The Square Mile of Murder Revisited

The book takes another look at the trials of Oscar Slater, Jessie McLachlan, Edward William Pritchard and Madeleine Smith. Slater's trial ended up in him being wrongly convicted of the murder of Marion Gilchrist in her west end home in 1908.The case has become the most famous miscarriage of justice in Scottish legal history and he was only 2 days from being hanged when he was reprieved. After spending nearly 20 years in prison, he was released and attended the first case in the newly established Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh - his own. Slater received compensation for his wrongful imprisonment before settling in a seaside Scottish town. Jessie McLachlan was also wrongly convicted of murder and she was similarly condemned to die at the end of a rope. Once again, public pressure halted the execution. She served 15 years in prison before she was freed. Edward William Pritchard was the last to be publicly hanged in the city in 1865. Madeleine Smith received a verdict of not proven at the end of her trial in 1857. That verdict is unique to Scotland and the case is still argued over to this day. Yet, had a witness not been abroad at the time of the trial, the outcome would have been different and she could have been hanged.

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