AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 16 November 1927, Page 3

AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY

THE SLATER CASE REVIEWED. Oscar Slater was sentenced to death in the High Court of Justice, Edinburgh, on May 6,. 1909, for a- murder committed in Glasgow the previous December, says “John o’ London’s Weekly.” Owing to certain unsatisfactory features of his trial and the fact that the verdict against him was returned by a majority of nine to six only, he was reprieved. In 1914 the Secretary for Scotland ordered an enquiry into certain new evidence tending to prove Slater’s innocence, but the enquiry disclosed no ground for further action. He lias now been released. In 1912 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published a little book on the case in which he maintained* that Slater was the victim of a miscarriage of justice. There is now another book, “The Truth about Oscar Slater,* ’ by a Glasgow journalist, Mr William Park, for whom Sir Arthur lias written a foreword. Mr Park is able to give some new matter, including Slater’s own story (which the defence did not see fit to put before the jury), but nothing that adds materially to the facts as stated in the second edition of Mi Roughhead’s “Trial of Oscar Slater” (Notable British Trials). The trouble about a controversial case is that after a while one can hardly see tlie wood for the trees. This ‘is particularly true of the Slater ease, in which the evidence bristles with discrepancies and' contradictions. It may be useful, •therefore, to set out as simply as possible the broad facts.

THE VICTIM. Miss Marion Gilchrist was an old lady of eighty-two, who for many years had occupied, a first floor flat in Queen’s Terrace, West Prince’s street, Glasgow. She was in good circumstances, which enabled her to indulge n passion for jewellery. She kept her jewellery in her flat, most of it concealed in garments stored in a spare bedroom. Her habits were retired. She had relatives in Glasgow, but went out little, received a few visitors, and was [suspicious off strangers. She kept one servant, a girl twenty-two named Helen Lambic. THE MURDER. At seven o’clock on the evening of Monday, December 21, 1908, Miss Gilchrist," according to her custom, sent Lambic out to fetch an evening newspaper. When L/ainbie returned, about ten or fifteen minutes later, she found on the landing outside the door a Mr Adams, who occupied the ground-flooi house below, tie "said he had heard suspicious noises in Miss Gilchrist s flat. The servant opened the door with her latchkey, and as they were about to enter a well-dressed man came out of the spare bedroom, walked calmly towards them with a pleasant smile, then suddenly darted past them out of the flat and down the stairs. A few minutes later Lambie found the body of her mistress in the dining-room in front of the fireplace. The head liad been smashed io pulp. . THE MOTIVE. It was presumed that the murderer’s purpose was robbery. In the spare bedroom a box containing private papers had been ransacked, but jewellery of considerable value was left lving on the dressing-table. Lambie, however, alleged thiit a* diamond brooch was missing. THE PURSUIT. On Christmas Day (four days after the murder) the police got information that a man named Oscar Slater, who lived within a few minutes’ walk of Miss Gilchrist’s house, had been trying to sell a pawn-ticket for a diamond brooch. Detectives went to Slater s house at midnight, but the bird had flown. A few hours earlier he had left Glasgow, bag and baggage. Subsequently it was ascertained that he had travelled to Liverpool and had sailed for New York by the Lusitania on December 26 under the name ot Otto Sando. When the Lusitania arrived off Sandy Hook, Slater was arrested by the New York Police. THE ACCUSED. The accused man was a Silesian Jew, a«-ed thirty-eight. His real name is believed to" be Leschzmer. He appears to have left Germany to avoid military service about 1888, and thenceforward to have led a vagrant underworld life on the Continent, m Great Britain, and in the United States. He first came to Glasgow m 1901, and married there, but soon separated from Ids wife. He was again m Glasgow u 1905. On both occasions he was known as Oscar Slater. In the late autumn of 1908- he came to Glasgow for the third time In the name of Anderson, and describing himself as a. dentist, lie took a good flat on the fringe of the West-end, wheie he lived with a young Trench woman with whom he had for some time associated in Pans and London. But Slater was still the name by which he was known in the billiard-rooms gambling clubs, and public-houses that he frequented. He was a professional "ambler a souteneur, and when occasion offered, a “dealer m precious stones”—m other words, a receiver of stolen goods—but had always succeeded in keeping out of the hands of the IK)IRC ' the evidence.

While Slater was still on the Atlantic, the Glasgow police were suddenly checked by discovering that the brooch that had sent them on his track was not the missing avtic.o at all, but had been pawned by Slater long before the murder of Miss Gilchrist. Nevertheless instead of dropping the case as one would have Expected, they decided to proceed on other grounds. At. the trial the Crown undertook to prove first, that Slater was the man who was seen by Adams and Lamfaie 111 Miss Gilchrist’s house. If Adams and Lambie could swear to him beyond all doubt, the case was proved. Water was the murderer. Hut though these witnesses did, after a fashion, identitj Slater as the man, their evidence was not such as a jury could accept without something more. <

The police therefore sought further to prove Slaters identity with (a) a man who was seen running away from the scene of the murder; (b) a man who, a little later, entered the Kelvin-brido-e subway station in great haste; •uul To) a man who, from time to time, had been seen loitering suspiciously near .Miss Gilchrist’s house. On all these points the evidence of identity was extremely weak; and in regard to one—the man at the subway station __tho police had conclusive information which thov did not disclose that that man was' not Slater. The suspicious circumstances of Slater’s departure for Nc'v York completed the police ease. It, will be noticed that the case involved the supposition that the police,

following a wrong scent, had nevertheless found the right man —an improbability so great that only the very strongest evidence could overcome it. Let us turn to the other side. Weak as tlie Crown case was, the case for the defence was even weaker —indeed, it was damaging. Slater did not go into l *the box on his own behalf. The witnesses called: to prove an alibi proved nothing—but tbo suddenness of his departure had surprised his associates. No satisfactory explanation was given for his booking his passage under the name of Otto Sando.

THE SEQUEL. In April, 1914, on instructions from the Secretary for Scotland, the Sheriff of Lanarkshire held a private enquiry upon certain allegations made by De-tective-Lieutenant Trench, of the Glasgow police. Trench’s story was that two days after tlie murder, in the course of making enquiries, lie visited .Miss Birrell, a niece of Miss Gilchrist. Miss Birrell, he said, told him that on the night of the murder the servant Lambie told her that she had recognised the murderer as a certain A. 8., who was known to both of them and Miss Gilchrist. He reported this to his superior officers. Subsequently he saw Lambie, who confirmed Miss Birrell’s statement. But at the enquiry Miss Birrell, Lambie and Trench’s superiors declared in the most emphatic terms that Trench s story was absolutely false. On the other hand, a brother-officer said that Trench at the tinie told him about Miss Birrell’s statement regarding A.B. There was no other corroboration of Trench s story. Here are a few of the many questions that the discerning reader of the foregoing summary will want to ask: — How did the murderer gain access to the flat? Why, if robbery was his object, did he confine his attention to a box of private papers? . ~ , Why. if Helen Lambie knew that she had left her mistress alone in the flat, did she not challenge the stranoer ? Why, if Slater was guilty, was no object found in his possession to connect him with the murder? .... Why, if Slater was innocent, did he not go' into the witness-box? Why did Slater hasten his departure to America? Why did he try to cover up his tracks and travel in the name of Otto Sando? Whv did Lieutenant ,Trench., who had paraded Slater for identification and gave evidence for the Crown at the trial, keep silence for five years, knowing; nil the time that Slater was innocent? . But these questions and many more quite as battling have never been and probably never will be, answered.