{"id":4841,"date":"2014-04-15T21:15:22","date_gmt":"2014-04-16T02:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=4841"},"modified":"2014-04-15T21:15:22","modified_gmt":"2014-04-16T02:15:22","slug":"morbid-fact-du-jour-for-april-15-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=4841","title":{"rendered":"Morbid Fact Du Jour for April 15, 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Today&#8217;s Not Proven Yet Truly Morbid Fact!<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4842\" style=\"width: 202px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/madeleine-smith-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4842\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4842\" alt=\"Madeleine Smith\" src=\"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/madeleine-smith-2-192x300.jpg\" width=\"192\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/madeleine-smith-2-192x300.jpg 192w, https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/madeleine-smith-2.jpg 219w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 192px) 100vw, 192px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4842\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Now is THIS the face of a killer?<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Madeleine Smith was the 19-year-old daughter of a wealthy Glasgow architect. \u00a0She had fallen head over heels in love with 26-year-old Emile L&#8217;Angelier, a shipping clerk from Jersey, whom she had met by chance one day while out walking. \u00a0Although they had had a torrid sexual relationship she knew he was totally unacceptable as a husband, and a new man had come into her life so she poisoned Emile with a cup of cocoa liberally laced with arsenic. \u00a0He died an agonizing death shortly after an evening tryst with Madeleine on March 22, 1857. \u00a0She was brought to trial later that year but saved from the gallows by the curious Scottish verdict of\u00a0<em>not proven<\/em>. \u00a0Her lawyers had used the Styrian Defense, saying that L&#8217;Angelier could have been a secret arsenic-eater, and that Madeleine had bought arsenic to use as a cosmetic.<\/p>\n<p>The Victorian public savored the trial with its prurient details of their relationship although the press portrayed L&#8217;Angelier as the seducer and fortune seeker and Madeleine as the victim whose only release was to get rid of him. \u00a0After the trial Madeleine moved to the south of England, eventually ending up in London where she met and married George Wardel, who was one of William Morris&#8217;s designers, and later his business manager. Soon Madeleine was working for the company as an embroiderer of tapestries. \u00a0She became a member of the group of intellectual socialists that included many leading artists and writers of the day, including George Bernard Shaw who knew her well. \u00a0Eventually her marriage broke up and she ended her days in the USA, dying in obscurity at the age of 74 in 1912.<\/p>\n<p>Culled from:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0192806009\/theasylumeclecti\">The Elements of Murder<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s Not Proven Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Madeleine Smith was the 19-year-old daughter of a wealthy Glasgow architect. \u00a0She had fallen head over heels in love with 26-year-old Emile L&#8217;Angelier, a shipping clerk from Jersey, whom she had met by chance one day while out walking. \u00a0Although they had had a torrid sexual relationship she [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4841"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4844,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4841\/revisions\/4844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}