Sunderland murder victim is finally buried a century after her mystery disappearance
Dancer Mamie Stuart, originally from Sunderland, sparked national headlines after her husband was arrested when she mysteriously vanished in 1919.
While George Shotton was never charged with her murder, he was jailed for bigamy and unconfirmed sightings of her as far away as India continued until her dismembered bones were recovered 42 years later off the Welsh coast.
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Hide AdThey were later stored in a Cardiff forensic laboratory until relative Susie Oldnall, whose grandmother was Mamie’s sister, discovered where they were kept while taking part in a television programme about the case.
She then pledged to bury the remains alongside Mamie’s parents and contacted retired Wearside schoolteacher Margaret Hedley, now an author and genealogist, for help in finding the family grave.
James Lawson Stuart and Eleanor Jane Stuart’s resting place was eventually traced to Bishopwearmouth Cemetery, in Sunderland, with a short service finally taking place last December.
Mrs Hedley, 66, who was a business studies teacher and head of year at Biddick Academy, in Washington, and is from Wheatley Hill, said: “It is certainly one of the most unusual cases I have been involved in as it is not every
day you are asked about someone who has been murdered.
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Hide Ad“There was only four of us at the burial and it was very moving.
“Mrs Oldnall said a few words, laid flowers on the grave and placed the casket inside a little area which had been dug up.”
Mamie left Sunderland in her teens to work as a dancer and married Shotton in 1918 before they set up home at various addresses in Wales.
Her concerned parents contacted police around December 1919 after their 26-year-old daughter failed to respond to letters and telegrams.
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Hide AdShotton himself had already died when Mamie’s bones were discovered in a disused lead mine at Brandy Cove, in the Gower Peninsula, near Swansea, in 1961.
Retired teacher Mrs Oldnall, 75, of Uffington, in Oxfordshire, said: “She was a lovely girl who met the wrong fellow and unfortunately it ended terribly.
“When I found out that her remains were shut away and brought out for students to look at I thought I am not having that.
“I only did what a lot of people would have done and I hope, if there is a heaven, that the family are all finally having a good time together.”