Pickle Time 2

 “That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.”

1 Peter 4:2 KJV

Doctor Hawley Harvey Crippen was a mild mannered, amiable gentleman who appeared to all as someone who would not hurt a fly. Born in 1862, in Coldwater, Michigan he was unimpressive in comparison to the rest of his family. Small and shy he quickly realized that he was an outlier. Leaving his small town, where most of his kin either owned or ran businesses, he pursued a career in homeopathy medicine at the University of Michigan. Crippen had recently started a small practice in New York City when a woman walked into his office one day whose name was Cora Turner. Loud and boisterous, her personality filled the waiting room immediately upon her entrance. Thus, the drama began.

Turner longed to be a famous opera singer but lacked the talent or the finances. Seeing a meal ticket in the young doctor, she soon agreed to marriage. Together they embarked on a story that would eventually capture the attention of the world in 1910.

Drawn to this young woman because she possessed what he lacked in life they were married in 1894 and eventually moved to London in 1897. Cora pursued her dreams of fame as Doctor Crippen worked as a medical dispenser of various cure-all remedies. Those who viewed their relationship would describe it later as loving and caring but an ugly truth lay hidden below the surface. Crippin endured years of being treated as a ragged doll, obeying all that he was commanded by his domineering wife. Hen-pecked to the extreme the poor doctor scrubbed and cleaned and polished to make her happy. As long as he bought jewels and extravagant dresses, she allowed him to play the part of a husband. However, on January 10th, 1910, Cora went missing.

Doctor Crippen was now free to pursue his relationship with a much younger woman, his typist, Ethel Le Neve. By the time Scotland Yard’s finest, Chief Inspector Walter Dew, discovered her remains Crippen and Ethel had fled the country. The same detective who had worked the Jack the Ripper case described what was left of Cora as worse than anything he had seen in the Ripper cases. Cora's head was missing, arms and legs removed, and he found no bone structure. Only internal organs were discovered buried in a cellar not more than 20 feet away from the good doctor’s kitchen. For months Crippen lived, slept, and eat with his wife’s mutilated remains close by. The man who would not hurt a fly did much worse. He allowed life to turn him into a twisted monster.

Peter recovered from his tragic denial and preached on the day of Pentecost. Judas betrayed Jesus and then hung himself. We all make choices in our lives to become the people that we become. To blame circumstances or other people for the hardness in our lives is to give them power over us, and at the same time, refuse the power of God to change us. The same vinegar that makes some pickles sour makes others sweet. We all become wrinkled with time, but the kind of pickle we become is our choice, sweet or soar. Doctor Hawley Harvey Crippen was hung in Pentonville Prison, London on November 23^rd, 1910. Life is not what happens to us, it is what we chose to do with what happens to us.