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When 21-year-old actress Gay Gibson boarded the cruise liner ‘Durban Castle’ in South Africa in October of 1947, she had her sights set on fame and fortune in England.

The ship was en route from Cape Town to the city of Southampton.

By 10AM on October 18, the word was getting around among the other fifty-nine first-class passengers, that she had vanished from her room, cabin 126.

By midday, the captain concluded that she had gone overboard.

However, that was far from the end of the story.

Per CrimeReads, when the cruise liner docked in southern England off the Isle of Wight, two detectives boarded to conduct an investigation, and things started getting very interesting.

Soon after conducting an investigation onboard, they left with deck steward James “Jimmy” Camb. Two days later, Camb was formally arrested and charged with Gibson’s murder.

The outcome of Camb’s murder trial has been the subject of myriad retellings over the years.

Jimmy Camb, notorious among the crew as the shipboard Lothario (in a nod to the infamous Don Juan he was dubbed “Don James”/“Don Jimmy”), was known to put sexual moves on attractive young woman passengers—a penchant which would place the deck steward in grave legal peril of his life after Gay Gibson tragically went overboard.

Gibson also had something of a “reputation” in South Africa.

Keep in mind that pretty much anything that didn’t line you up for sainthood if you were a woman back in the day landed you with a “reputation”.

In Gibson’s case, she was sexually active.

Gibson caught Camb’s attention on the ship. Witnesses described them as being “friendly” towards one another while on the cruise and Camb spoke about her often to other crew members.

So, here’s what they say happened in Gibson’s cabin the night she was killed.

At around 3AM on October 18, the ship’s nightwatchman, James Steer, answered bells that had summoned both the steward and the stewardess to cabin 126.

When he knocked on the door, at first nobody answered, until a man clad in a singlet and trousers told him that everything was fine and that he should leave.

While Steer didn’t see the man’s face, he would later swear that it was Camb.

When first questioned, Camb said that he was not the man in the room, but later admitted that it was him.

Camb confessed to having engaged in sexual intercourse with Gibson, but insisted that this had been with her consent. He claimed that in the throes of sexual passion Gibson had suddenly clutched at him, foaming at the mouth, and expired.

He says that he was afraid that when they found her dead in her bed, he would be exposed for unprofessional behaviour.

So, he shoved her body through the cabin porthole into the ocean.

The courts disagreed, saying that it was no accident, but a brutal and malicious murder.

According to the prosecution, Camb had inveigled his way into Gibson’s cabin, assaulted her and then strangled her to death when she virtuously resisted him.

There were many points of dispute in the trial, which in the absence of a body was necessarily based on circumstantial evidence.

The whole case is shrouded in mystery, with conflicting facts and stories, and has never been fully solved. Witnesses that came forward accused Camb of assault and speculation was egged on by crime writers who reimagined the story.

You can read more into the details here.

[source:crimereads]