Gossipy neighbours told William Perrie, 38, the bad news: Your wife is sleeping around with other men in the neighbourhood. Perrie, who had been married for only eight months, waited for his wife Mary to come back to their home in George Street, Paisley, and sprang at her with a knife, stabbing her in the breasts and back.
The jury at Glasgow Circuit Court refused to accept that he was provoked, and he was hanged on Wednesday, October 18th, 1837, outside the County Hall in Paisley. This was the first execution in Scotland in the reign of Queen Victoria.