This week, the channel surpassed 400,000 subscribers, and I want to thank everyone who has watched, commented, and shared feedback on the cases I cover. Today, I’ve put together a compilation of five cases where the verdicts or final sentences sparked controversy and are still debated today. The first case comes from 1880s Australia. Louisa Collins was born on August 11, 1847, near Scone in New South Wales.
Her father, Henry, had been transported from England to Australia in 1831 after being sentenced by British courts. He arrived in Sydney in 1832, and after serving his punishment, he stayed, married Katherine Ring, and started a family. At 14, Louisa was sent to work as a domestic servant for a wealthy solicitor. She was known as a pretty girl with long dark hair and a flirtatious nature.
At 18, following her mother’s advice, she married Charles Andrews, a well-regarded butcher who was 13 years her senior. Over the years, Louisa gave birth to nine children, seven of whom survived infancy. She found the constant work of cleaning, washing, and childcare exhausting and missed the attention she once received from young men. In 1886, the family moved to Botany, a Sydney suburb, and took in lodgers to help with finances.
One lodger, a confident young man named Michael Collins, quickly caught Louisa’s attention. Her husband grew suspicious, and in December 1886, Charles confronted Michael, leading to a scuffle and the young man’s eviction. Less than two months later, Charles became ill with severe stomach pains. A doctor, Dr.
Martin, was unsure of the cause but prescribed medicine. Charles did not recover and died on February 2, 1887, at age 53. The death was attributed to gastritis, and Louisa received a small life insurance payout. She did not grieve publicly, nor did she wear black.
Instead, she drank and went dancing with Michael Collins. On April 9, 1887, just two months after Charles’s death, the 39-year-old Louisa married 23-year-old Michael. She was four months pregnant at the time. Their son, John, was born later that year.
On April 10, 1888, the four-and-a-half-month-old baby became ill. Despite his distress, his parents did not call a doctor, and the child died shortly before midnight. Dr. Martin, the same physician who had attended Louisa’s first husband, found the rapid succession of deaths suspicious and reported the case to the city coroner.
Although infant mortality was common at the time, the coroner noted there were no suspicious circumstances, and no inquest was held. Soon after, Michael himself became ill. A different doctor, Dr. Marshall, was called and found his symptoms puzzling.
Over the next two months, Michael’s condition fluctuated until he suddenly deteriorated on July 3, 1888. He died four days later. Dr. Marshall refused to issue a death certificate and notified the coroner.
An inquest was opened, given the sudden deaths of both of Louisa’s husbands. Tests revealed traces of arsenic in samples taken from Michael’s bedside, including a partially filled glass. The coroner concluded that Michael had died from arsenic poisoning, possibly administered by his wife. A second inquest ordered the exhumation of Charles Andrews and baby John.
Charles’s body contained faint traces of arsenic, but the child’s body showed none. Louisa Collins was charged with the murder of her second husband, Michael Collins. Her first trial opened at the Supreme Court of New South Wales on August 6, 1888. Witnesses described her as sometimes caring but often emotionally detached while nursing Michael.
Dr. Marshall testified that arsenic was found in the body and vomit. Louisa denied ever possessing arsenic, saying she had only given her husband a vomiting powder purchased from a local chemist, which police confirmed. The prosecution called Louisa’s 11-year-old daughter, May, who testified that her mother kept a box of Rough on Rats, an arsenic-based poison common in households at the time.
The defense pointed out that Michael had no life insurance, so Louisa had no financial motive, and suggested he may have been exposed to arsenic through his work in the wool-washing industry. The jury could not agree on a verdict. After a second trial ended the same way, prosecutors decided to charge Louisa with the murder of her first husband, Charles Andrews. That trial also resulted in a hung jury.
Louisa had now been tried three times, and it was expected the case would be dropped. Instead, a fourth trial was ordered, again for the murder of Michael Collins. During this trial, prosecutors established that Michael’s workplace did not use arsenic, weakening the defense’s exposure theory. On December 8, 1888, after two hours of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict.
