The Real Case Investigated by Conan Doyle – The Oscar Case (Part II)

On January 23, 1925, William Gordon, Oscar Slater's cellmate, walked out of Peterhead Prison and hid a note in his undetected dentures with only a few simple words: "... Please try to help me if you wish. Let the British public know what you think of me... Don't forget to write a letter or see Conan in person..."

Sixteen years after Slater had been sentenced to lifelong hard labor, he was said to have made up his mind to commit suicide in prison after twenty years in prison, along with this inhumane treatment. However, Gordon did what Slater asked: three years later, Slater was able to see the light of day, and his grievances were washed away - whether it was the eighteen years of imprisonment in the middle, the heated discussion between the outside judiciary, the police, lawyers, the media and the public, etc., when the whole incident finally came to an end, it was more twists and turns than the real drama.

There is no hope of a labor camp

Peterhead Prison is located in the northeast of Scotland, cold, wet and harsh terrain, and even known as the "Gulag of Scotland" (the notorious labor camp of the Soviet Union in the past), the living conditions of prisoners are poor, such as not enough living space and public health, each cell has no heating, only the corridor heating blowing in through the cracks in the door, with the average sub-zero temperature in Scotland in winter and the limited clothing of prisoners, it is obvious that Slater is definitely worse off than dead here - he has also been whipped. A record of two hours of exposure to the sun.

He was not a strong man who could not afford to be sent to the quarry; he also filed a complaint with the prison steward that the prison diet would be drugged to weaken the resistance of the prisoners... Although absurd, based on the correspondence and records of Maclean, a political prisoner who had been in the prison at about the same time, it is obviously not surprising that the prison authorities drugged the prisoners in their diet to control the prisoners, and it shows the extreme neglect of the human rights of prisoners in Peterhead Prison. During Slater's long prison, what really helped Slater to survive was the correspondence he exchanged with his family in a small town on the border between Germany and Poland, from the death of his parents to the children of his sisters, and the firm family friendship became his only spiritual trust.

Brush past the water falling out of the rocks

Although the Glasgow police were clearly under pressure in dealing with the Shrett case, not everyone agreed with the verdict and conclusion of the case, and it was John Trang, who was awarded the Police Medal in 1914 and became the Inspector general of the Glasgow Central Bureau. He was involved in part of the Slater investigation in 1908-09, not only questioning the discrepancies between the evidence presented by the prosecution at the time and what he had investigated, but also distrusting the testimony of witnesses (also because he had encountered cases in which all witnesses were of the same caliber and finally proved that the suspect really had an alibi).

Among the first-hand accounts that Chuan Qu possesses, the most powerful evidence that can reverse the whole case is the confession of Margaret, the niece of the victim at that time, not only mentioning that the victim was planning to change the will shortly before her death, but also mentioning that the maid Helen told her on the night of the incident that she had seen the murderer and said the person's name. Not only did Kawachi work to overturn the case, but he also asked David Cook, a lawyer friend of Conan Doyle, to ask the authorities to reopen the investigation into the Slater case. When the government promised to open an investigative hearing, all those involved in the case were ecstatic, believing that the murderer was almost at stake and that justice would be done.

Disappointingly, however, the authorities not only assigned a judge with no criminal experience to the case, but also did not hold public hearings, did not allow the media and the public to observe and participate, and focused the investigation on the evidence itself, not intending to involve the trial process (even if this is the most problematic part of the whole case). Moreover, the names mentioned in Helen's confession were local names in Glasgow, and from top to bottom, they had a place in various upper-class trades and fields, and they were famous, and they had obviously used their connections to suppress Helen's testimony. Not only did Helen, Margaret and other favorable witnesses unanimously change their mouths, but even the police personnel who had read the confession at the beginning also denied it, not to mention the prosecutors, presiding judges, and other government and police representatives who would be held accountable once the case was overturned. Even if Chuan Qu argues with reason, he is like a praying mantis blocking the car, unable to return to the sky.

For the sake of conscience, a great future is buried

Sure enough, in the end, the judge declares that the case does not need to be involved, and Conan Doyle is furious but unable to return to heaven, but he never forgets it until he gets the note from Gordon more than a decade later, which once again stimulates Conan Doyle to investigate.

Compared with the world-renowned mystery novelist Conan Doyle, who was a household name and fame at that time, Kawaku and Cook's fate was not so peaceful. Not only was Kawagu suspended and dismissed from his post, but despite his military service, he was chased: the Glasgow police framed him and Cook for stealing stolen goods from a robbery, and although the court cleared them, they died in 1919 and 1921 after a major war. The two people who paid their own careers for this case could not see the truth until their deaths.

