James Camb - "The Porthole Case"

[Mayerling]

Previously unpublished police mug shot of James Camb on the day of his arrest posted on Cold Case Jury website.

Last night I looked at the police mug shot. It certainly shows Camb looking more worn and wan than in the better known shot of him in his uniform and cap.

Jeff

[ColdCaseJury]

New Camb Photo

Previously unpublished police mug shot of James Camb on the day of his arrest posted on Cold Case Jury website.

[ColdCaseJury]

I've searched everywhere here in Oz for Vince Kelly's book on the Shark Arm case and no luck. It seems to be only held by State Libraries now.

Thank you for trying. I know one person in Oz who owns a copy, so if all else fails, I could ask him to loan it to me. If that fails, then I will write the case based on articles and the contemporary newspaper reports.

[Rosella]

How wonderful ColdCase, especially about Gay's hairbrush, and thank heavens the file wasn't destroyed. Yes, please keep us posted here. Incidentally, I've searched everywhere here in Oz for Vince Kelly's book on the Shark Arm case and no luck. It seems to be only held by State Libraries now. I read it years ago somewhere, probably at my local library, but they no longer have it.

[ColdCaseJury]

Update

I enjoyed this book. I'd only read about the Porthole murder briefly before and this had a great deal of information I found interesting.

Hi Ros

Just to let you know, I was leafing through the original police file of the Camb case yesterday. The file would have been destroyed if it were not for the actions of a local history society. It was the first time I had seen the file - and I believe I am the first author to have been given access.

Luckily, I discovered nothing that would require a re-write of my book! However, there was plenty more information that I hope to include in an updated Evidence File later in the year. For example, a transcript of the letter written by Gay on board the Durban Castle days before she died; one of Gay's friends stating she was a sexual tease (denied by other friends); medical statements from Daisy Gibson and a doctor saying Gay was not pregnant; statements from a Durban Hotel where Gay and Charles stayed at the end of September; full length statements from many of the witnesses that have more detail than the trial testimony, including one from a musician claiming that Gay was arguing with Hopwood and Bray, her dining companions, hours before she died. Might this explain her lost hour, between 1am and 2am, shortly before her death?

One thing took my breath away, however: an exhibit from the trial - Gay's hairbrush, complete with strands of her hair still in it! I have taken photos and will upload onto my site later.

I will keep you posted.

Antony
Author of Death of an Actress

P.S. Despite copious letters from the Metropolitan Police to Southampton CID in the correspondence file, there was NOTHING about the Met having interviewed Sid James in connection with the murder.

[GUT]

Sorry Jeff may have confused you there.

I when said Glenbrook, that is a town in the Blue Mts where one of Bulter's first victims owned a shop. It's about 70Km from Sydney proper at the foot of the Blue Mts.

[GUT]

I believe Butler was identified as Richard Ashe from Dorset at the time of his arrest in California, Gut. Apparently he'd served in the Royal Navy and had deserted while serving on board a warship in the early 1880's.

I thought Ashe turned out to be an Alias too, but it may have been Dorset

[Rosella]

I believe Butler was identified as Richard Ashe from Dorset at the time of his arrest in California, Gut. Apparently he'd served in the Royal Navy and had deserted while a member of the crew of a warship in the early 1880's.

[Mayerling]

I was aware of the NZ one. Now I'm racking my brain for Butler's real name (The Glenbrook one) I seem to recall that he was from a fairly well to do family from Devon.

His name was Robert Butler, but he was hanged in Queensland, not New Zealand, as "James Wharton" (like Neill Cream he denied he was Neill Cream but claimed he was Thomas Neill, and it is under that name he was tried and convicted and hanged). There is a good account on Butler/Wharton in "A Book of Remarkable Criminals" by H. B. Irving (the barrister and actor and crime historian who was the older son of Sir Henry Irving the great Victorian actor).
The 1905 murder Butler was hanged for was of Mr. William Munday of Tooringa, whom Butler shot in a street robbery at night. The earlier trilogy of killings was in March 1880 of the Dewar family of Dunedin, New Zealand.

