From the very start, the case of 27-year-old Florence Maybrick and her unfortunate husband James was mired in controversy.
The couple, who lived in Aigburth, was well-known among Liverpool's social elites, attending all the most important balls and parties in the city. Behind closed doors, though, James, 23 years his wife's senior, was a hypochondriac, a regular user of arsenic and other poisons as a form of holistic medication. Both he and Florence were deeply unhappy in their marriage, and after eight years of violent arguments and affairs on both sides, they were finally ready to put an end to their relationship.
Before that could happen, however, James Maybrick became seriously ill after taking a double dose of one of his medicinal poisons - strychnine - on April 27, 1889. His condition deteriorated, and by May 11, he was dead.
