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A bloody footprint led to the gallows. A divided city fought for justice.

The brutal murder of servant Jessie McPherson in July 1862 shocked Victorian Glasgow to its core. Her body, discovered in the wealthy Fleming household at Sandiford Place, bore the marks of approximately 40 savage blows. Someone had attempted to clean both the crime scene and the victim's body, yet bloody footprints remained—silent witnesses that would become central to Scotland's first criminal case using forensic photography.

When missing silverware was traced to Jessie McLachlan, a former servant and friend of the victim, it seemed authorities had their killer. Blood-stained clothing in her possession further cemented the case against her. Yet McLachlan maintained her innocence throughout, pointing instead to 87-year-old James Fleming, who had been alone in the house and had a questionable history with female servants. Was this a desperate ploy or the truth?

The trial captivated Glasgow, with newspapers providing breathless coverage of every development. After just 15 minutes of deliberation, the jury unanimously convicted McLachlan, and Lord Deas sentenced her to hang. What followed was extraordinary—public outcry was so intense that an unprecedented Court Commission was established to reinvestigate the evidence. Though they didn't overturn her conviction, McLachlan's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

More than 160 years later, the Sandiford murder still haunts Glasgow's history, raising uncomfortable questions about class bias in Victorian justice and the limitations of early forensic techniques. Was an innocent woman condemned based on circumstantial evidence? Or did a clever murderer nearly escape justice? Dive into one of Scotland's most enduring criminal mysteries and decide for yourself what really happened that July night in Sandiford Place.

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