Scottish nurse who, with her friend Deborah Parry (born October 25, 1959), arrived in Saudi Arabia to work at the King Fahd Military Medical Hospital in Dahran in September 1996. They met fellow staff member Yvonne Gilford (born December 14, 1940) who had accepted a lucrative one-year contract to help finance her retirement, after working in South Africa for 20 years.
In the early hours of 12/11/1996, Gilford was stabbed to death in her room. McLauchlan and Parry were arrested eight days later. After five days of questioning without support from any legal representation or from the British Embassy, their “confessions” were signed on the day before Christmas.
On 12/26/1996, Frank Gilford, the dead nurse’s brother, with whom she had little contract for some years and who was not named as her beneficiary, assumed the role of head of the family in lieu of their senile mother and declared that he would insist on the death penalty for the two nurses.
For the first time, the two women met with defense lawyers on 1/05/1997. The trial was held on 5/19/1997. The two women were brought into court in chains, wearing the long black robes of Arabian women. Saudi legal history was made as defense lawyers were permitted into the courtroom. On 9/23/1997, the Gilford family lawyers announced that Parry had been found guilty of murder and was sentenced to death, and that McLauchlan had been found guilty of complicity and sentenced to eight years prison and 500 lashes. The following day, Frank Gilford waived the family’s right to claim the death penalty in exchange for “blood money.”
Lucille McLauchlan was allowed to marry her fiancé, Grant Ferrie, on 11/30/1997 in jail.
With international controversy about both the guilt of the women and the Saudi methods of dispensing justice, press reports began to leek on 3/01/1998 to the effect that both nurses would be freed. On 5/19/1998, King Fahd commuted their sentences to time served. They returned to England on 5/22/1998 to a mixed reception from the press. The murder of Yvonne Gilford may never be solved.