The judge sentenced Louisa Collins to death by hanging. Public opinion was divided. Many noted that after three hung juries, the conviction seemed unfair, and much of the evidence was circumstantial. The state had unlimited resources, while Louisa had no paid legal representation.
Some also pointed out that Michael had not been insured, leaving Louisa without a clear motive. Louisa maintained her innocence and hoped for a reprieve. On January 8, 1889, she was hanged at Darlinghurst Prison at age 41. She remains the last woman executed in New South Wales.
The second case takes us to 1870s America. Laura Hunt was born on June 22, 1837, in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Her family moved frequently before settling in New Orleans. At 16, she married William Stone, an alcohol dealer who was 20 years her senior.
He died a year later, leaving her a widow at 17. She began studying to become a teacher but instead married Thomas Grayson, who proved to be a violent alcoholic. Within six months, Laura filed for divorce. She and her mother moved to San Francisco, then to Shasta, where she met William Fair, a respected attorney and county sheriff.
They married and had a daughter, Lillian. The family moved to San Francisco, but William struggled professionally and committed suicide in December 1861. Laura, now 24 and twice widowed, used her inheritance to buy a boarding house in Sacramento. The business failed, so she turned to acting and later opened the 37-room Taho House Hotel in Virginia City, Nevada, during the silver rush.
The hotel prospered, and Laura became a well-liked figure in the community. In 1864, a wealthy lawyer named Alexander Crittenden arrived in Virginia City and rented a room at Laura’s hotel. He was married with seven children but began a relationship with Laura. He promised to divorce his wife, Clara, but repeatedly postponed it.
In 1865, Clara and the children moved to Virginia City, and Alexander maintained both households, spending days with Laura and evenings with his family. For five years, Alexander kept the two women apart. Laura grew frustrated with his broken promises, and in 1870, she married another man, Jesse Snyder. Alexander was distraught and wrote Laura letters declaring his love.
The couple agreed to leave their spouses. Laura’s divorce was finalized in October 1870, but Alexander had not even discussed divorce with Clara. When Laura learned Clara was returning from a trip, she went to a gunsmith and traded her revolver for a smaller, more concealable pistol. On November 3, 1870, dressed in black and wearing a veil, she boarded the ferry in Oakland where Alexander was meeting Clara and their children.
As the boat left port, she approached Alexander and shot him once in the chest. She was arrested and said the man had ruined her life and her daughter’s life. Alexander survived for 48 hours before dying. His funeral was one of the largest in San Francisco’s history, with courts adjourning out of respect.
Laura’s trial began in March 1871 and became a sensation. Her defense argued she suffered from temporary insanity caused by emotional abuse. The prosecution portrayed her as a calculating woman who targeted wealthy men. The jury found her guilty in less than an hour, and she was sentenced to hang.
The verdict was overturned on appeal. At her second trial in 1872, Laura was found not guilty due to temporary insanity. Afterward, she faded from public life. She died on October 19, 1919, at age 82.
The fourth case is from early 20th-century Scotland. Oscar Slater was born into a Jewish family in Oppeln, then part of the German Empire, on January 8, 1872. In 1893, he moved to England to avoid military service and settled in London, working as a bookmaker. He adopted several aliases and eventually the name Slater.
He was arrested twice in the 1890s but acquitted both times. By 1899, he had moved to Edinburgh, then Glasgow, where police suspected he ran an illegal betting operation. In December 1908, 83-year-old Marion Gilchrist, a wealthy woman, was found dead in her Glasgow apartment. She had been beaten and stabbed.
A diamond brooch was missing. Witnesses reported seeing a well-dressed man leaving her building, but their descriptions varied. Days later, a young girl named Mary Barron came forward with a much different description. Police focused on Oscar Slater, a 37-year-old German known for his dubious lifestyle.
By the time officers visited his home, he had already left for New York with his mistress, traveling under false names. An arrest warrant was issued, and he was detained upon arrival in January 1909. Witnesses were sent to New York to identify him. Two women did, but one male witness did not.
