The Disappearance of a Young Actress Aboard an Ocean Liner Leads to One of Britain's Most Sensational Trials
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| Actress Gay Gibson (photo source) |
It was around 2:58 a.m. on Saturday, October 18, 1947 when Frederick Steer, a duty watchman for Union-Castle Line ship Durban Castle, was awakened by a summons from cabin 126, a first-class cabin on the B deck. Upon arriving at the cabin, Steer noted that the lights for both the steward and stewardess had been rung by the cabin's occupant, something he found strange as normally a passenger would ring for one or the other but not both.
He knocked on the cabin door and as he started to open it, it was slammed shut but not before Steer recognized the man who closed it. He was James Camb, a thirty-year-old steward working on the liner. Steer wondered if, since Camb was a steward, he had arrived for the summons before Steer himself had - but his uneasy feelings about the situation led him to report the incident to the night watchman, James Murray. Steer and Murray returned to cabin 126, where all was quiet. Murray relayed the events to the officer of the watch but without mentioning James Camb's name. The officer on duty believed it to be a private matter and not of any concern to the ship's officers and that appeared to be the end of it.
At 7:30 that morning, Eileen Field, the stewardess for B deck, arrived at cabin 126, prepared to begin cleaning. She carried a glass of orange juice for the young lady occupying the cabin, an actress by the name of Gay Gibson.
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| A promotional photo of Gay from 1945 (photo source) |
Gay
Born Eileen Isabella Ronnie Gibson in India, she had been educated in England, before joining the women's army corps during World War II. She became interested in acting and acquired the stage name of Gay Gibson when she began touring with a theatrical company. By the time she traveled to South Africa to appear as the female lead in the Clifford Odets play Golden Boy, the redheaded Gay was reportedly attracting men "like bees to a honeycomb." At a time when sexually active single women were considered scandalous, she reportedly flouted convention, carrying on affairs with two married men. Following the run of the play The Man With a Load of Mischief, it was said to be one of these men who purchased her first class ticket aboard the Durban Castle, which departed Cape Town on Friday, October 10, 1947. Gay was headed for London and a play in the West End.
As the only young woman among the ship's sixty first-class passengers, most of whom were quite a bit older than she was, the twenty-one-year-old Gay quickly caught the attention of not only the ship's male passengers but also the male employees, especially James Camb, who gossiped about her to other members of the crew and was said to be friendly with her on deck. Other than a supposedly intimate friendship with Camb, Gay's activities appeared to have been fairly sedate, confined to dining with her assigned dinner companions (a Mr. Hopwood, who worked for the ship's line, and a Wing Commander Bray) and dancing with them.
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| The Durban Castle (photo source) |
On the evening of Friday, October 17, 1947, Gay dined with Hopwood and Bray, shared dances with both and then retired to her cabin to change into a swimsuit. As it was a hot evening, she planned to take a dip in the swimming pool and either one or both of the gentlemen were going to swim with her. However, she returned from her cabin still in her evening dress and saying that she could not locate her swimsuit. With the swim party cancelled, Hopwood escorted her back to her cabin around 12:40 a.m., under the impression that she was retiring for the evening. Twenty minutes later, around 1 a.m., Gay, still attired in her evening gown, was seen on the afterdeck, smoking a cigarette and telling the boatswain's mate that she found it too hot to sleep. It was the last time Gay Gibson was seen by anyone other than James Camb.
A Mystery
When stewardess Eileen Field arrived at cabin 126 on Saturday morning, October 18, 1947, she found the door unlocked, which was very unusual as Gay had been in the habit of locking it each night. Finding the cabin empty, she at first believed that Gay was in the lavatory and left the glass of juice in the cabin to go about other duties. Returning two hours later, there was still no appearance from Gay. The juice was still on a bureau untouched and Gay's bedroom slippers, which she would have worn had she left the cabin, were in their usual spot by the bed. Field noted that the bed was a little more disheveled than usual and the porthole was open. Panicked, she went to Captain Patey.
At 10 a.m., Captain Patey broadcast an appeal for Gay over the ship's PA system. With no response, at 10:30, he turned the ship about and began a thorough search. At the time, the Durban Castle was 60 miles off the coast of Equatorial Guinea in western Africa. Word spread quickly amongst the passengers and the crew, all of whom searched for Gay to no avail. By noon, Captain Patey concluded that Gay Gibson was no longer aboard the ship and must have tragically gone overboard into the shark-infested waters. Feeling there was nothing else he could do, Captain Patey once again set sail for England.
