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Later, when the grisly assembly of bones and bits of fabric were recovered from their cold tomb in Brandy Cove, it didn’t seem too far fetched to believe that at last the mystery of Mamie Stuart's disappearance might be solved.
Other items found with the bones also provided clues, and an old friend of Mamie's, now an elderly lady, helped to identify them.
One of the most gruesome was a black butterfly comb, identical to one worn by Mamie. Still attached to it was a tuft of brown hair, her colour exactly. The wedding and engagement rings were identified as those that George Shotton had placed on her finger when he had bigamously married her forty-two years before. Finally, conclusive proof of identity was achieved by superimposing a photograph of the skull over a life-size portrait of Mamie.
The inquest jury found that the skeleton was indeed Mamie Stuart, that she had been murdered and that all the evidence pointed to George Shotton. Unusually for a coroners inquest Shotton was named as the murderer, a finding that is no longer allowed.
An operation involving Interpol, Scotland Yard, and nine police forces attempted to locate him. Three weeks later they tracked him down, to a lonely, overgrown grave in a cemetery in Bristol.
The suave marine surveyor had died three years earlier, penniless and alone at the age of seventy-eight. He had taken the gruesome secret of Brandy Cove to his grave.
It doesn’t matter how long ago a crime is committed, with today’s advances in forensic science there is always the chance that however well the criminal covers his or her tracks, the truth will out in the end.
The next case featured in this episode is a good example of the past coming back to haunt the criminal.
The sins of the fathers
On Friday April 8 1988, in Gomersal, West Yorkshire, a local man was out walking his dog. With the intuition that has led so many dogs to scenes of crimes, his terrier started sniffing and barking at something in the undergrowth. The terrier had discovered the remains of Stephen Jennings, a three year old who had gone missing from Gomersal over 25 years before, in 1962.
Detective Superintendent Tony Ridley and his colleague Detective Inspector Brian Prendergast had a special interest in the case, for as young policemen they had both been involved in the original search for the little boy, a quarter of a century before.
Stephen Jennings had been reported missing by his father, twenty five year old William Jennings, who was well known to the police for committing petty crimes in the area. Jennings said that Stephen had not returned from playing with his brother and sister, and suggested that perhaps gypsies had abducted his boy.
