Alfred de Marigny

Alfred de Marigny (1910-) was a French Mauritian acquitted of the murder of his father-in-law, Sir Harry Oakes.

Biography

Marie Alfred Fouquereaux de Marignycite news |title=Faith and Circumstance |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,802952-1,00.html |work=TIME |date=1943-09-06 |accessdate=2008-09-15 ] was born in 1910 in Mauritius to a well-off French family. He let people address him as Count, but whether he was actually a member of the nobility has not been determined. [cite book |last=Bourrie |first=Mark |authorlink=Mark Bourrie |title=Flim Flam: Canada's Greatest Frauds, Scams, and Con Artists |origyear=1998 |accessdate=2008-09-15 |publisher=Dundurn Press |location=Toronto |isbn=0888822014 |pages=24 |quote=The issue of whether de Marigny was a bona fide member of the nobility is a matter of some speculation.... Later, in court, he would deny that he had ever described himself as a count, but both his first wife Ruth, whom he divorced after a few months, and Nancy Oakes called themselves countesses. ]

ir Harry Oakes murder case

De Marigny married Sir Harry Oakes's daughter, Nancy, the day after her 18th birthday.cite news |title=Nancy Oakes von Hoyningen-Huene |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article414947.ece |work=The Times |date=2005-01-21 |accessdate=2008-09-15 ] When Sir Harry was murdered on July 7, 1943, de Marigny was the main suspect and arrested shortly after. [cite news |title=The Great Oakes |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,777853,00.html |work=TIME |date=1943-07-19 ] At his trial, detectives which the Duke of Windsor had brought in from Miami claimed to have found de Marigny's fingerprint near the bed of Sir Harry Oakes. [cite news |title=Trouble in paradise |url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/08/14/boowe14.xml |work=The Telegraph |date=2005-08-21 ] The defense argued that the fingerprint had been lifted and placed in the bedroom. [cite news |title=Expert Challenges De Marigny Print |work=Washington Post |date=1943-11-09 |quote=Capt. Maurice B. O'Neil, of the New Orleans police department, testifying in the Oakes slaying case, declared yesterday that a fingerprint offered to connect Alfred de Marigny with the slaying of his father-in-law did not come from the bedscreen on which Crown witness said it was found. ] Nancy Oakes supported her husband throughout the trial and testified on his behalf. [cite news |title=De Marigny's Wife Weeps on Stand |work=Washington Post |date=1943-11-10 |quote=Nancy de Marigny, in tearful testimony, pleaded, in substance, with the jury trying her husband. Alfred de Marigny, that he did not murder her multimillionaire father... and when she finished the defense abruptly rested its case. ]

The jury acquitted de Marigny of the murder charge but gave a recommendation that he was an "undesirable alien" and should be removed from the island. The deportation recommendation is rumored to have been influenced by his unpopularity among the ruling class on the island. (The Duke of Windsor had described de Marigny as "an unscrupulous adventurer [with] an evil reputation for immoral conduct with young girls". [cite news |first=Jason |last=Bennetto |title=Great unsolved crimes: The ex-King, the conman and a millionaire's murder |url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/great-unsolved-crimes-the-exking-the-conman-and-a-millionaires-murder-523634.html |work=The Independent |date=2006-01-19 |accessdate=2008-09-15 ] ) Following his deportation, the de Marignys settled in Cuba [cite news |title=De Marigny and Wife Arrive in Cuba to Make New Home |work=Los Angeles Times |date=1943-12-06 ] before separating in 1955.

Marriage and children

De Marigny was married four times:
#Lucie-Alice Cahen for four months in 1937,
#Ruth Fahnestock Schermerhorn (1937-?) [cite news |title=untitled |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,790525,00.html |work=TIME |date=1942-06-01 ]
#Nancy Oakes (1942-1949) [cite news |title=NANCY OAKES A BRIDE; Wed in Nassau to Baron Ernst von Hoyningen Huene |url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F1061FF63458107A93C2AA1789D95F468585F9 |work=New York Times |date=1952-12-30 |quote=Her marriage to Count Alfred de Marigny in New York in 1942 was annulled by the New York Supreme Court in 1950. ]
#name unknown (c. 1950s?)

His fourth marriage was the only one to produce children.

Later life

De Marigny went to Canada toward the end of World War II and enlisted in the Canadian Army in July 1945. He lived in Quebec for three years before being deported. He spent various amounts of time in the United States, Jamaica, Haiti and the US again before finally moving to South America. [Bourrie [1998] . "Flim Flam", 37.]

Published works

*"More Devil Than Saint" (Bernard Ackerman, 1946) [cite news |title=untitled |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,792797,00.html |work=TIME |date=1946-04-22 |accessdate=2008-09-15 |quote=Count Alfred de Marigny, acquitted in 1943 of the unsolved Bahamas murder of his father-in-law, wealthy Sir Harry Oakes, turned author with a personal history: More Devil Than Saint (Bernard Ackerman; $3). ]
*"A Conspiracy of Crowns" with Mickey Herskowitz (Bantam/Crown, 1990)

References