James Camb's shipmates, however, reported his interest in Gay to Captain Patey as well as his odd behavior over the previous 24 hours. Despite the heat, and the fact that the rest of the crew were wearing their short-sleeved uniforms, Camb remained in his jacket. His cabinmate told Captain Patey that not only had Camb turned in in the very early hours of the morning but had retired in his jacket. Captain Patey locked Gay's cabin and ordered Camb to submit to a medical examination.
Scratch marks were discovered on Camb's arms and nec, by the ship's surgeon. Camb claimed they were result of scratching himself due to the heat and were exacerbated by the ship's rough bath towels. He denied any involvement with Gay Gibson at all, much less that he was the man in her cabin when Frederick Steer had responded to the summons early Saturday morning.
On Friday, October 24, the Durban Castle anchored off the Isle of Wight in southern England. Two police detectives boarded the ship to conduct an investigation. When they left the ship, they had James Camb with them, taking him to Southhampton police headquarters for further questioning. Two days later, he was formally arrested and charged with the murder of Gay Gibson.
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| James Camb (photo source) |
Camb
James Camb came from a small mill town in southeast Lancashire, England called Waterfoot. Unwilling to fall into what he considered the tedium of factory life, he aimed for adventure and excitement. Blessed with a highly confident nature, an ability to smooth talk anyone and movie star good looks, he began working on ships at the age of 17, with a brief hiatus during the war when he was in the Merchant Navy Reserve. While serving in the Navy, he married and fathered a child but did not allow having a family hamper his extracurricular activities.
Originally hired as an assistant cook aboard the Durban Castle, Camb soon worked his way up to being the first-class deck steward, a plum position aboard a ship and a plum position for him to pocket generous tips and woo female passengers. In a nod to Don Juan, he was soon dubbed "Don James" and "Don Jimmy" by the crew, who heartily disliked him. He reportedly based the success of a voyage by the number of female passengers he bedded and was more or less reliably said to have slept with at least one woman on every cruise on which he worked.
Arrest and Trial
Camb reportedly changed his story several times before giving what would ultimately be his final version of events, after telling the police that "my wife can know nothing of this." Although he had at first denied being the man in Gay's cabin, under police interrogation he admitted that Steer was correct and he had been in the cabin. He confessed to having gone to her cabin with a drink and having sex with Gay but insisted that it had been consensual. According to him, while in the throes of passion, Gay's eyes had rolled back in her head, she had began foaming at the mouth, clutched at him and then died. He said he had attempted resuscitation but had not pressed any alarms for help. Fearing that Gay being discovered dead in her bed would expose Camb's unprofessional relationship, leading to him being fired, he decided the best way to handle the situation was to get rid of the evidence - the evidence being Gay herself. Feeling positive she was dead, he picked up her body and forced it through the cabin porthole and into the ocean, saying "She did make one hell of a splash."
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| James Camb's mug shot (photo source) |
As Captain Patey had had Gay's cabin secured, upon examination it told its own tale. Traces of blood were found on the pillow and there was a urine stain on the bottom sheet. Both could indicate that Camb, after trying to force himself on Gay, had strangled her.
Inspection of Gay's suitcase failed to turn up the black silk pajamas she had worn during the first week of the cruise, which stewardess Eileen Field confirmed. According to Camb, Gay had greeted him at her cabin door in nothing but a sheer dressing gown in which she had nothing on underneath and that dressing gown had been on her body when he had pushed it out the porthole. He had no explanation for where her usual black pajamas were.
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| The porthole from the Durban Castle is carried into trial (photo source) |
Camb's trial opened at the Great Hall of Winchester Castle on Thursday, March 18, 1948. In presenting their case, the prosecution did not have a body and so they hired the best medical experts and constructed a replica of Gay's cabin to use in the trial, as well as bringing in the bed and door from her cabin and the actual porthole that Gay had been pushed out of. They stressed it was not a case of sexual misadventure but a murder of cruelty and callousness. The prosecution believed that Camb had coaxed his way into Gay's cabin and then had strangled her either when she resisted him or as a means to avoid being charged with rape or attempted rape. Before she had been strangled to death, Gay managed to scratch him (photographs taken of the scratches at the Southhampton police station were shown to the jury) and pulled both the steward and stewardess bells.
