A Colonial Sex Scandal : The Story of Belle Adams

Does this woman look like a criminal? I first came across this portrait of Belle Adams when I was perusing Hannah Maynard’s collection of photos at the BC Archives.  The title of the photo “… Belle Adams, charged with the murder of Charles Kincaid; received five years for manslaughter” didn’t quite match the photo I was looking at.  The woman in the photo looked like an innocent, well-dressed debutant who kept up with the latest in Victorian fashion.

But looks can be deceiving. Apparently, she was one of Victoria’s “fallen women” – a prostitute, who was accused of murdering her lover in a fit of jealously in 1898.  In its coverage of the trial, the Victoria Daily Colonist stated that Adams abandoned her home in Nelson, B.C. to be with her lover, Charles Kincaid, in Victoria. The Daily Colonist records that Adams, in a jealous rage, attacked and killed her lover, sawing with a razor through his jugular vein in the stairwell of the sleazy Empire Hotel. He had staggered down the stairs onto Johnson Street, collapsed on the pavement, and (according to witnesses) been heard to exclaim: “My god she’s killed me!” The police arrived to find she had thrown herself upon his lifeless corpse, crying out: “I was mad to do it! But oh! I love you so!”

At trial Adams testified that she was acting in self-defence on the night of the murder.  Her lawyers called on several witnesses who claimed they had seen Kincaid with Adams in Seattle on several occasions while threatening her life. More evidence came forward to support the theory that Adams acted in self-defence when she had cut her lover’s throat.

In an overcrowded courtroom on October 11, 1898, the judge instructed the jury that the evidence showed Belle Adams acted in self defence. 

It took the jury one week to deliberate. 

In spite of a sympathetic judge, Adams was found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced for five years in prison.  

Mr. Justice Irving “said that the law contemplated in punishment to give an example that would have a deterrent effect upon others and he must bear in mind, in giving sentence, that it should be such that by the memory of her sufferings the prisoner would be prevented from again offending.”

With thanks to Jessica Marsano for clarification of legal points.