Madeleine Smith

This article covers the British defendant in a murder trial. For the British skeleton pilot, see Madelaine Smith

Madeleine Smith

Madeleine Smith (* 1835 in Glasgow ; † April 12, 1928 in New York City ) was the main accused in 1857 in a murder trial in Scotland , which at the time caused a sensation in Great Britain . She was accused of murdering her lover, Pierre Emile L'Angelier, by administering arsenic . On July 9, 1857, the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh acquitted her because the proof of guilt could not be produced.

The murder case

Madeleine Smith came from a well-respected family who lived in Glasgow. Her father James Smith was a respected architect; the family was considered wealthy, and Madeleine was the oldest child of a total of five children.

Since 1855, one of the admirers of Madeleine Smith, who is considered beautiful, was a largely penniless employee named Pierre Emile L'Angelier, a Briton who was born on the island of Jersey . After Madeleine's father discovered a correspondence between the young woman and the young man, he forbade her to have any further contact with him, as he considered a relationship to be inappropriate. Madeleine Smith, however, secretly continued the acquaintance. Contrary to the conventions of the time, there was also sexual intercourse between the two , which she said several times in letters to her lover. In 1856 Madeleine Smith tried to end the relationship because she had become engaged to another man who was acceptable to her family. With reference to the letters in which Madeleine Smith openly admitted her relationship with him, Pierre Emile L'Angelier blackmailed his lover into continuing the relationship. In the following months he experienced severe gastrointestinal diseases. He succumbed to one of these on March 23, 1857. The subsequent autopsy , which was carried out because of this surprising death, revealed arsenic poisoning.

In 1861 she married George Wardle, with whom she had two children (Mary, called "Kitten", * 1863 and Thomas, * 1864). The marriage was divorced in 1889. After the divorce, Madelaine Wardle-Smith moved to New York, where she entered into her second marriage to William A. Sheehy around 1916, which lasted until his death in 1926. Madelaine died on April 28, 1928 in New York (Manhattan) and was buried under the name Lena Wardle Sheehy in Mount Hope Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson (NY).

literature

• Frederic Boase: Modern English Biography . 6 volumes, Netherton & Worth, Truro 1892–1921.

Web links

• Douglas MacGowan: A Death in Glasgow