The true Holmes who insisted on social justice

Conan Doyle began to pay attention to the case in 1909 because of the contact of Slater's lawyers; even if he constantly submitted letters to the newspaper and advocated that the public pay attention to it, and even received strong evidence from the Sichuan district, he was still inferior to the officials under the class system. After the hearing failed, Conan Doyle had to put an end to his efforts until 1925, when Gordon came to visit and handed him A slip of paper from Slater.

Conan Doyle was once again prepared to overturn the case, and parker, a Glasgow journalist who had participated in the hearing in 1914, also provided clues from his own independent investigations over the years, and published a book of conclusions investigating the Slater case with the financial assistance of Conan Doyle; at this time, just in time to meet the British upper middle class, turning their attention to the disturbing social issues caused by the rise of women's rights and technological progress, the Jews were no longer the street rats recognized by the British; plus the prosecutors involved in the incident at that time, The judges and others were almost gone, and Conan Doyle was even more ruthless in enlisting the first British prime minister of the powerful Labour Party: Macdonald, as his helper.

The media enthusiastically reported on this extremely dramatic wrongful case, setting off a wave of discussion across the UK. Combining time, place, and people, Scotland's Minister of State finally resisted the pressure of public opinion and issued a statement approving Slater's conditional release. On November 14, 1927, after eighteen years, four months and six days of darkness, Slater finally regained his freedom.

Seeing the day again to the point of displeasure

Even if he finally got Slater out of prison, Conan Doyle knew it wasn't the end. He began to challenge Congress by documenting Slater's case and making it available to every member of the House of Commons, culminating in Slater's appeal to the judicial system on June 8, 1928, and raising funds with the public to hire Acheson, a popular lawyer at the time in criminal cases.

Conan Doyle paid out of his own pocket to make up the difference in his attorneys' fees, expecting the verdict to come. In July of that year, although the judge on appeal could not admit that the verdict was wrong, the judge still judged that the jury at that time may have made the wrong decision because "the judge neglected to give the necessary reminders, resulting in a misleading procedural error." Even though the original verdict was not truly wrong, the decision to acquit Slater was made.

Conan Doyle was pleased with the verdict because he had pleaded acquitted by the law and felt that he had done his best not to be involved in the case — but Slater was not satisfied. Believing that his innocence should not have been based on "procedural errors", he gambled that he was almost reluctant to receive compensation for wrongful imprisonment, and finally accepted six thousand pounds in compensation from the Scottish government without consulting anyone, but was unwilling to reward Pike who helped him run around and Edison's lawyer who fought the case. This extremely unforgiving behavior stepped on the bottom line of the strict self-disciplined Conan Doyle. The two began to criticize and argue with each other in newspapers and magazines, and Conan Doyle even almost filed a complaint that Slater had seized his property, but finally settled the dispute by paying Conan Doyle a certain amount of money.

Later people

Conan Doyle died in 1930, and his controversial old age finally came to an end. After spending a lot of money on compensation, Slater lost his German citizenship because he had been in prison for too long, so he married a German-Scottish woman and spent his old age in the small town of Ayr in southwest Scotland, never returning to his birthplace.

Although it is a bit of an hindsight, it may not be so bad to say that it is impossible to return to Germany: with the rise of the Nazis and World War II, all of Slater's family were sent to concentration camps, and none survived. Slater lived longer than anyone else until his death at Al's home in 1948. Chuan Qu's reputation was eventually rehabilitated, and although it was impossible to prosecute the officials who suspended Him qu at the time, a commemorative plaque was set up in the Police Museum in Glasgow to commemorate his courage to speak out and his insistence on his morality.

Peterhead Prison was closed in 2013 and is now a prison museum, continuing to withstand the bitter north winds and becoming a relic of a dark corner of Scottish history. Thanks to Conan Doyle's efforts, Scotland also set up an appeal court, although it was set up earlier than Slater's appeal, but it was impossible to re-examine his case because it did not go back in time, but the court of appeal still bought more time and possibilities for many cases, and also won more rights for the victims. I heard that the Slater case later became the standard textbook for the Scottish Police, because in this case, almost all the negative elements were included.

Its absurdity and confusion, the prosecution lasted for nearly twenty years, not only provoked and justified the anti-Semitic plot in Britain at that time, but also the scale of the hunt even crossed the Atlantic Ocean to New York, the United States, involving the judicial and police injustice at that time, losing the bright future of Chuan Qu and others, and also attracted the attention of the famous writer Sir Conan Doyle, who was investigated for several years. The bias of the police and the judiciary, the corruption of class relations, and the near-death of a completely innocent Slater on the gallows, are more dramatic and unbelievable than drama, but they are indeed staged in the real world.

While countries around the world are still addressing racial prejudice today, it's not hard to imagine how extreme the situation of prejudice and discrimination was in Britain more than a hundred years ago. We can't save the time of the wronged victims, but at least we can try to restore each case in a more diverse and comprehensive way, expecting to give more fairness and justice to the victims of either kind, and reduce the number of victims like Slater.