Youve been sleeping with other men! John Booth raged at his wife. Before she had time to reply, he took out his hunting knife and slashed her arm. Thats your punishment! he shouted. As Mrs. Booths mother, Mrs. Jean Galloway, ran to her daughters assistance, Booth wheeled around and stabbed her through the heart. She died on the spot.
Booth, a 37-year-old hawker, was hanged on Wednesday, October 21st, 1857, outside Aberdeens castle-prison, before a crowd of 2,000. There would not be another execution in Aberdeen after that for 106 years. The next one was in 1963, when Henry Burnett became the last man to be executed in Scotland.