The Case of Madeleine Smith

The Case of Madeleine Smith by Rick Geary  80 pp.

This "Victorian Murder" is one I'd never heard of. With the subtitle "A True Account of the Respectable Young Glasgow Lady Brought to Trial for the Murder by Poison of her Secret Paramour," you pretty much have the whole story. Madeleine Smith was the very sheltered daughter of a wealthy family who entered into an illicit love affair with Emile L'anglier, a young clerk. She is accused of poisoning him with arsenic to get rid of him so she could marry the well-to-do merchant her parents approved of. She goes to trial and is found not guilty on one account of attempted murder but on the second account of attempted murder and murder charge the verdict is "not proven"--evidently something that only existed in the Scottish courts.