Train travel in the Victorian era provided many new opportunities, people and goods could travel around the country more freely and much more quickly.  But with it came more crime.  Many Victorians feared travelling by train, the carriages weren’t lit, couldn’t be exited between stations and there was no way to communicate with the driver or conductor during the journey.  Robbery and assault of all kinds were common but it would be the 9th of July 1864 when Thomas Briggs made history as the first person to be murdered on a train in the UK.  The case would involve a transatlantic chase, extradition and trial resulting in changes in railway safety and carriage design.  As well as having unexpected cultural effects.  So let's dive in

In the early morning hours of the 4th May, 1957 doctors attended the home of Kenneth and Elizabeth Barlow.  Elizabeth had been discovered apparently drown in her bath.  On the surface a tragic loss of a young mother.  But how does a healthy woman simply pass away whilst in the bath with no sign of trying to even attempt to save herself?  Suspicions began to mount that foul play was involved.  Until an eagle-eyed pathologist found 4 injection sites on her bum.  Newly developed techniques detected insulin in the tissues and Elizabeth was not a diabetic.  Let’s dive into the first documented case of murder by insulin.

Madeleine Hamilton Smith was a Glaswegian socialite, beautiful, well mannered and from a wealthy family.  When she was arrested for the murder of her ex lover, it rocked Victorian Scottish society to the core.  A scandal of pre marital sex, blackmail and poison played out in the court room and the newspapers.  She received a verdict of “Not Proven” a result unique to the Scottish judicial system.  A verdict that left a cloud of suspicion over Madeleine that even today 165 years after the crime has historians divided.  The Scotman sums it up best quote “Madeleine Smith was a wanton woman with a great lawyer or an innocent in a deadly game of revenge and spite” End Quote. So let’s dive into the case and decide for ourselves