[1] Based on evidence given at his trial in 1840, upon first arriving in England, for around a month, Courvoisier worked as a waiter at Madame Piolaine's Hotel du Port de Dieppe in Leicester Square, London.

[2][3] Through the assistance of his uncle, who was employed as a butler by an English baronet, he secured a position as a footman in the household of Lady Julia Lockwood.

[4] Russell was a member of Brooks's, a gentlemen's club in St James's Street, London, and was in the habit of spending much of his day there.

[6] On the day before his murder he left Courvoisier with a number of tasks, one of which was to advise his coachman to collect him from Brook's at five o'clock in his private carriage.

[4] Courvoisier, said to have been confused by the number of tasks he had been given, forgot to inform the coachman and Russell returned home by hired cab, showing 'some dissatisfaction at the neglect of his servant; but it does not appear that he exhibited any such anger as could well excite a feeling of hatred or ill-will' regarding the incident.

Courvoisier appeared to regain his senses and suggested Russell's son should be contacted before taking the Police downstairs where he pointed to marks on the pantry door and said 'It was here that they entered'.

[4] Adolphus began his cross-examination of witnesses, including Hannell and Mancer, by admitting to the court that it appeared that Courvoisier had no apparent motive to murder Russell, and that the evidence against him was circumstantial, but he also suggested that the accused, 'as a foreigner', may behave differently to an Englishman.

[7] It was later reported that after Madame Piolaine's evidence, Courvoiser summoned his defence counsel and said 'I have committed the murder' but added that he did not want to change his plea.

[4] The jury found Courvoiser guilty of murder, and Chief Justice Tindal gave a sentence of death by hanging, to take place on 6 July 1840.

[8][9] Returned to his cell, he was visited by the Swiss consul who gave him a letter from his mother in which she wrote that she forgave him, and he was permitted to write a short reply.

[9] On the day of Courvoiser's death the usual protocols were followed with the scaffold erected outside the debtor's door of the prison ready for the execution time of 8am.

[8] Both would later write about the events of the morning,[10][11] with Thackeray, in his essay On going to see a man hanged, stating 'I feel myself shamed and degraded at the brutal curiosity that took me to that spot.