Slater agreed to return voluntarily to Scotland to clear his name. The press was hostile, emphasizing his German origins and Jewish faith. Investigators found a hammer in his luggage, though some experts said it was too small to have caused the wounds. At an identity parade, witnesses picking him out had already seen his picture in newspapers.
His trial began on May 3, 1909. The prosecution depicted him as an immoral character but offered no physical evidence and no clear motive. The judge instructed the jury that a man of his kind “has not the presumption of innocence in his favor. ” Slater was convicted by a majority verdict and sentenced to death.
Two days before his scheduled execution, the Secretary of State for Scotland commuted his sentence to life imprisonment after a petition gained over 20,000 signatures. In the years that followed, questions about his guilt grew. Writer William Roughead published a critical account in 1910, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a pamphlet in 1912 arguing for Slater’s pardon. Doyle believed the killer was seeking documents, such as a will Marion Gilchrist may have recently changed.
In 1924, a former detective claimed another man had been named at the scene but was overlooked. In 1927, author William Park published a book reinforcing the theory that the murder had been committed by someone known to the victim. The Solicitor General concluded the conviction was unsafe, and Slater was released on November 14, 1927, after 18 and a half years in prison. His conviction was quashed in June 1928, and he received £6,000 in compensation.
He died in 1948. The murder of Marion Gilchrist remains officially unsolved. The final case is from late 1870s Connecticut. Mary Stannard was born in Madison in 1856.
She was seen as a shy, hardworking young woman and was known to be kind and helpful around her town. In April 1876, at age 19, she gave birth to an illegitimate son, William Victor. The father was rumored to be a married man, but he never acknowledged the child. Mary cared for her baby and wanted to support herself rather than rely on charity.
Reverend Herbert H. Hayden was a 27-year-old Methodist minister who had moved to Rockland, about ten miles from Madison. He was married with children. In December 1877, he hired Mary to help his pregnant wife during the week.
She worked at the family farmhouse until February 1878. During that time, there was gossip that the minister’s interest in Mary was more than pastoral. In March 1878, the Haydens asked Mary to babysit while they attended a church supper at a nearby hall. It was later claimed that during this evening, Mary and the reverend were intimate.
In August 1878, Mary told a friend, Mrs. Studley, that she was pregnant again. She named Reverend Hayden as the father and said the encounter happened during the March babysitting evening. Mary wrote a letter to the reverend asking him to help her end the pregnancy, but later decided not to send it.
On September 2, she met with him, and he reportedly promised to obtain medicine that would resolve her condition. They arranged to meet the next day near a large rock known as the Big Rock. On September 3, Mary’s father returned home to find she had not returned from gathering blackberries. He went to look for her and found her dead.
Her arms were folded over her chest, her bonnet placed beside her, and there were bruises on her wrists. There were no blackberries in her pail. The postmortem found she had been struck in the head and stabbed in the throat. Authorities also found a large amount of arsenic in her body.
Mary’s half-sister told the justice that Mary had planned to meet Reverend Hayden to discuss her condition. He was arrested. A hearing in September 1878 found him innocent of all charges. However, new evidence emerged that Hayden had purchased an ounce of arsenic in Middletown, claiming he needed it to kill rats.
This arsenic was found in his barn, still unused. A professor from Yale Medical College testified that the arsenic in Mary’s stomach had come from the Middletown store, while the arsenic in the barn had not. The prosecution argued that Hayden had given Mary the poison to end her pregnancy and then killed her when she tried to flee. The trial began in October 1879 and lasted three months.
The defense suggested other suspects, and the reverend’s wife gave emotional testimony supporting his innocence. When the jury could not reach a verdict, the case was dropped. Only one juror believed Hayden was guilty. He was released, later moved to New Haven, and died in 1907.
Mary’s son William remained in the area and died in 1957. The murder was never solved. Thank you for listening to this compilation.
Please leave any comments or feedback, and I hope to see you again for the next Brief Case.