Madeleine Smith, the daughter of a prosperous architect, lived first at India Street and then at Blytheswood Square in Glasgow. In 1855, she formed an unfortunate secret liaison with a clerk, originally from Jersey, called Pierre Emile L'Angelier. Madeleine soon tired of L'Angelier, and was courted by an older, much more eligible suitor, who lived in the house next door to the Smiths. L'Angelier refused to break off the connection, or to return her letters, and threatened to blackmail her by showing the letters to her father. Madeleine then appears to have renewed the friendship, and to have written passionate letters asking L'Angelier to come and see her.
Madeleine's suitor dies of arsenic poisoning
In the early part of 1857, L'Angelier was taken ill with attacks of internal pains and vomiting, and died on 23rd of March after three such attacks, having returned to his lodgings in the small hours each time. The post mortem showed that he had died of arsenic poisoning. Madeleine's letters were found in his lodgings and at his workplace, and so she was eventually arrested, accused of poisoning him.
Interest in the trial spread throughout Great Britain. There were those who maintained Madeleine's innocence and L'Angelier's suicide, those who were convinced she had committed murder, and those who thought "she probably did it, but anyhow he deserved it". Vital evidence to prove her guilt was lacking.
Madeleine is shown to have purchased arsenic
Madeleine, had in fact, brought arsenic on three occasions, at around the time L'Angelier became ill. 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. No proof, however, could be brought to prove 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, at times 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 claimed that L'Angelier was an unstable man who had taken his own life.
Trail and verdict
The Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Hope, warned the jury of the importance of distinguishing between inference and proof. A pocket book, which L'Angelier had kept, gave dates of meetings with Madeleine, and the illness that occurred around the same time. The pocket book was ruled out as evidence. The prosecution could not question Madeleine as a witness, she was able only to give a declaration that she had not seen the deceased for about three weeks before his death. Madeleine did admit giving him cocoa through the bars of her bedroom window, but could not confirm the date, except that it was quite some time before L'Angelier's death.
Madeleine was accused of poisoning L'Angelier on three occasions. The jury found her "Not Guilty" on the charge of administering poison on the first occasion, and the charge "Not Proven" on the other two occasions.
What happened to Madeleine
Madeleine became a figure in fashionable London society. She married twice, and emigrated to the USA in 1916, dying in New York at the grand age of 93. A headstone in Mount Hope cemetery in New York records the passing not just of Grandma Wardle (her married name), but one of the most famous women in the annals of Scottish crime. It would be decades before her American relatives would learn that Grandma was, in fact, Madeleine Smith, the rich man's daughter who in Scottish folklore might have got away with murder.
Recent research points to the fact that she may well really have been innocent.