Round about this time in 1958, the current obsession in Scotland was the trial of a serial killer called Peter Manuel who had committed several murders in North Lanarkshire. He was eventually found guilty and went to the gallows on 11 July 1958. The trial at Glasgow High Court was a remarkable one. Manuel, born in America in 1927 but of Scottish parents, was by no means unintelligent, and at one point sacked his lawyers in the middle of the trial and conducted his own defence. It was generally agreed even by Lord Cameron, the Judge, that his defence was nothing short of brilliant with several plausible theories being produced as to how else the murders could have happened.
At one point, he questioned a witness who had been brought in on a stretcher and almost convinced the jury that the injured man had murdered his wife and members of his family. Though clearly a sadistic psychopath, Manuel almost became a Scottish cult hero, for such murder cases were exceptionally well received and read avidly in the Scottish press. But the balance of evidence was too much, and guilty was the verdict. Some people were beginning to feel that the death penalty was not the best way of dealing with such criminals, but Manuel’s execution was duly carried out as sales of newspapers soared.
He was third last man to be hanged in Scotland.
