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One of the strangest - and certainly longest running -
murder investigations took place in a South Wales beauty spot, Caswell
Bay, on the Gower coast near Swansea. In 1961, three young
pot-holers exploring an old lead mine on the cliffs of Brandy Cove,
adjacent to Caswell Bay, found a skeleton hidden behind a large slab
of rock.
The bones were recovered from the mine by the police and the
pot-holers, and were taken to the Home Office Forensic Laboratory in
Cardiff. They were examined by Dr Lester James, the Home Office
Pathologist, and Mr Brian Morgan, forensic scientist.
The bones formed a virtually complete skeleton, which had been sawn
into three roughly equal lengths. There were saw-cuts through
the lower part of each thigh bone and across the upper arms below the
shoulders and the spine and shoulder blades. On the upper arm
bones there were several partial saw-cuts where the saw had been
unable to get through the muscle. |
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OLD CRIME : NEW EVIDENCE :
The discovery of a dismembered skeleton
in a disused lead mine near Swansea was to cast light on a murder
mystery from nearly 40 years before. |
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Between these tentative cuts and the main cuts, there
were a series of scratches from the teeth of the saw as it skidded
from one place to the other. These marks point to the
desperation and perhaps panic that must have affected the killer as he
carried out his assault.
But who was the victim? How old was he or she? How long
had the body been lying in the mine? If the body had been there
for a very long time, police could have been looking at an
archaeological find. On the other hand, it is quite possible for
the body to become completely skeletonised within a few years of
death, in which case this was probably murder. When had the
crime been committed?
With the body were some mouldering remnants of clothing and sacking,
some jewellery, a seven-inch brass chain and a celluloid hair clasp.
The clasp still contained some brown hair, which the forensic
scientist said showed no signs of artificial waving or dyeing.
There were patches of green staining on the bones due to the copper
contamination from some of the brass jewellery. |
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MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS
:
Murder investigations
are like puzzles, and the remains found in an old mine were more
puzzling than most. The mute gaze of the skeleton from the cave
posed a umber of questions. How had the body got there?
Who was it? When did he or she die? Was it a suspicious
death? |
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A wedding and engagement ring were present and research
into the hallmarks showed that the latest dates were 1912 and 1918.
There were also some gilt-copper tassels, which the Costume Department
at the National Museum of Wales indicated were worn on the end of a
stole, fashionable in about 1920.
Dr James described the bones as those of a young female, from the
configuration of the head and pelvis. The height was estimated
at about five feet four inches, both by measuring the skeleton overall
after reassembly and also by calculation from individual bones.
The age was estimated by assessing the growth area of the bones, which
appeared to have recently reached their limit, suggesting an age in
the mid 20s: X-ray examination showed that the skeleton was that of a
fully mature adult but that full maturation had only just occurred.
There were three wisdom teeth, which suggested she was over 20, and a
complete absence of fusion of the bones of the skull and palate. |
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POT-HOLERS DISCOVERY
:
Three young pot-holers
were exploring the ventilation shaft of an ancient lead mine on Brandy
Cove, a few miles from Swansea. Their route through a small
tunnel leading from one of the mine's chambers was blocked by a large
stone slab. Levering it aside, they were horrified to find a
human skeleton. |
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In 1918 a man named George Shotton had gone through a
form of marriage at South Shields with a 26 year old dancer from
Sunderland, Mamie Stuart. Shotton was a marine engineer and
travelled widely around the ports supervising ships. He first
met Mamie in 1917 when he spent the night with her in Sunderland.
Shotton already had a wife and child living in Penarth near Cardiff,
but apparently managed to keep two households going.
George and Mamie lived at various addresses in Bristol and South
Wales, finally settling in a villa called Ty-Llanwydd in Swansea in
November 1919. On 12th November, Mamie sent a postcard to her
parents, Captain and Mrs Stuart. They duly replied, but their
letter was returned marked 'House Closed'.
