| Madeleine Smith |
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Madeleine Smith was a Nineteenth Century Glasgow Socialite who was the defendant in sensational murder trial in Scotland in the summer of 1857 . Although she is widely regarded as a convicted Murder ess, in fact, the verdict given at her trial was Not Proven . BACKGROUND Madeleine was the first child of an upper-class couple living in Glasgow . She broke the strict Victorian conventions of the time when, as a young woman in the spring of 1855 , she began a secret love affair with Emile L'Angelier, a foreign-born common labourer. The two met late at night at Madeleine’s bedroom window and also carried on a voluminous correspondence. During one of their infrequent meetings alone, she lost her virginity to Emile. Madeleine’s parents, not knowing that Madeleine was carrying on an affair with Emile (whom she had promised to marry), found a suitable fiancé for her among the Glasgow upper-class. Madeleine attempted to break her connection with Emile and, in February of 1857, asked him to return the letters she had written to him. Instead, Emile threatened to use those letters to expose her and force her to marry him. Early in the morning of March 23, 1857, Emile died from Arsenic poisoning. After Madeleine’s numerous letters were found in his lodging house, she was arrested for murder. THE TRIAL Although the circumstantial evidence pointed towards her guilt (Madeleine ''had'' made purchases of arsenic in the weeks leading up to Emile’s death, Madeleine had a clear motive, etc.), the jury in her trial freed her by way of the Scottish verdict Not Proven , which essentially said that they did not believe she was innocent of the charge, but the Prosecution had failed to make a strong enough case against her. The notoriety of the crime and trial were scandalous enough that Madeleine left Scotland, eventually marrying and raising a family in London . LATER LIFE At the turn of the 20th Century , she and her husband separated and the final years of Madeleine are lost to view. A common (but most likely erroneous) theory that she died in New York City in 1928 under another name is strongly contradicted by that woman’s death certificate, which states that she was 29 years younger than Madeleine would have been at the time. LATER THEORIES As in the case of Lizzie Borden , scholars and amateur Criminologist s have spent decades going over the minutia of the case and trying to decide ''“did she or didn’t she?”'' Most modern scholars of the case believe that Madeleine committed the crime and the only thing that saved her from the noose was the fact that no eyewitness could prove that Madeleine and Emile had met in the weeks before his death. There are a few, however, who believe that Emile killed himself in an attempt to frame Madeleine as an act of revenge. There is little to no evidence for this, however, and some "proof" brought forward by proponents of this theory is in direct contradiction to the concrete evidence that ''is'' available. DRAMATISATIONS Madeleine's story was the basis for several plays and the . EXTERNAL LINKS |