Bio

Marie-Marguerite Laurient was born in December 1890 in France. Her family background was modest. Her father worked as a driver. Later she used the name Marguerite Fahmy and earlier called herself Maggie Mellor.

As a teenager she had an illegitimate daughter at about age fifteen. Reports say she spent part of her youth in Bordeaux and in Paris. Accounts describe her then as a common prostitute who later trained to work as a high-class courtesan.

She took elocution lessons and worked on her speech. By the time she was an adult she had been married and later divorced from her first husband. Sources describe her as a French divorcee before she left Paris in the early 1920s.

Murder Story

On July 9, 1923, Ali Bey Kemel Fahmy, age 22, died in London. He was shot with a Browning .32-caliber pistol at the Savoy Hotel. Marguerite Fahmy was arrested the same day and charged with his murder.

The case went to London’s Central Criminal Court in September 1923. The judge was Mr. Justice Rigby Swift. The prosecution was led by Percival Clarke. The defence lawyers were Sir Edward Marshall Hall and Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett.

At trial, the defence said Marguerite had been abused by her husband. The defence presented a prison medical officer’s statement about three abrasions on the back of her neck. Marshall Hall demonstrated the pistol in court as part of his defence argument.

The jury considered the evidence and returned a verdict of not guilty on September 14, 1923. Marguerite Fahmy was acquitted of murder and manslaughter.

After the trial, Marguerite left for Paris. She later appeared in some minor French films. She had no claim on her husband’s estate. Marguerite Fahmy died in Paris on January 2, 1971.