The body that took 100 years to bury: An enduring Welsh true crime story

Graham Loveluck-Edwards

There has always been a salacious appetite for true crime. Back in 1919 it was a notorious murder in Swansea that was making all the headlines. The murder of Mamie Stuart.

It was a crime reporters dream, with every ingredient that sells newspapers. A relatable and glamorous victim, a sex scandal and an unsolvable mystery.

To say nothing of a scurrilous prime suspect.

The victim was a 26-year-old woman. Her real name was Amy Stuart, but she had belonged to a dancing troupe called ‘The Magnets’ where she had given herself the stage name of Mamie Stuart.

The Magnets were notorious in this rather prudish era. They sometimes exposed their legs to knee height during their routines. That may not seem especially ‘racy’ by modern standards, but it was considered scandalous at the time.

Discovery

One day, Mamie disappeared from her Caswell Bay home. Police immediately suspected foul play but could not find a body. Newspaper coverage of the disappeared Chorus Girl was relentless.

Every day lunging from ‘Lord Lucanesque’ fake sightings of her claiming she was alive and well and living in India, to macabre theories on how her killer might have disposed of her remains.

Then during the investigation the police made a discovery that took news coverage of this case into the stratosphere.

They discovered that Mamie’s husband George Shotton was living a double life. Despite marrying Mamie in 1918, he was already married to a lady called Mary who lived in Penarth. And they had a son called Arthur.

“A gory sight”

Mary Shotton testified at his trial that George was a very violent man. She had ended their relationship primarily to escape his constant beatings.

Everyone was certain he had killed Mamie, but without a body, getting a conviction for murder was going to be impossible. In the end all they could do was convict him for bigamy.

This left a bitter taste in the mouth of all who were following the story. What no one knew at the time, however, was that it was going to be decades before this murder case would be concluded.

42 years later, in 1961, three pot-holers were exploring an abandoned mine shaft on the Gower peninsula. They came across a gory sight.

A dismembered female body in a dark recess of that old lead mine. Brutally cut into three parts by her heartless assailant. A postmortem was conducted, and the body was identified as being that of Mamie Stuart.

The coroners court found Shotton guilty of her murder but unfortunately that verdict came too late for Shotton to ever have to face justice. He had died of natural causes in 1958. Just three years earlier.

I am sorry to say that the travesties do not end there.

“Left to rot”

One of the saddest parts of this story is that Mamie’s family were completely left out of the loop. They were oblivious to the fact that her remains had been found. Mamie was not originally from Swansea but from Sunderland so no one local knew who they were or how to contact them.

So, after being left to rot in an abandoned mineshaft for 42 years, Mamie Stuart’s remains were stored in a cupboard at a Cardiff forensic lab for a further 58 years.

The closest thing we have to a satisfactory conclusion to all this misery does not materialise until comparatively recently.

A lady by the name of Susie Oldnall had been researching her family tree and had discovered that she was related to Mamie Stuart. The victim of the famous Chorus Girl Mystery.

She was in fact her great niece. After some further enquiries she also managed to track down where Mamie’s remains had ended up.

As soon as she was made aware that they had been stored in cupboard for the best part of 60 years she said to herself “I’m not having this” and made it her mission to get her remains laid to rest.

Finally, after 100 years, Mamie got a proper Christian funeral and burial. It was by now 2020.

She was interred at Bishopwearmouth Cemetery, in Sunderland. Alongside the other members of her family from that time. Mamie was laid to rest at last.

Learn more about Graham Loveluck-Edwards, his books, his talks and his walks visit www.grahamloveluckedwards.com or find him on YouTube or Facebook.