Convinced that there must have been some mistake, Captain Stuart sent
a reply paid telegram to Ty-Llanwydd. This, too, was returned by
the post office. Despite their unease, the Stuarts let the
matter drop. A few days before Christmas a telegram arrived,
apparently from their daughter, wishing the Stuarts 'compliments of
the season'. It was the last they ever heard of her. |
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CLUE TO THE CHORUS GIRL WHO VANISHED :
The disappearance of Mamie Stuart was big news in 1920. Forty
years later, the local papers connected the recently discovered
skeleton with the former chorus girl. |
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In March 1920, the Swansea police were called by the
manager of the Grosvenor Hotel to take charge of a large suitcase
which had been left by a guest and had lain unclaimed for several
months. Further examination showed the case to contain another,
rather battered piece of luggage.
This in turn revealed two dresses and a pair of shoes, inexplicably
cut to shreds; intact were a Bible, a manicure set and some jewellery.
At the bottom of the case was a scrap of paper bearing the Sunderland
address of Captain and Mrs Stuart, who subsequently identified the
remnants as having been clothes belonging to their daughter.
At the same time another, more sinister discovery was being made.
Behind the washstand in a bedroom of Ty-Llanwydd, a cleaning woman
preparing the house for new tenants had found a mildewed brown leather
handbag. It contained a few pounds in loose change, and a ration
card issued to Mamie Stuart. At this stage Chief Inspector
William Draper arrived from Scotland Yard to assist in an
investigation of what was beginning to look increasingly like a case
of murder. |
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BODY OF EVIDENCE
:
The body in the cave was completely skeletonised, with no flesh to
give clues as to who it was. However, the bones themselves were
quite informative, and pathologists were able to estimate the age and
sex of the victim at the time of death. They also provided a
graphic picture of how the killer disposed of the body. |
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Draper's first move was to establish the whereabouts of
George Shotton, the elusive husband. In the event, police did
not have to look far - he was living in an isolated house in Caswell
Bay/ It was barely two miles from Ty-Llanwydd. With him
were his real wife and their small child.
Shotton's story was simple. Yes, he had lived with Mamie Stuart;
no, he hadn't married her; and no, he didn't know where she was now.
They had quarrelled in early December, parted company and gone their
separate ways - he back to his wife, she to heaven knows where.
But investigating officers were starting to learn a lot more.
People close to him began to recall incidents from the past, events
that showed the ostensibly mild George Shotton to be capable of
intense jealousy and violence. But while there was no excuse for
violence, George Shotton had every reason to be jealous. His
'wife' had, indeed, been seeking and giving favours outside her
marriage. |
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1. THE SKULL :
The skull from the cave was
identified as that of a female. Recently fused bones in the
cranium indicated that she had been at most 28 years of age when she
died. |
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Fearing the worst, the police circulated a description
of Mamie Stuart throughout Britain. The description read:
'Mamie Stuart. Age 26; very attractive appearance; height
five feet three or four inches: well-built; profusion of dark brown
hair, worn bobbed; dark grey eyes; four faint teeth marks on her right
cheek, the result of a dog bite when a child.'
Police also made an exhaustive search of Ty-Llanwydd, digging over
every inch of its grounds, and combing the countryside for indications
of foul play. But still there was no trace of the missing chorus
girl.
On 29th May 1920, George Shotton was arrested on a charge of bigamy.
At Glamorgan Assizes he claimed that it was somebody impersonating him
who had married Mamie Stuart. With regard to the suitcase,
Shotton claimed that he found some of Mamie's belongings around the
home following the separation. He had collected them up, put
them into a case and dumped them at the Grosvenor Hotel. |
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2. PELVIS & HIPS :
Comparison of the pelvis and hip joint with similar examples confirmed
that the victim had been a woman. |
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George Shotton's bigamy earned him 18 months' hard
labour. Prosecuting Counsel, Sir Ellis Griffiths, KC, accused
him of killing Mamie, but in the absence of proof that she was dead,
no murder charge could be brought.
Over the ensuing years, the mystery was regularly revived by
newspapers. Then, in 1950, a dentist bought the house at Caswell
Bay and during drainage work discovered a pit against the back of the
house, near a hold in the foundations. The pit had been filled
with quicklime, but all that was found in it was one lady's shoe.
