In 1914 Mrs. Jemima Grierson left her husband and two children and went to live in Leith, Edinburgh, with a railway worker, Richard Tillet. She returned to her former home to see her children only once in the ensuing nine years, preferring life with Tillet although they lived in squalor, often drinking methylated spirits.
At 10 oclock on the night of March 13th, 1923, Tillet went to his work as a railwayman, and at 2 a.m. the police informed him that Mrs. Grierson had been found lying dead on the kitchen floor at their home, with her throat cut.
A neighbour told detectives that he had heard Tillet set out for work, telling Mrs. Grierson not to let anyone into the house. Fifteen minutes later the neighbour had heard raised voices at Tillets door, and he had then seen a man being admitted. The man was John Henry Savage, a 54-year-old marine fireman.
Another neighbour told the police that Mrs. Grierson had come round to her shortly before midnight, asking for help in evicting Savage from her home. Then she had gone back to the house by herself, and Savage had killed her, in the first few minutes of MARCH 14th, while she was trying to get him to leave.
Later that day Savage was arrested at a nearby doss-house, looking dazed and reeking of meths.
Convicted of Mrs. Griersons murder, he was sentenced to death and hanged by John Ellis and William Willis.