In the aftermath of the failed Jacobite Rising of 1745, the British authorities carried out a brutal campaign of pacification across the Scottish Highlands. The small enclave of Appin, belonging to the Stewarts, was not spared this harsh reprisal. At dawn on May 14th, 1752, Colin Roy Campbell, a government factor sent to the area to deal with the so-called rebel clans, was shot dead in what came to be known as the Appin Murder, a crime which fuels folklore and debates even to this day. The main suspect, Allan Breac Stewart, managed to evade capture, thus the authorities arrested his kinsman, James Stewart, on charges of aiding and abetting. The trial was a classic example of the era’s miscarriage of justice, with a jury packed with Campbell clansmen – a longstanding rival of the Stewarts. James was hanged and his body left to rot in chains on Cnap a ‘Chaolais, a small hill overlooking the site of the ambush. His skeleton reportedly hung there for 20 years, a macabre symbol of Campbell domination and a haunting sight that would embolden the legend of the Appin Murder. To this day, the local people maintain James’ innocence and the hill has become a place of pilgrimage. The popular sentiment, echoed in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel ‘Kidnapped’, suggests that the ‘wrong man hanged in chains’. The lingering ambiguity and the conviction that justice was not only blind but deaf, fuels local debates, ensuring the legend of the Appin Murder remains alive in the collective memory of the region.