Eventually, in 1961 came the discovery of the skeleton by the
pot-holers in the lead mine at Brady Cove. |
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3. DISMEMBERMENT DIFFICULTIES :
The dismemberment had not been a clean affair: the numerous
partial cuts of bone showed that the killer had obviously had
difficulty cutting up the body. |
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The height corresponded to that of Mamie Stuart: the
age range of 23 - 28 fitted her age of 26 at the time of her
disappearance; and the colour of the hair in the celluloid slide was
similar to Mamie's. The brass chain found with the body matched
up with an arm chain that Mamie's sister had reported the missing
woman had habitually worn.
The only photograph of Mamie Stuart was one contained in old newspaper
files from 1920, when her disappearance and the bigamy trial were in
the news. The police used this to make a 'photo-fit' by
super-imposing a transparency copy over a photograph of the skull in
the same orientation and degree of enlargement.
The match was excellent, and although it was not claimed to be a
positive identification, there was no evidence of a discrepancy
between the two. |
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4. DISMEMBERMENT
:
It was obvious from the bones that the body had been cut into three
equal parts: one cut had been made just above the knees and the other
through the middle of the upper arms. |
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No dental records were available, though general
information suggested that she had a false front tooth. However
several teeth were missing from the skull, presumably due to
post-mortem loss, and were not recovered from the cave.
Dr Lester James told the coroner that he could not offer any cause of
death, as no organs or soft tissue were present. He excluded any
head injury, but said that strangulation, stabbing or even a gunshot
could have killed Mamie, as long as they left no mark of damage on the
bones.
An inquest was held at Gowerton on 14th December 1961. The
proceedings were unique in that the skeleton of Mamie Stuart was laid
out on a table in the well of the court. One witness was retired
83 year old Swansea postman who had delivered mail to both Stuart and
Shotton. |
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5.
SEVERING
THE SPINE :
The killer had sawn through both shoulder blades. The ribs were
not found, but the spine was complete and had been severed level with
the arm cuts. |
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He remembered one occasion when he encountered Shotton
struggling with a bulky sack, which he then put in the back of a van.
When the postman offered to help, Shotton cried: 'No, no, no! Oh
God, you gave me a fright, I thought it was a policeman!'
Pieces of rotten sacking were found in the cave with the skeleton, and
it was suggested that the postman had encountered Shotton at the
moment when the body parts were being transported to the mine.
The police then investigated the movements of George
Shotton following his release from prison back in the 1920s. He
was traced to the Welsh village of Tintern but left a few years later
when a newspaper revived the Stuart story. Shotton appeared to
be living in London until 1938, when he was once more in trouble,
being sent to prison again for 12 months for holding up his sister
with a revolver. He later turned up working for an aircraft
company in Bristol. |
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MAMIE STUART :
Mamie Stuart came from a respectable Sunderland family, but for
several years she had been following the somewhat risqué life of a
dancer and chorus girl. Mamie first met Shotton in South Shields
in 1917 and they soon married - bigamously in his case. After
living in Bristol for a time, they took rooms in Swansea in February
1919. In November they rented a villa known as Ty-Llanwydd
(The Abode of Peace).
LIVING IN FEAR: George Shotton was good-looking, with
considerable powers to charm, but he was also violently jealous.
The couple's landlady in Swansea remembered Mamie saying that George
'was not all there', and in a letter to her parents she said: 'I don't
think I will live with him long. I am very much afraid of him.
My life is not worth living.'
CAUSE FOR JEALOUSY: George had some cause for jealousy. At
that time 'theatricals' had an unsavoury reputation, and there is
evidence that Mamie lived up to her billing, taking numerous lovers.
Was it jealousy that led to Mamie's death? |
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When the police went looking for Shotton after the discovery of the
skeleton, they found him - in Bristol's Arnos Vale Cemetery. He
had died of natural causes in April 1958, aged 78.
A verdict of murder was returned at the inquest, naming George Shotton
as the killer. Charges in legislation would now make this
impossible, but in 1961 a coroner's jury still had the power to bring
in a verdict of murder and name the culprit.
This extraordinary story of a forty year old homicide, where the
perpetrator lay peacefully in his grave when the police caught up with
him, is probably unique in the annals of British crime. |
