Oscar Slater
Scotland
Date of Crime: December 21, 1908
Oscar Slater was sentenced to death for the murder of Marion
Gilchrist, an 82-year-old wealthy spinster. Gilchrist was found
bludgeoned to death in her Glasgow home. Three witnesses saw a man
exit Gilchrist's home and walk quickly by them immediately before one of
them found her murdered body. The only thing missing from Gilchrist's
home was her diamond brooch.
Police soon got a tip from a man who said Slater had tried to
sell him a pawn ticket for a diamond brooch. They also found that
Slater had a checkered past. While he had no criminal record, he used
assumed names to escape from creditors. When police went to look for
Slater they found that he and his mistress had left Glasgow by train, bound
for Liverpool, where on Dec. 26, the couple sailed on the Lusitania, under
an assumed name, bound for New York. Police were sure that Slater was
Gilchrist's murderer because not only did he pawn a diamond brooch, but he
exhibited evidence of guilt by secretly fleeing to the United States.
On arrival in New York, Slater was arrested. However, it
was found that the diamond brooch had been pawned one month before the
murder. It was also found that Slater had owned the brooch for years
and had frequently pawned it in the past. Police were undeterred and
sent two officers from Glasgow and three eyewitnesses of the presumed
murderer to New York in the hopes that the witnesses would identify Slater. Two of the witnesses had been shown a photo of Slater prior to their
official identification. Also while they were waiting for the
identification lineup, Slater was led past them and was obviously a
prisoner. The witnesses identified Slater as the man they saw, but
they knew he was the only suspect.
Slater agreed willingly to return to Britain. Back in
Britain, police found abundant evidence that Slater planned for some time to
emigrate to the United States around the turn of the year. Thus his
trip to New York could not be characterized as a decision made following
Gilchrist's murder.
At trial the witnesses identified Slater as the man they saw
leaving Gilchrist's house, although there were discrepancies between their
initial descriptions of the man they saw and Slater. Slater had his
mistress and his former servant as alibi witnesses. Despite this
evidence the Lord Advocate (prosecutor) told the jury that Slater was unable
to produce a single witness to say he was anywhere other than at the scene
of the murder on the night it occurred. The Lord Advocate also told
the jury that the murder weapon was a small hammer owned by Slater, when in
truth the victim's wounds could have been produced by a large variety of
instruments.
Because Slater was wrongly identified as a suspect due to his pawning of a
diamond brooch, it would be a wild coincidence if he was the actual culprit.
After a petition was signed by 22,000 people, Slater's death sentence was
commuted to life imprisonment just a day before his execution. Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes books, reinvestigated the case.
The reinvestigation found that one of the witnesses had told senior police
officials that the man exiting Gilchrist's home was Dr. Charteris, a regular
visitor to Gilchrist's home. In 1927, after the witness, then living in
America, confirmed this account, another witness back-pedalled on her
identification. Within two weeks Slater was released from prison, but
without any declaration that he had been wrongly convicted. After Conan
Doyle organized an appeal, Slater's guilty verdict was set aside on the
grounds that the judge misdirected the jury. Slater was awarded £6000 in
compensation. He died in 1948.
[11/10]
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References: Convicting the Innocent,
National Archives of
Scotland,
Forensic Medicine Archives Project,
The Case of Oscar Slater,
Conan Doyle Case Summary
Posted in:
Victims of the State,
United Kingdom Cases
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