The trial opened on July 3, 1865, at the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, before the Lord Justice-Clerk, Lord Ardmillan, and Lord Jervis-woode, the Solicitor-General prosecuting for the Crown, while the prisoner was defended by Messrs. A. R. Clark, Watson, and Brand.
Evidence was given that Mrs. Pritchard was first taken ill in the October of 1864, with constant vomiting, often accompanied by severe cramp.
After being treated by her husband for some time, and getting no better, at her own request a Dr. Gairdner was called in, and her mother, Mrs. Taylor, came from Edinburgh to nurse her.
While on this visit to her daughter, Mrs. Taylor, on February 24, complained of feeling unwell. The next day she was found insensible, sitting on her chair in her daughter's room, and died the same night. From this time Mrs. Pritchard got gradually worse, and died within three weeks afterwards.
Mary McLeod, a girl who had been in the service of the prisoner, admitted that he had familiar relations with her, and that this fact was known to Mrs. Pritchard.
The doctor had also made her presents, and told her he would marry her if his wife died.
Dr. Paterson, a medical practitioner of Glasgow, who was called in to see Mrs. Taylor, stated Pritchard told him the old lady was in the habit of taking Batley's solution of opium, and a few days before her death, she had purchased a half-pound bottle. When he saw her, he was convinced her symptoms betokened that she was under the depressing influence of antimony, and not opium. He therefore refused to give a certificate of her death.
Pritchard eventually signed the certificate himself, stating the primary cause of death had been paralysis and the secondary cause apoplexy. He further certified Mrs. Pritchard's death as due to gastric fever.
It was proved on the evidence of two chemists, that Pritchard was in the habit of purchasing tartarated antimony in large quantities, and also Fleming's tincture of aconite.
Dr. Maclagan, professor of medical jurisprudence in the University of Edinburgh, was then called to give the result of the chemical examination of the various organs of the body of Mrs. Pritchard, which had been retained for analysis. Antimony, corresponding to one-fourth of a grain of tartar emetic, was found in the urine, in small quantities in the bile and blood, and as much as four grains in the whole liver. Evidence of the presence of antimony was also found in the spleen, kidney, muscular substance of the heart, coats of the stomach and rectum, the brain and uterus.