CAMDEN ROAD MURDER

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7265, 22 October 1910, Page 5

CAMDEN ROAD MURDER

CBIPPEN'S DEFENCE, HE DENIES THE CHARGE OF KILLING. By Telourapn—l'ross Association—CopyrlunV LONDON, October. 20. The trial of Hawley Crippen and Ethel Le Neve, the former charged with having murdered his wife at Camden road and the latter with being an accessor after the fact, is being continued before the Lord Chief Justice and a j ury. The case for the prosecution has closed. The medical evidence was to the effect that the absence of sebaceous glands proved that the scar on a portion of tho body found under the cellar at the Camden* road house was an old operation mark. CASE FOR THE DEFEiNCE. In opening tho case for tho defence, Mr Tobin, K.C., counsel for Crippen, incidentally referred to cards with writing on them found on Crippen after his arrest, and which tended to indicate that the accused man contemplated 6ui« cide. Counsel explained that there was a plot, in which one of the minor ofiU. cers of the steamer Montrose was, ho alleged, involved, to enable Crippen and, Le Neve to escape on reaching Quebec. 1 and that tho cards were to play a park in the plot. Mr Tobin said he intended to-caH eminent doctors to controvert the evi« dence for tho prosecution with regard, to the time the body had been buried, and also as to the presence of hyoscine, an alkaloid poison, in the body. Crip-, pen, he added, would be put on tho witness stand to give_ evidence in his own behalf.

Tho prosecution, continued Mr 'Tobin, must jirove that tho remains were those, of Belle Elmore (Mrs Crippen). He discredited the suggestions that Crippeßv murdered the. woman for her money,, and in order' to marry his mistress.; Neither suggestion had been borne ous by facts. ",■■'■ CEIPPEN - GIVES EVIDENCE. .j

Crippen then went into the witnessbox and gave evidence to that he. had never made a post-mortem examination; he woe a specialist in-di* seases of the eye, oar, nose, and throat. Mrs Crippen on the night beforo-'her flight raged over a triviality, and said she would leave him, adding that he>' might cover the scandal in. the best wayj he could. He had therefore lied to tho woman's friends. Tho story told Ay Mm, to Detective Inspector Dew was" true. 1 He admitted purchasing hyosoino-,-which he dispensed in minute. doses to patients suffering from spasmodic asthma, and also in.. nerve cases. He recounted tho details of the, plot for his and La Neve's escape when the Montrose reached Quebec, his evidence in this respect being on tho lines outlined by hi? counsel.