Another story from my recent book, True Crime Stories You Won't Believe: Book Two.
It must have seemed like a scene out of a horror novel.
When the trading schooner Mary Russell left port out of Cobh Harbor in Cork, Ireland, on February 8, 1828, it was a routine voyage to Barbados. Though the harbor master and his crew were surprised to see the ship return on June 25 escorted by another ship, the Mary Stubbs, the pilot still went out to guide the two boats into the Harbor as usual. After being instructed to board the Mary Stubbs first, the captain of that vessel, Robert Callendar, warned that the Mary Russell had been brought into port by his crew members. There was no immediate sign of the Mary Russell's captain, William Stewart, or his experienced crew, and when the harbor master and his team boarded the ship, they quickly learned why.
In the Mary Russell’s main saloon (another name for ship's lounge) lay the bodies of seven crew members, all of whom had been tied up hand and foot and pinned to the floor. The men had been killed by vicious blows to the head, and the saloon floor was still sticky from their blood. Given that the murders had occurred days before, the decomposition of the bodies added to the horror of what the harbor crew saw. As for Captain Stewart, secured onboard the Mary Stubbs, he freely confessed to killing the seven men he accused of plotting against him.
The only surviving crew members were four apprentices, an eleven-year-old passenger, and two seriously wounded crew members who had survived the massacre by remaining in hiding until the Mary Stubbs arrived. Though Captain Callendar had initially believed Stewart's claim that the murders were justified due to mutiny, the testimony of the surviving crew made him reconsider. Captain Stewart's bizarre speech and behavior quickly demonstrated how deranged he was. He had even thrown himself overboard at one point though seamen from the Mary Stubbs managed to save him from drowning.
News of what had happened on the Mary Russell spread quickly, and families of the dead crew members, most of whom still lived in Cobh Harbor, were devastated at what had happened. But the hardest hit of all was Captain Stewart's wife, Betsy. She had been waiting patiently for his return along with their four children (she was also pregnant at the time), only to learn that her husband was now a murderer, not to mention completely insane. But what could lead a formerly respected sea captain to murder his entire crew?
Despite the fantastic rumors spreading about the "ship of seven murders" (as the Mary Russell had become known), the bare facts of the case seemed straightforward enough. The Mary Russell had set sail from Cobh Harbor in early 1828 to bring a cargo of mules to Barbados. Along with Captain Stewart was an entire crew, including first and second mate, the ship's carpenter, able-bodied seamen, and three apprentices. There were also two stable hands to look after the mules and an unaccompanied eleven-year-old passenger named Thomas Hammond. Given the experienced crew and lack of foreseeable problems, nobody expected anything to go wrong.
As for the boat captain, William Stewart was a God-fearing Protestant and a respected Cobh Harbor nautical community member. Still, for reasons never made clear, his mental state deteriorated rapidly after the ship left Barbados on May 9 to return to Ireland. As survivors would later report, Steward had become convinced that his crew was planning to kill him and take over the ship. Though it was hardly unheard of for crew members to mutiny to steal a ship and turn pirate, a schooner like the Mary Russell seemed like an unlikely choice for that. Still, Stewart's paranoia became so strong that he decided to protect himself from this non-existent threat.
Knowing he was outnumbered, Stewart hatched a devious plan to eliminate the crew members he assumed were plotting against him. And so, under the pretext of discussing the voyage, he called each suspected crewmember up to the main saloon. One by one, Stewart would tie and gag them before beating them to death with a crowbar or an ax. He even shot some of them to death with a harpoon. As for the apprentices, Stewart simply tied them up as he was not entirely sure of their guilt. Two other crew members, who had managed to escape the massacre, had been in hiding and likely only survived because of the timely arrival of the Mary Stubbs. Captain Callendar had spotted the Mary Russell flying the distress signal and had brought in his ship to see if they needed assistance.
During the coroner's inquest held in Cork on the day after the Mary Russell's return, the jury heard testimony from all the survivors and the witnesses who had first boarded the ship after she returned to Cobh Harbor. One of the most important of these witnesses was former explorer William Scoresby who later wrote an account of the case. Scoresby's description of what he had seen on board the ship remains the best-known account of the Mary Russell murders, the coroner's inquest, and the trial that followed.
As for the coroner, Dr. Thomas Sharpe, his testimony regarding what he had seen onboard the ship seemed graphic enough:
There were seven human beings with their sculls so battered that scarcely a vestige of them was left for recognition, with a frightful mess of coagulated blood – all strewed about the cabin, and nearly a hundredweight of cords binding their bodies to strong iron bolts. … Some of the bodies were bound round about six places, and with several coils of rope round their necks.
Based on the evidence and the fact that their primary suspect was too deranged to testify on his behalf, the coroner's jury quickly ruled that Stewart had killed seven men while in a fit of madness. All that would remain was the criminal trial itself.
On August 11, 1828, Captain William Stewart stood trial by an Admiralty Court convened in Cork. While murder on the high seas was ordinarily a capital crime, the prosecution and Stewart's defense counsel's consensus argued that he was insane. Based on the judge's recommendation, Stewart was declared "not guilty having committed the act while laboring under mental derangement.” Under the Criminal Lunatics Act, which was in force at the time, he would be kept "in close confinement during life, or during his Majesty's pleasure."
After a brief period of imprisonment in the Cork City Gaol, William Stewart was transferred to the Cork Lunatic Asylum. He was a violent prisoner who often tore his blankets to shreds and incoherently spent much of his time muttering to himself. During his more lucid periods, he would continue to justify his actions in killing his mutinous crew. When the Dundrum Asylum for the Criminally Insane opened in 1850, Stewart became one of the first inmates to be held there. He died in 1873 after more than four decades as an asylum inmate.
As for Cobh Harbor, there seems virtually no trace of those long-ago murders. Still, visitors to the Kilmurry Graveyard in Cork can find the tomb of one of Stewart's victims, Timothy Connell, with the haunting inscription:
You gentle reader that do pass this way/attend a while adhere to what I say/By murder vile was I bereft of life/and parted from two lovely babes and wife/by CAPTAIN STEWART I met an early doom/on board the MARY RUSSELL the 22nd of June/Forced from this world to meet my GOD on high/with whom I hope to reign eternally. Amen/Aged 28 years
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