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James Camb (16 December 1916 - July 1979) was one of the first people in British history to be convicted of murder without the victim's body having been found. He had allegedly strangled actress Gay Gibson while working on board the ocean liner MV Durban Castle before shoving her body out of a porthole. Camb admitted disposing of the body, but claimed that Gibson had died from natural causes during consensual sex.
Biography edit
In October 1947 Camb was working as a ship's steward on board the ocean liner MV Durban Castle. He had a reputation among his fellow stewards for sleeping with female passengers despite being married and in violation of company policy, earning the nickname "Don Jimmy" after the opera "Don Juan". On 10 October, actress Eileen Gibson, better known by her stage name Gay Gibson, boarded the Durban Castle on a voyage from South Africa to England. Gibson caught Camb's eye and he began ingratiating himself to her, making excuses to "help" her at every opportunity. He was spotted and reprimanded by a senior officer, but this did not deter him.
On the night of 17 October, Gibson was escorted to her state room by two friends at 11:30 pm. At 3:00 am the next day, duty watchman Frederick Steer received a summons from Gibson's cabin indicating that assistance was required. Upon arriving, Steer observed that both a red light and a green light were lit outside the cabin, indicating assistance was wanted from both a steward and a stewardess, which was unusual. Steer's knock on the door was answered by James Camb, who told him that everything was under control. Assuming that Camb had arrived before him to help the passenger, and possibly recalling Camb boasting earlier that night that he would sleep with a passenger, Steer left him alone and returned to his rounds.
Later that morning, stewardess Eileen Field arrived to clean Gibson's cabin. She noticed that Gibson's bunk was empty, the bedsheets were stained with urine and the porthole was open. The captain was notified and ordered a ship-wide search which found no trace of Gibson. Camb was soon questioned after Steer reported their encounter earlier that night, telling the captain that he had never been in Gibson's cabin and anyone who said otherwise was lying. He was confined to his cabin for the remainder of the voyage and a telegram was sent ahead asking for the police to be ready to question Camb when the ship arrived in Southampton. During his confinement Camb was examined by the ship's doctor, who found several scratches on his arms which Camb claimed were inflicted by a rough towel.
When the Durban Castle arrived in England, two detectives boarded to question Camb on suspicion of murder. He initially maintained that he had never entered Gibson's cabin, but when asked if he often visited female passenger's cabins he boasted that he had had sex with passengers on several voyages. Realizing he had said too much, he was forced to admit that he had in fact entered Gibson's cabin to have sex with her. He claimed that Gibson had invited him in, and they had had consensual sex before she suddenly died, seemingly from choking. He had then panicked and pushed her body out the porthole to cover up the fact that he had been having sex with a passenger.
Camb was remanded in custody and charged with the murder of Eileen Gibson. At his trial at Winchester Crown Court, the prosecution argued that Camb had entered the cabin to assault Gibson before strangling her and shoving her body out the porthole. The prosecution barrister pointed to the fact that Camb had changed his story six times between his arrest and trial, and a Home Office pathologist testified that the urine stains on Gibson's mattress suggested she had been strangled, as strangulation victims often urinate during the act. The defence argued that Gibson had died from a pre-existing heart condition, with several witnesses testifying that Gibson suffered from some medical condition that caused her to have trouble breathing. In response to former passengers who testified that Camb had made unwanted advances on them during previous voyages and forcibly kissed and groped them, the defence called more witnesses who testified that Gibson was sexually promiscuous and often slept with married men.
After four days, the jury was asked to render a verdict and deliberated for 45 minutes before finding Camb guilty. He was sentenced to death by hanging, but his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment because the abolition of the death penalty was being discussed in Parliament. He was released in 1959 after 11 years in prison, but was twice recalled to prison in 1967 and 1969 after sexually assaulting young girls. He was released for the final time in 1978 before dying from heart failure the following year.