Notable historic forensic cases

FORENSIC MEDICAL SCIENCES UPDATE

The Case of Madeleine Smith (1835-1928)

Madeleine Smith was the defendant in a most curious and sensational murder trial in Scotland in 1857. She is still widely regarded as a convicted murderess, although the verdict given at her trial was not proven.

Background

Madeleine Smith was the first child of an upper-middle class family in Glasgow; they lived at No 7, Blythswood Square in a fashionable part of the city. The young Madeleine rebelled against the strict Victorian conventions of her time by beginning a secret love affair with a clerk, Pierre Emile L’Angelier. L’Angelier was born the first of five children to French parents in the Channel Islands. The family ran a seed merchant business out of their small house and their business was confined to natives or French speakers. L’Angelier’s father wanted to attract the business of the wealthy English visitors who spent time on the islands. With this goal in mind, L’Angelier was sent to be an apprentice to a neighbouring nursery that catered to that British clientele. After some initial uneasiness, L’Angelier became a hard worker and enhanced the basic English he had learned at school – becoming quite fluent in both French and English.

In 1842, as L’Angelier was nearing the end of his apprenticeship, Sir Francis Mackenzie from Scotland took a liking to him and offered to take him back to work on his Scottish estates. The family agreed this would be a good way to attract even more of the British business, and so Emile journeyed to a nursery in Edinburgh for training in the plants of Scotland. One year later, however, Sir Francis died suddenly, and, without enough money to return home, Emile was stranded in Edinburgh. Fortunately, the nursery where he had been training was pleased with his work and offered to keep him on. Over the next few years, Emile would continue to work as a nurseryman in Scotland, the Channel Islands, and France. In 1852, he moved to Glasgow, where his fate awaited him.

The death of Emille L’Angelier

Madeleine knew that a warehouse clerk would be an unacceptable companion for her but Emile seemed to give her a sense of relief from her mundane lifestyle. Her father had previously banned her from seeing him; however she could not break contact with him and continued to see him in secret. The two would meet late at night at Madeleine’s bedroom window and write each other love letters. Madeleine’s parents had no idea of the affair or the fact that she had promised to marry Emile. In the meantime they had found her a suitable fiancé, who was an upper-middle-class man named William Harper Minnoch. Her relationship with Emile cooled and she began to let herself be pursued by William Minnoch, who was a richer and more acceptable suitor. She accepted his offer of marriage when he proposed in late January of 1857.

Madeleine, now needing to be rid of Emile, wrote to him in early February:

‘...as there is coolness on both sides, our engagement had better be broken.

Altogether, I think owing to coolness and indifference--nothing else--that we had better, for the future, consider ourselves as strangers.

I trust your honour as a gentleman that you will not reveal anything that may have passed between us. I shall feel obliged by your bringing me my letters and likeness on Thursday evening at seven. Be at the area gate, and (the housemaid) will take the parcel from you. On Friday night, I shall send you all your letters, likeness, etc.

P.S. You may be astonished at this sudden change--but for some time back you must have noticed a coolness in my notes. My love for you has ceased, and that is why I was cool. I did once love you truly, fondly, but for some time back I have lost much of that love. There is no other reason for my conduct, and I think it but fair to let you know this. I might have gone on and become your wife, but I could not have loved you as I ought.

I know you will never injure the character of one you so fondly loved. No, Emile, I know you have honour and are a gentleman. What has passed you will not mention. I know when I ask you, that you will comply.’

Yet Emile would not comply. He was infuriated and threatened to use the letters to expose her and thereby force her to marry him. She was soon seen ordering arsenic from the chemist and signed her name as M. H. Smith. In the early part of 1857, L'Angelier was taken ill with attacks of internal pains and vomiting and died on 23rd of March from arsenic poisoning after three such attacks. The amount of arsenic found in his stomach during the post mortem was described as being enough to kill 50 men. Police discovered the numerous letters inside the house of Emile, and Madeleine was arrested for murder.

The Trial

The case created enormous public interest, not only in Glasgow but all over Scotland. The trial took place in Edinburgh before the High Court of Justice.

