The Oscar Slater Murder Story

In 1925 William Gordon was released from Peterhead Prison in Scotland. Unbeknownst to the authorities Gordon smuggled out a message from fellow prisoner, Oscar Slater. The message, written on waterproof paper and hidden under Gordon’s tongue, was a plea for help. It was to be delivered to none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle first heard the name Oscar Slater years earlier. He became aware of the case when Slater was sentenced to death for the murder of Marion Gilchrist. The crime occurred on December 21, 1908 in Glasgow. There was a public outcry against the brutal murder. The police and the public wanted the crime to be solved quickly and the murderer put behind bars. Within five days the police announced that they were looking for a suspect. His name was Oscar Slater. Slater was discovered in America. Once he was made aware of the accusations against him Slater willingly returned. He was positive that he could prove his innocence. The trial was held in 1909. Despite the conflicting evidence Oscar Slater was found guilty of the murder of Marion Gilchrist and sentenced to death. Slater’s lawyers started a petition that urged mercy. Two days before he was scheduled to die, Slater’s sentence was changed to imprisonment with hard labor for life. Slater’s lawyers also contacted Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. While Conan Doyle didn’t approve of Slater or his lifestyle it was clear that he was not the murderer of Marion Gilchrist. In 1912 Conan Doyle published "The Case of Oscar Slater". It examined evidence brought forward at the trial and point by point proved that Slater was not the killer.

“A wonderfully vivid portrait of the man behind Sherlock Holmes . . . Like all the best historical true crime books, it’s about so much more than crime.”—Tana French, author of In the Woods A sensational Edwardian murder. A scandalous wrongful conviction. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the rescue—a true story. After a wealthy woman was brutally murdered in her Glasgow home in 1908, the police found a convenient suspect in Oscar Slater, an immigrant Jewish cardsharp. Though he was known to be innocent, Slater was tried, convicted, and consigned to life at hard labor. Outraged by this injustice, Arthur Conan Doyle, already world renowned as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, used the methods of his most famous character to reinvestigate the case, ultimately winning Slater’s freedom. With “an eye for the telling detail, a forensic sense of evidence and a relish for research” (The Wall Street Journal), Margalit Fox immerses readers in the science of Edwardian crime detection and illuminates a watershed moment in its history, when reflexive prejudice began to be replaced by reason and the scientific method. Praise for Conan Doyle for the Defense “Artful and compelling . . . [Fox’s] narrative momentum never flags. . . . Conan Doyle for the Defense will captivate almost any reader while being pure catnip for the devotee of true-crime writing.”—The Washington Post “Developed with brio . . . [Fox] is excellent in linking the 19th-century creation of policing and detection with the development of both detective fiction and the science of forensics—ballistics, fingerprints, toxicology and serology—as well as the quasi science of ‘criminal anthropology.’”—The New York Times Book Review “[Fox] has an eye for the telling detail, a forensic sense of evidence and a relish for research.”—The Wall Street Journal “Gripping . . . The book works on two levels, much like a good Holmes case. First, it is a fluid story of a crime. . . . Second, and more pertinently, it is a deeper story of how prejudice against a class of people, the covering up of sloppy police work and a poisonous political atmosphere can doom an innocent. We should all heed Holmes’s salutary lesson: rationally follow the facts to find the truth.”—Time

This is the story of Oscar Slater, a Jewish immigrant in Glasgow, Scotland and two fellow Scottish scammers, Helen Lambie and Patrick Nugent. In the Christmas season of 1908, the trio conspired to rob an elderly, wealthy lady of her diamonds, and, in the course of which burglary, Oscar Slater murdered her on December 21, 1908. All, not some, authors and sleuths who researched the 1909 conviction emphatically supported Oscar Slater's innocence, that he was misidentified and wrongfully convicted. In an effort to place guilt for Marion Gilchrist's murder squarely on Oscar Slater, the conclusions here reach further back in the crime's timeline to January 1908, about a year before the murder-the month that Patrick Nugent and Helen Lambie attended a New Year's party. The Glasgow police investigation tarried at only 30 days leading up to the murder. FROM THE INTRODUCTION "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Sherlock Holmes, Sign of Four. "If you're looking for Trouble, you've come to the right place." Trouble, by Elvis Presley. "I am Woman, hear me roar." I am Woman, by Helen Reddy.

"The Trial of Oscar Slater" is a historical account of the scandalous trial. Oscar Slater was a German bookmaker who lived in London and was wrongfully accused of murder. The following year Scottish lawyer and amateur criminologist William Roughead published his research titled "Trial of Oscar Slater," highlighting flaws in the prosecution. After the pressure from the public and some Conservative politicians, including Ramsay MacDonald and Arthur Conan Doyle, a new secret inquiry started, after which Slater was released in 1928 with £6,000 compensation, although the real murderers, protected by political connections, were never punished.

Oscar Slater, a disreptuable German immigrant, living on the fringe of the Glaswegian underworld and off the proceeds of gambling and prostitution, was sentenced to death in 1909 for the brutal murder of Marion Gilchrist, a rich spinster who lived with a secret hoard of precious jewels hidden in her wardrobe in Edwardian Glasgow's fashionable West Princes Street. Slater, travelling with his mistress under a false name, was tracked down and arrested in New York. Extradited and tried in Edinburgh, he actually heard the gallows being erected for him, but was repreieved at the 11th hour and spent the next 18 years in the granite fortress of Peterhead prison, ceaselessly protesting his innocence.

In 1909, Oscar Slater, a German Jew, was convicted and sentenced to death for the brutal murder of Marion Gilchrist, an elderly Glasweigan spinster. His trial is known to have been one of the most scandalous miscarriages of justice in the annals of legal history. This book is provides an account of this infamous case.

This true crime classic tells the story of Oscar Slater, a Jewish immigrant who was wrongfully convicted of murder in Scotland in 1908. Based on extensive research and firsthand accounts, it exposes the corruption and prejudice that led to Slater's arrest and conviction, and is a powerful indictment of the Scottish legal system at the time. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.