During the investigation, affidavits were collected from three young women, all travelers aboard the Durban Castle before Gay Gibson's fatal voyage, who claimed that Camb had made unwanted and insistent advances toward them, all separate events that took place between September 18 and October 7, 1947. One woman claimed she had been taking an afternoon nap in her cabin when she awoke to find Camb by her bed. Before she could rise, he was on top of her, holding her down. According to the woman, only mentioning that her aunt was in the cabin next door dampened Camb's ardor and he left the cabin. Another woman claimed that Camb had strangled her when she refused his advances and when she regained consciousness, he was standing over her and laughing.
Unfortunately for the prosecution, they were barred from using these affidavits and bringing up Camb's predatory behavior.
They did admit that a contraceptive device was found in Gay's suitcase and suggested that if the young woman had been planning a sexual encounter with Camb (or anyone), it would not have been in her suitcase. They also believed that had Gay been expecting Camb, she would not have been wearing her black pajamas, which they believe she had on when she died and accounted for the fact they had not been located.
The prosecution also introduced a statement the police claimed he had made to them that "She struggled. I had my hands around her neck . . . I threw her out of the porthole."
The defense denied that Camb had made such a statement and insinuated that Gay was a young woman with loose morals, as evidenced by her contraceptive device. They suggested that she had been pregnant at the time of her death as a result of one of her affairs and it was that condition that necessitated her journey to London. A pregnancy, they said, would make the contraceptive device unnecessary and explained why she would not have taken it from her suitcase.
The defense had witnesses who testified that Gay had been "hysterical" and "neurotic" and that she was subject to fainting fits in which her mouth, hands, and fingernails turned blue. They also said that she had "a weak chest," perhaps congenital heart disease.
In opposition, Gay's mother testified that her daughter was none of the things the defense claimed and instead was "one of the finest types of English womanhood physically, mentally, and morally."
Camb himself took the stand and while he admitted that pushing Gay out of the porthole was "beastly conduct," he denied any other wrongdoing. When confronted with his story changing multiple times, he claimed it was for "self-preservation" and said he believed he was an honest man.
Following the four-day trial, the jury deliberated only 45 minutes before finding James Camb guilty of the murder of Gay Gibson, making him the first defendant in Britain to be convicted of murder without a body. As the abolition of the death penalty was being deliberated in Parliament at the time, his death sentence was overturned. Escaping the hangman's noose, he was instead sentenced to life in prison. Winston Churchill was enraged by this, stating that "The House of Commons has, by its vote, saved the life of the brutal lascivious murderer who thrust the poor girl he had raped and assaulted through a porthole of the ship to the sharks."
Convictions
Camb had served less than nine months of his sentence when, in December, his wife divorced him on grounds of adultery.
In September of 1959, after serving eleven and a half years of his sentence, Camb, then 41 years old and considered a "star prisoner" by authorities, was released. Still denying his guilt, he sold his story to the press and remarried to a woman with a child that he adopted. In 1967 he was jailed again after he attacked a 13-year-old girl and served two years. Following his release in 1969, he obtained work in Scotland as a head waiter for a hotel. Only months later, he was charged with the sexual misconduct of three 11-year-old schoolgirls when he broke into the room they were staying in. He was imprisoned once again, where he remained until 1978.
In July 1979, he died of heart failure at the age of 62, no longer the dashing Tyrone Power lookalike but a disheveled shell of his former self but still denying the murder of Gay Gibson.
Gay's body was never recovered.
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| The bed and door from Gay's cabin (photo source) |
Sources:
Crime Reads (March 25, 2021), The Actress, The Steward and the Ocean Liner.
Criminal Encyclopedia (November 12, 2016), James Camb - 1947.
Fido, Martin, The Chronicle of Crime. Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1993.
Keith, W. Barrington, The World's Greatest Crimes. Hamlyn Publishing Group, 1990.
The Mirror (March 25, 2018), Gorgeous Gay Gibson Was Thrown Out of a Cruise Ship Porthole.
Murderpedia (2021). James Camb.
Soapboxie (October 8, 2020). The Porthole Murder.
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