails in the sludge, and this was his downfall. John George Haigh was hanged in Wandsworth Prison in 1949. Apparently the hangman could not keep his trap shut...
That hangman was (again) Albert Pierrepoint. He had once executed twenty to thirty women in one day after the Nuremberg trials in Germany, all Nazis that had been convicted of horrendous crimes in the death camps. I read somewhere that he said he always felt a little sorry for those he was about to drop but this was the only time that the same feeling never came over him and he was glad to rid the world of these cruel women. Pierrepointâs book Executioner Pierrepoint: An Autobiography is a really great read.
Dr Keith Simpson became a leading pathologist and went on to solve many a high profile crime, but the man who was histutor was once the most respected pathologist in England. His name was Sir Bernard Spillsbury and he was a leading figure in the Dr Crippen case. This man was so famous in those days that they even erected a blue plaque in his honour. Sadly, Spillsbury committed suicide and one of his pupils carried out the autopsy on him. That pupil was Keith Simpson. How uncanny is that, to open up your own mentor and have a look inside.
Speaking of Dr Crippen, he murdered his allegedly promiscuous wife Cora and fled back home to America with a woman dressed as a boy called Ethel Le Neve. Half way to America the captain of the ship recognised Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen, and used the newly developed shipâs wireless system to alert the London police. Two detectives were dispatched to the States on a fast steamer and were waiting for the pair of runaways when the ship docked.
Crippen and Le Neve were returned to London for trial and Crippen was hanged at Pentonville Prison in 1910. This was the first time that wireless was used to capture wanted fugitives. I have always felt a little sorry for this small meek man who fell in love with another woman. His wife treated him with the utmost contempt. Fairly new evidence has come to light recently and it seems that the body found at the Crippen home was not that of his wife. Today, there are a few relatives who want the case reopened. I wonder what they would find with todayâs high quality forensics?
The Crippen house has long since been torn down and a block of flats built in its place. People who take London murder tours end up being driven past this block of apartments but there really is nothing to see.
Chapter 24
I once picked up a couple of Americans from the Cumberland Hotel at Marble Arch. They had their thirteen-year-old son with them and said that they wanted Paddington Station. When we got there they asked for platform nine-and-three-quarters. Well! I nearly fell out of my cab door. First of all, it was the wrong station â it should have been Kingâs Cross â and secondly they were on about Harry Potter, who never existed. They must have seen the film and really believed in his existence. If he was a real character and grew a beard, would they have
If I continue on down Queensgate we come across the Onslow Court Hotel. This hotel featured prominently in the escapades of the mass murderer John George Haigh, the Acid Bath murderer. He was a long-time guest here and charmed elderly widows and spinsters to invest in his manufacturing outlet in Croydon. The business did not even exist but he did have a run-down premises in Croydon. He would lure these vulnerable people to his so-called factory and shoot them dead.
He then placed their bodies in a vat of acid. After a week or so he would pour away the remaining sludge on the ground at the rear of the factory. Haigh made the classic mistake of thinking that acid would dissolve everything and that if there was no body, there could be no charge. He was so wrong. One of the top police pathologists, Dr Keith Simpson, discovered plastic false teeth, gallstones and fingernails in the sludge, and this was his downfall. John George Haigh was hanged in Wandsworth Prison in 1949. Apparently the hangman could not keep his trap shut...
That hangman was (again) Albert Pierrepoint. He had once executed twenty to thirty women in one day after the Nuremberg trials in Germany, all Nazis that had been convicted of horrendous crimes in the death camps. I read somewhere that he said he always felt a little sorry for those he was about to drop but this was the only time that the same feeling never came over him and he was glad to rid the world of these cruel women. Pierrepointâs book Executioner Pierrepoint: An Autobiography is a really great read.
Dr Keith Simpson became a leading pathologist and went on to solve many a high profile crime, but the man who was histutor was once the most respected pathologist in England. His name was Sir Bernard Spillsbury and he was a leading figure in the Dr Crippen case. This man was so famous in those days that they even erected a blue plaque in his honour. Sadly, Spillsbury committed suicide and one of his pupils carried out the autopsy on him. That pupil was Keith Simpson. How uncanny is that, to open up your own mentor and have a look inside.
Speaking of Dr Crippen, he murdered his allegedly promiscuous wife Cora and fled back home to America with a woman dressed as a boy called Ethel Le Neve. Half way to America the captain of the ship recognised Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen, and used the newly developed shipâs wireless system to alert the London police. Two detectives were dispatched to the States on a fast steamer and were waiting for the pair of runaways when the ship docked.
Crippen and Le Neve were returned to London for trial and Crippen was hanged at Pentonville Prison in 1910. This was the first time that wireless was used to capture wanted fugitives. I have always felt a little sorry for this small meek man who fell in love with another woman. His wife treated him with the utmost contempt. Fairly new evidence has come to light recently and it seems that the body found at the Crippen home was not that of his wife. Today, there are a few relatives who want the case reopened. I wonder what they would find with todayâs high quality forensics?
The Crippen house has long since been torn down and a block of flats built in its place. People who take London murder tours end up being driven past this block of apartments but there really is nothing to see.
Chapter 24
I once picked up a couple of Americans from the Cumberland Hotel at Marble Arch. They had their thirteen-year-old son with them and said that they wanted Paddington Station. When we got there they asked for platform nine-and-three-quarters. Well! I nearly fell out of my cab door. First of all, it was the wrong station â it should have been Kingâs Cross â and secondly they were on about Harry Potter, who never existed. They must have seen the film and really believed in his existence. If he was a real character and grew a beard, would they have
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