![]() ![]() He successfully sued the stagecoach company and escaped a murder rap, but then fell foul of the law when he tried to sue the multimillionaire Leland Stanford (founder of the university). ![]() Solnit makes the case that Muybridge had three great crises in his life, which all ended in lawsuits. Flora then seems to have lost her mind and died at 24. She was awarded alimony, but the judgement could not be enforced as Muybridge had already departed on a photographic assignment in Central America. Flora hated Muybridge for killing her lover but, without means, she had to sue for divorce. The jurymen were all married men and the foreman convinced them they would have done the same. In flat defiance of these instructions, the jury found him sane but not guilty: an "impossible" verdict. The judge directed that Muybridge had to be found either insane or guilty (with a mandatory death sentence). When Muybridge found out about the affair, he tracked Larkyns down and shot him dead.Īt his trial the defence pleaded insanity, citing the stagecoach accident. He married a young woman called Flora, who became discontented with his workaholism and took a lover named Harry Larkyns. Thereafter he was prone to emotional outbursts, inappropriate social actions, loss of inhibition, risk-taking and obsessive-compulsive behaviour. ![]()
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