Jeff

[Rosella]

Yes, Kate Rounsefell had a VERY lucky escape. She was on her way to her loving fiancé Baron Swanston (funnily enough there's a Swantson St in central Melbourne) waiting for in Southern Cross, Western Australia, when she received that urgent telegram from her sister 'For God's sake go no further!'

I'd have given her a month or two to live at the most, though Fred might have had difficulty leaving Western Australia afterwards if trains and coastal steamers had been searched.

[GUT]

It was Frank Butler. Fascinating little triple murder case - but the mountains are in New South Wales after all.

There is another Butler in New Zealand's criminal history: Robert Butler, who killed a husband, wife, and child, defended himself successfully on the charges, but later went to prison on a lesser charge, and when he left prison committed another murder in a robbery and was hanged for that one.

Jeff

I was aware of the NZ one. Now I'm racking my brain for Butler's real name (The Glenbrook one) I seem to recall that he was from a fairly well to do family from Devon.

[Mayerling]

The Blue Mountains are in NSW, Mayerling. Yes, these murder were callous, killing for profit, luring young men and one older on some wild goose chase gold mining venture. Thank heavens Frank Butler was nabbed before he was able to settle in California.
By the way the Deeming house in Windsor (Melbourne) still exists, or at least it did a few years ago when I last saw it. The area is gentrified now and this property would be worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Probably the present owners know about its history but are quite OK with it.

Hate to think of it but if FBD (hopefully stoking very, very hot furnaces in the nether world) heard of the value of his house in Melbourne today, he might actually feel proud. On the other hand, he was only renting that house (and he only rented the Rainhill one near Liverpool too).

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Butler (or whatever his name was) has been considered Australia's first SK

Well FBD would have beaten him to that title, had he married Katie Rounseville (I think that was her name), mistreated her, and had a convenient home with a hearthstone to utilize (supposedly he had purchased cement). As it was he was the first foreign mass killer (of Marie Deeming and their four children) to commit a second independent killing (of Emily Deeming in Melbourne) which stretches him into an international serial killer).

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Re Ned surviving

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/two-of-the-ned-kelly-gang-survived-ambush-and-lived-on-for-years-says-historian-296451.html

Whilst that says it was Dan that survived there are plenty who believe that Ned escaped and Dan went to the gallows, as Dan would have been for the drop anyway, but if the authorities thought Ned was Dan there would have been a greater investigation and hunt. Whereas Dan was considered less of a threat.

Interesting, but they always claim villains did not die but live lives full of remorse or of non-remorse (depending on the point of view of the teller). John Wilkes Booth was not killed at Garrett's Barn in Virginia on April 26, 1865, but a returning Confederate soldier named Boyd was killed - and it was claimed it was Booth; Jesse James and the Ford Boys were in cahoots and "Mr. Howard" was a stranger that was shot so that the Fords could get their pardons, and split the reward with Jesse, while he and his family could live in peace; Billy the Kid was not killed by his pal, Pat Garrett, but another was killed in his place; Butch Cassidy survived that final shoot-out in Bolivia, returned to the U.S., and died in California in the 1930s; John Dillinger was not the poor fool who the FBI killed (according to Jay Robert Nash), but lived in quiet obscurity for decades. It's a kind of twisted form of having one's cake and eating it too.

On the other hand, if it was Dan who swung in 1880, maybe that is the reason that the judge in the case died suddenly a month later - Ned came back to even the score?

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Is this the one you were thinking of Jeff where the compare Butler to Deemng

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/54503919.

It is the only Triple I know of around that time.

It was Frank Butler. Fascinating little triple murder case - but the mountains are in New South Wales after all.

There is another Butler in New Zealand's criminal history: Robert Butler, who killed a husband, wife, and child, defended himself successfully on the charges, but later went to prison on a lesser charge, and when he left prison committed another murder in a robbery and was hanged for that one.

Jeff