The following is a description of how Madeleine Smith appeared on the day of the trial:

‘Shortly thereafter, Madeleine Hamilton Smith, a very pretty girl, was placed at the bar. She was dressed in a white straw bonnet, black silk mantle, grey cloak, brown silk gown, lavender gloves, and carried a silver mounted smelling-bottle in her hand. She was pale but quite composed. She was accompanied by a female warder.’

Although circumstantial evidence pointed towards her guilt, the uniquely Scottish verdict of ‘not proven’ was given. The jury did not believe she was innocent of the charge. However the Prosecution failed to make a strong enough case against here and therefore the evidence given was insufficient. The defence claimed that L'Angelier was an unstable man who had taken his own life.

Many people thought, that if Madeleine had been allowed to take the stand, she would have been found guilty. Perhaps so, but in Victorian times the accused was not permitted to give evidence on their own behalf. There is no doubt that she had great charisma and strength of character. How many 22-year-old women of that period could have entered a courtroom with the air of a belle entering a ballroom? She was always mentally and physically durable and the self-possession she showed at her trial was quite remarkable.

Did she or didn’t she kill L’Angelier?

Madeleine had in fact bought arsenic on three occasions at around the time L'Angelier became ill, suffering three bouts of stomach illness. She explained to the chemist that it was to kill rats, although she later said at her trial that it was used to whiten her face and hands. The most damaging testimony was given by Mary Perry who testified that Emile had told her he experienced his first attack after drinking a cup of cocoa prepared by Madeleine, adding, ‘If she [Madeleine] were to poison me, I would forgive her.’

However there was no proof that Madeleine had met L'Angelier prior to the times when he had been overcome by the bouts of illness. L'Angelier had been in the habit of taking quite a lot of medicines for stomach ailments. He had also been an ‘arsenic eater, a habit which some believed beautified the body, and about which he openly boasted. The defence believed that he was an unstable man and had committed suicide. L’Angelier often talked of committing suicide over affairs of the heart.

And then there was the central mystery of the case. L’Angelier was taken ill three times. He spoke to people of forgiving Madeleine if she poisoned him, thus planting the suspicion of murder before he was even dead. A suspicion grew that perhaps he was actually framing Madeleine for his own murder, so determined was he that no other man should have her. This evidence was excluded from the trial since his odd motives could not be subject to cross examination.

Similarly, some Madeleine supporters have stated that Emile could not have accidentally swallowed that much arsenic in cocoa without distinctly noticing the gritty texture of the poison. However, during Madeleine’s trial a witness stated that in the few weeks before his death Emile had said, ‘he was not surprised at cocoa not agreeing with him, as he was not accustomed to it.’ Therefore, as far as Emile knew, cocoa could indeed have been gritty in texture, and he would not have known the difference. Also, this notion rests on the idea that Emile received only a single ‘gritty’ cupful of the ‘dark liquid’, when he might have received smaller doses in several cups.

Later Life

The crime and trial were so notorious that Madeleine decided to leave Scotland. She later married a man named George Wardle on 4 July 1861and raised a family in New York. After she separated from her husband at the turn of the 20^th century, her final years were lost to view. There is a common theory that she died in New York in 1928 under another name, where the woman’s death certificate stated she was 29 years junior to the age she would have been at the time of her death. There were other questionable stories of her which have her living and/or dying at various different places, including New Zealand and New Orleans.

Final Thoughts

The case and trial are an enduring ‘cause celebre’. Scholars and amateur criminologists have spent decades studying and analysing the case. What would have been her fate had the Scottish jury not had the option of the ‘not proven’ verdict? Many modern scholars hold the view that Madeleine did commit the crime and the only thing that set her free was the fact that no-one was an eyewitness to the case. It was also interesting to note that after the trial started, The Scotsman newspaper ran a small article, stating that a witness had come forward to claim that a young man and woman were spotted outside Madeleine’s house on the night of Emile’s death. However as the trial was already in progress, the witness could not give evidence at the hearing.