May Milligan

May Milligan died after she fell out of a third floor window at her tenement home in Earlston Avenue, Glasgow on 27 July 1961.

Her 26-year-old husband was tried for having pushed her or thrown her out but a verdict of not proven was returned. He tried to appeal the verdict but it was not possible to appeal a not proven verdict.

A woman that had lived in the flat below May Milligan said that she had just gone out when she had heard the breaking of glass and then saw something fall down past her window. She said, 'I was standing across the road and I saw a man coming up our close. He picked up the thing that had dropped and took it upstairs'.

When the police were called they found May Milligan lying on her kitchen floor and her husband there who was described as being 'distressed and aggressive'. The policeman said, 'He told me that they had been skylarking and playing and dancing about when suddenly his wife fell through the window'.

May Milligan died on the way to the hospital.

A constable gave evidence at the trial stating that on 19 May 1961 that May Milligan had told him that her husband had threatened to kill her and her eight-week-old child. When he was asked how May Milligan had told him her husband had threatened to kill her, he said, 'If I remember correctly, by throwing her out of the window and throwing the kid out of the window'. At that point during the evidence May Milligan's husband shouted out, 'It's all lies. Don't believe it'.

When May Milligan's husband gave evidence he denied pushing May Milligan out of the window and whilst pointing to the police witnesses sitting in the public benches he said, 'She had threatened to commit suicide. She even attempted it and the policemen over there know it'.

May Milligan and her husband had met in a cafe in Manchester in January 1960 and were married in Liverpool in April of the same year.

It was heard that May Milligan had been a very jealous woman.