Having divorced his first wife Buchanan married Anna Sutherland who was a brothel proprietress. He soon found that his patients and colleagues did not take kindly to this and threatened to transfer.

Seeking the easy way out he set about getting rid of his wife. She became ill and died of a Cerebral Haemorhage. The doctor was quick to collect his rather large inheritance of $50,000.

Suspicion was already aroused and this was heightened when only one month later he remarried his first wife. An exhumation was ordered and the body examined.

It was discovered that quantities of morphine were present and Buchanan was arrested and charged with her murder. He was found guilty and sentenced to die for first degree murder.

He was electrocuted at Sing Sing prison on 2 July 1895.

  

Robert Buchanan Trial: 1893

Law.jrank.org

Grisly Demonstration

Defendant: Robert Buchanan
Crime Charged: Murder
Chief Defense Lawyers: Charles W. Brooks, William J. O'Sullivan
Chief Prosecutors: De Lance Nicoll, James Osborne, Francis Weliman
Judge: E. C. Smyth
Place: New York, New York
Date of Trial: March 20—April 26, 1893
Verdict: Guilty
Sentence: Death

SIGNIFICANCE: This was one of the earliest trials to be fought almost exclusively on forensic science testimony.

Further fanning the flames of suspicion were remarks allegedly made by Buchanan two years earlier during the trial of Carlyle Harris, a New York medical student charged with wife-murder. At first her death, too, had been attributed to a stroke, but pinpointing of the pupils had led investigators to detect a morphine overdose. Harris was convicted and sentenced to death. Buchanan had followed proceedings with great interest, frequently referring to the accused as a "bungling fool" and a "stupid amateur," and boasting that he knew how to avoid the telltale pinpoint pupils.

In receipt of these and other revelations, White started a noisy campaign in the New York World, demanding the exhumation of Anna's body. He got his wish. Sure enough, analysis of the organs confirmed the presence of morphine, and Buchanan was charged with murder.

When the trial, presided over by Recorder Smyth, opened on March 20, 1893, it was soon clear that this case would be fought in the test-tube. Courts were just beginning to pay close attention to scientific testimony and in Professor Rudolph Witthaus, the prosecution had one of the nation's foremost toxicologists. Witthaus, who had analyzed the dead woman's organs, told the court how, using the Pellagri test, he discovered that "the body contained 1/10th of a grain of morphine in the remains," which he estimated was the residue of a fatal dose of 5 or 6 grains.

Heartened by this testimony, chief prosecuting counsel Francis Wellman asked the witness if he knew any means whereby it was possible to disguise the pinpoint pupils so characteristic of morphine poisoning. Witthaus referred to his original report: "Treatment of the eyes with atropine might very well eliminate the narrowing of the pupils which otherwise follows morphine poisoning."