Sherlock Book Reviews - Oscar Slater A Killer Exposed
Posted by Steve Emecz on
Arthur Conan Doyle was an amateur detective in real life. His most famous investigation, where he strove mightily to clear the name of George Edalji, a man accused of a series of attacks, has been fictionalized and adapted for radio, screen, and stage many times. Another prominent but less discussed investigation of his is the case of Oscar Slater, who was convicted of the 1908 murder of Marion Gilchrist, an affluent Scotch woman. Slater was accused of beating her to death and stealing her jewelry, but from the outset, he had a strong support base.
As the years passed, many prominent people spoke up for Slater, proclaiming his innocence. Conan Doyle got involved, and eventually wrote The Case of Oscar Slater, a defense of the convicted man. Eventually, public opinion led to Slater’s release, and for years, all of the crime historians covering the case portrayed Slater as a wrongly accused man.
As the title indicates, Brenda Rossini has taken a different view. Her book Oscar Slater– A Killer Exposed contends that he really was responsible for Marion Gilchrist’s murder, and that he conspired with two other people, Helen Lambie and Patrick Nugent, to commit the crime. Rossini goes into great detail tracing the prejudices and culture of the time that might have both turned people against Slater and also led others to take his side. Rossini goes into great detail sifting through all of the evidence, including a missing brooch, and sorts through various clues to explain mistakes that the authorities might have made, as well as how prominent people such as Conan Doyle were won over to Slater’s cause.
It’s a complex story, and at times it requires close, focused reading to follow the narrative and to retain all of the critical points, but any effort put into this book is well worth it. The ending section, as Conan Doyle’s opinion of Slater soured after the latter’s release, is particularly interesting, as we see Rossini’s take on Slater’s true character emerging.
Was Oscar Slater truly guilty? Rossini has deeply shaken up my thoughts on the case, but I’ll wait for further responses, rebuttals, and research, before I form a solid opinion. For a while during the twentieth century, it was trendy to conclude, based on a couple of reports and comments of people connected to the Edalji case, that Conan Doyle got it wrong and that Edalji was guilty after all, but more recent studies have contradicted this view, and now the prevailing consensus leans in Edalji’s favor again. I’ll be fascinated to see how Rossini’s book shakes up the general perception of the Slater case in the decades to come.
Oscar Slater has long been known to fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. When ACD’s efforts to prevent miscarriages of justice are listed, this case, along with the George Edalji affair, are the two prime examples. Slater was convicted of a brutal 1908 murder, in spite of questions related to the evidence and trial procedure. He was sentenced to death, but this was commuted to hard labor. During his time in prison, his case became a celebrated cause, and after serving nearly two-decades of hard labor, he was freed.
ACD was one of the prime movers into securing Slater’s freedom – but he didn’t have all the facts. Scholar Brenda Rossini’s modern research has given her access to records that Doyle never had during his initial defense of Slater. She tells the whole story in this massive and well-documented volume – including the parts that many casual ACD fans forget: In later years, Doyle changed his mind and decided that Oscar Slater, the man he’d helped free, was in fact a murderer after all.
This is an important book for ACD scholars who need to understand the bigger picture, and – while Sherlock Holmes is not involved in the investigation – he’s still present in many ways.
Brenda Rossini presents a revealing exposé of Oscar Slater, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the brutal murder of 82-year-old Marion Gilchrist – a murder which caused an uproar in Glasgow on the night of December 21, 1908. The portrait Ms. Rossini paints of Slater is one of a deceitful, greedy, woman-beating pimp, con-man and blackguard who was assuredly guilty of the murder.
The Glasgow police and the general public initially never doubted Slater’s guilt. The various eye-witnesses were believed in their certainty it was Oscar Slater they saw fleeing the victim’s lodging and racing away down the streets of Glasgow at the time of her murder. There was evidence to corroborate the witness testimony -- blood spots on Slater’s fawn overcoat and a claw hammer believed to be the murder weapon in his luggage. He admitted ownership of both. Other eye-witnesses saw Slater watching the place prior to the murder. Thus, Oscar Slater became the prime suspect five days after Marion Gilchrist was killed.
Oscar wouldn’t be so interesting or so famous had not a campaign seeking a retrial and reversal of his guilt been waged by journalist William Roughead and supported by Conan Doyle. Doyle, famous not only for his fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, but also for his fight for justice in the Edalji case, believed Roughead’s personal slant on the witnesses and evidence, and Doyle’s involvement helped marshal the masses in a cry for justice for Slater.
In her well-researched and thoughtful review of the Gilchrist murder and Slater’s trials and subsequent reversal, Rossini unearths many salient points. She argues that the police were remiss in not connecting the three persons involved in the conspiracy to burgle Marion Gilchrist’s rooms for a cache of uncut diamonds believed to be in her possession. Rossini details Slater’s relationship to the other two conspirators - i.e. Lambie the maid and Patrick Nugent, and she presents a powerful recreation of the burglary and murder. The police, she argues, did not go back far enough before the crime to unearth Slater’s criminal record of violent behavior, and thus it was never brought out at trial. She suggests that William Roughead, whose book covered the first trial and who propounded the call for commutation of the death sentence and reversal of the verdict, misrepresented evidence and eyewitness testimony in order to create conflict and inflame the public into believing the arrest and conviction were unfair and based on antisemitic prejudices. She also slams the alliance between Roughead and Glasgow Detective-Lieutenant John T. Trench as flawed, alleging their motives were profit from “income-producing publications for many years.”
Anyone who doubts Slater‘s guilt should read this book. Rossini’s view is persuasive, and she points out that Conan Doyle did not have access to some facts, even though he was able to link Lambie and Nugent together as conspirators, which the police failed to do. Sprinkled throughout, Rossini ties Holmesian incidents from tales in the Canon to various aspects of this very remarkable case.
Rossini sums up her damning unmasking of Slater not only with Lambie’s later accusation that Slater was the murderer, but also with Conan Doyle’s own words– words Doyle used after Slater was released – that “nearly everything he says is untrue.”
Oscar Slater A Killer Exposed is available from this site.
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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.