From the archives: Ross-shire love triangle ends with wife's murder
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On October 16, 1835, the last public hanging was carried out in Inverness and the story behind it remains a source of fascination down the years.
The prisoner was John Adam and he was charged with murder after the body of a woman was found under a collapsed wall of a ruined cottage on the Common of Mulbuie on April 10, 1835. Jane Adam (originally Jane Brechin) was identified as the victim and John Adam was arrested after he was found to be the victim’s husband.
This came as a great surprise to John’s other “wife” Dorothy and his neighbours who knew him as John Anderson. As authorities investigated the crime, they uncovered deceptions and manipulations which gave the case of the Mulbuie Murder its place in history.
John Adam first met Jane Brechin much earlier in life, as a young man working in Angus, where he stayed for many years. Jane was considerably older than John, but she kept in touch with him after he left the area for Aberdeenshire.
He joined the 2nd (or Queen’s) Dragoon Guards in Glasgow and was posted to England. During this period he received correspondence from Jane Brechin offering to purchase his discharge from the army but he never replied to this letter.
While posted in England, John met and fell in love with a young girl named Dorothy Elliot. He suggested they move back to Scotland, marrying on the journey, as he had purchased his discharge from the army and she agreed.
He had, in fact, deserted from the army and was nearly caught by them back in Scotland. The couple finally ended up in Dingwall, still unmarried but with a new name: The Andersons.
Money became an issue for the couple and they were saved temporarily by, according to John, money from his family in Lintrathen. It later came to light that this money was from Jane Brechin.
Jane and John began to write regularly and, on a trip supposedly to visit his family, they were married. John emptied Jane’s substantial bank account and the couple travelled up to Inverness, where John rented a room for Jane to stay in, apparently while their house was being made ready for her. He returned home to Dorothy every night.
After some weeks of this, Jane began to grow impatient waiting for her house, so John agreed to take her there on the night of April 3.
The couple got on the Kessock Ferry and afterwards walked for many hours until, at the opportune moment, John struck Jane on the head with a rock. He then carried her body to a ruined cottage and pulled the wall down on top of her, where she was to lie, undiscovered, for a week.
It was the morning of April 10 when an unidentified body was discovered at Mulbuie and it took three days for the victim to be identified as Jane Brechin. John denied even knowing his wife for a time, but he later admitted everything – except murder.
He would maintain his innocence until the day he died.
John was held in Inverness Tolbooth for around six months until his execution. Even after his death, John was to remain ‘within the precincts of the said Tolbooth or prison of Inverness” as he was to be buried there.
