Today's Topics: 1. London's Old Bailey puts thousands of cases online (Roxanne) I have a family member who was associated with a man who was convicted of murder at Old Bailey. My great grandma was Eliza Jane Armstrong. Her son Gilbert Rylance was a dentist in London and shared his office with Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen. I saw a program on TV about famous murders and one of them was the Crippen case. They even showed a photo of Gilbert, as he testified at Crippen's trial. Here is the story: The case of Dr. Crippen is one of the most famous UK murder cases of the century. In February of 1910 Crippen poisoned his wife Cora, a small-time actress and singer who appeared on the variety stage under the name of Belle Elmore. She was promiscuous, with numerous lovers, and Crippen fell for his secretary, Ethel le Neve. After poisoning Cora, Crippen cut up her body and buried the remains in the cellar of their home in Holloway, north London. In July 1910 he and Ethel fled Britain aboard the SS Montrose, bound for Quebec, with Ethel disguised as a boy. Cora's body had been discovered by then and the hunt was on for Crippen and his girlfriend. The captain of the Montrose, Capt. Harry Kendall, became suspicious of the two strange passengers and, from circulated descriptions, he became convinced they were Crippen and his mistress. The murder achieved particular fame because it was the first time a killer on the run had been caught by the use of the then new-fangled wireless telegraph. The captain sent a message to Scotland Yard and Chief Inspector Walter Dew immediately boarded a faster ship which gradually overhauled the Montrose across the Atlantic. The chase was bizarre, for the story leaked out to the newspapers and for several days they carried maps showing the detective's pursuing ship steadily gaining on its quarry. Meanwhile, Crippen and le Neve, blissfully unaware that the dramatic pursuit was being read avidly by newspapers readers around the world, calmly dined as guests at the captain's table, believing they had got away with it. Early on the morning the Montrose was due to arrive in Canada, Chief Inspector Dew boarded it in a small boat lowered from his own ship and arrested Crippen and Le Neve. They stood trial at the Old Bailey in November and Crippen was found guilty - principally on the forensic evidence of a young scientist, Dr. Bernard Spilsbury, who was to go on to achieve substantial fame. Crippen was hanged at Pentonville Jail but Ethel le Neve was acquitted and disappeared, changing her name to Harvey and turning up in Canada, the object of her original journey on the run. She eventually sneaked back into Britain when her notoriety had died away, married, had a boy and a girl and only died in London as recently as 1967. Linda Hamid Sweetwater Poultry email: sweeth2o1@gmail.com web: www.sweeth2o.us