ACCUSED of murder, then sentenced to hang before being reprieved at the last minute, Oscar Slater then endured almost two decades of hard labour before his name was finally cleared.

Is it any wonder, his compensation paid, he decided to retire to Ayr for a quiet life?

The man born Oskar Josef Leschziner in 1872 to a Jewish family in Germany had already endured more than most.

Slater changed his name when he moved to the UK around 1893. He then spent time in Edinburgh before settling in Glasgow. Oscar was said to be no angel. He had been accused, then acquitted, on charges of malicious wounding and assault in 1896 and 1897.

Oscar Slater (Image: Contributed) By 1901 he was living in Glasgow, and was described as a “well dressed dandy” who claimed to be a dentist and a dealer in precious stones, but was widely believed to make his living as a gambler.

Then, in December 1908, wealthy 83-year-old spinster Marian Gilchrist was found dead in her home in West Princes Street, Glasgow. Her maid had popped out of the house for 10 minutes.

The killer was disturbed by a neighbour as he rifled through her items, taking only a brooch. The old woman had been battered around the head and was still alive, but had passed away by the time the doctor arrived.

Five days later, Oscar Slater set sail for New York. He became the prime suspect – especially as he had been seen trying to sell a pawn ticket for a brooch.

Victim Marion GilchristVictim Marion Gilchrist (Image: Contributed) The police quickly realised it was an entirely different brooch… but applied for Slater’s extradition from the USA. Slater was told the application would probably fail but he voluntarily returned to Scotland to clear his name.

At his trial, defence witnesses confirmed Slater's alibi and insisted he had announced his trip to America long before the date of the murder.

But the judge Lord Guthrie gave a summing later described as highly prejudicial.

Oscar was convicted by a majority of nine to six in May 1909 and was sentenced to death, with the execution to take place before the end of that very month.

The hammer produced as evidenceThe hammer produced as evidence (Image: Contributed) His lawyers quickly organised a petition signed by 20,000. The Secretary of State for Scotland commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. For the following 19 years, Oscar would remain in Peterhead prison.

Soon after the conviction, lawyer William Roughhead published the Trial of Oscar Slater, pointing out the flaws in the case. The book convinced many of his innocence – including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, who took up Oscar's cause.

An inquiry into the case was ordered in 1914. A detective in the case, John Thomson Trench, provided information allegedly deliberately concealed from the trial by the police. The inquiry found that the conviction was sound, and instead, Trench was dismissed from the force, dying just a few years later.

Finally, in 1927, William Park’s book The Truth about Oscar Slater was published, leading the Solicitor General of Scotland to conclude it was no longer proven that Slater was guilty.

Slater's conviction was quashed in July 1928 on the grounds that Lord Guthrie had failed to direct the jury to disregard claims about Slater's previous character.

He left prison with compensation of £6,000 – around £360,000 in modern terms.

In the 1930s, Oscar married a Scot of German descent and moved to Ayr, where he set up a business repairing and selling antiques. Perhaps wisely, he returned to his old name of Leschziner.

Slater and his wife were briefly interned as enemy aliens during the Second World War, which saw most of his surviving family in Germany, including his two sisters, murdered during the Holocaust.

He died of natural causes in Ayr in 1948. The murder of Marion Gilchrist remains unsolved to this day.