A Poisoned Life: Florence Chandler Maybrick, the First American Woman Sentenced to Death in England

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Florence Maybrick was the first American woman to be sentenced to die in England. Her trial was presided over by an openly misogynistic judge who was later declared incompetent and died in an asylum. Only hours before Florence was scheduled to be hanged to death for murdering her husband (a crime she almost certainly did not commit), Queen Victoria reluctantly agreed that her execution be commuted to life in prison. In her opinion, a woman who would commit adultery, as Florence had admitted, would surely kill her husband. Her children were taken from her and she never saw them again. Florence’s mother worked at great cost for years to clear her name, enlisting the president of the United States and several successive ambassadors including Abraham Lincoln’s son. Decades later, long after both were dead, a gruesome diary was discovered that made Florence’s husband a prime suspect as Jack the Ripper.