“TWENTY YEARS OF HELL”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 315, 28 March 1928, Page 1

“TWENTY YEARS OF HELL”

OSCAR SLATER S LIFE IN GAOL CELEBRATED MURDER CHARGE RECALLED AGAIN SURRENDERS CAUSE TO BRITISH JUSTICE By Cable. —Press Association. — Copyright. Reed. 9.5 a.m. LONDON, Tuesday. FE first statement of Oscar Slater, who was released in November after serving 20 years in gaol on a murder charge, and whose case has aroused for years the keenest interest, is published in the “Daily Express.”

HE says: “Twenty years ago I voluntarily, of my own free will, told an American Court that I waived all formalities, and would be safe in my faith in British justice. Of my own free will, against all advice, I offered myself to British law to be tried for a murder I did not commit. My conscience was clear; I had faith; but some force known or unknown crushed me, and dazed and bewildered. I staggered into 20 years of hell. “Now again, voluntarily, of my own free will, I surrender my cause to British justice, in which I trust, and I believe with all my being that this time truth and faith must conquer. “For 16 years ip Peterhead Prison I was silent. Under the silence imposed bj' prison law, by the darkness of captivity, by the agony of the tortures of my mind, I almost forgot how to speak; but I held on to my brain. Now that I can speak, I recognise that it will be hard to establish the truth.” —A. and N.Z. Oscar Slater was convicted by the majority verdict of an Edinburgh jury (nine to six) in May, 1900, of the murder of an old lady. Miss Marion Gilchrist. Nine jurymen voted guilty, five not proven, and one not guilty. Miss Gilchrist was about 70 years of age, and lived alone in apartments in Glasgow with a maid, who had been in her employ for some years. She was wealthy, eccentric and bought jewellery largely, which she kept in her rooms. At the time of her death she had jewellery worth £3,000 put away in her wardrobe. On December 21, 190 S, the maid went out to purchase an evening paper, and

upon her return, in about 10 minutes, found the janitor outside her mistress’s door, ringing in vain for admission. The maid opened the door with her key and entered with the janitor, and a welldressed man came out of one of the bedrooms, approached the unsuspecting janitor ‘•quite pleasantly,” and passed out. At the same time the girl entered the dining-room and screamed: *‘Oh, come here!” Both then discovered the body of Miss Gilchrist on the floor with the head battered in. The strange fact was elicited by the police search that none of the jewellery, excepting one diamond brooch, had been taken, but a box containing papers had been torn open. Following the clue of the stolen brooch, the police found that the pawn ticket covering this ornament had been offered for sale by a German Jew named Oscar Slater. This man, accompanied by a woman, Andree Antoine, had sailed for New York by the Lv*si-r tania. He was arrested upon arrival in America and extradited. The maid and the janitor identified him as the “pleasant stranger.” The evidence of identification was extremely weak, all witnesses swore that the “pleasant stranger” was clean-shaven. When Oscar Slater was arrested a few days afterwards he wore a heavy moustache. Slater’s servant said he was at dinner at liis own home a few minutes after 7 p.m. on the evening of the crime, and this servant was under notice tb quit at the time. The brooch which was pawned was not the one looked for, but belonged to Antoine. Upon the presentation of a petition in Slater’s favour by 20,000 persons upon the day before the date fixed for the execution, the sentence of death was commuted and reduced to one of penal servitude for life. Since then there have been repeated agitations for a reconsidertion of the whole case, and these finally succeeded. Slater was released in November last, and Parliament passed a special Act which empowered submission of the case to the Court of Criminal Appeal.