Trial Of Oscar Slater

"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.

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.

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.

Excerpt from Trial of Oscar Slater This report of the trial of Oscar Slater has been prepared from the official shorthand writers' notes taken in Court, the evidence of all the principal witnesses being printed verbatim. The Editor confesses to a certain diffidence in dealing with a case so recent in which the actors, with the regrettable exception of Mr. Ewing Speirs, the agent for the defence, are still in life. But notwithstanding the obvious restrictions imposed by these conditions, the endeavour has been made to give in the Introduction an accurate and fair account of this very remarkable case. The facts as disclosed upon the proof have been narrated in the order in which they occurred, from the evidence of the various witnesses at the trial, thus affording a consecutive view of the course of events, which it is hoped will enable the reader more easily to appreciate the purport of the evidence led. The Editor would here acknowledge the facilities which have been afforded to him by the learned Judge who presided at the trial, as well as by the counsel on both sides of the bar, and by the medical witnesses for the prosecution and defence. The Honourable Lord Guthrie has favoured the Editor by revising his charge to the jury; the Right Honourable Alexander Ure, Lord Advocate, and Mr. A. L. M'Clure, K.C., Sheriff of Argyll, have also done him the favour of revising their addresses. Professor Glaister, M.D., has kindly read the proof sheets of the medical evidence adduced by the Crown; Dr. Aitchison Robertson and Dr. Alexander Veitch those of their evidence for the defence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

“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