I’m very fortunate to be a guest speaker for Seabourn Cruises and I really enjoy sharing true crime cases and historical homicides during my onboard lecture series. As I write this post, I’m sailing through the North Sea to Scotland. After that, we’ll be circumnavigating Iceland. On this journey I’m giving four talks.
Murder on the High Seas
My introductory lecture features an overview of my sleuthing adventures. Inspired by my family history, featuring my notorious brothel-keeping ancestor from Victorian Manchester (my home city), I ‘turned to crime’ after I discovered that many of my family members in the past had broken the law, mostly to survive their lives of poverty and hardship. My interest into my roots in Manchester resulted in my first book about the fascinating crime-busting career of Detective Jerome Caminada, a real-life Sherlock Holmes. This led to my doctoral research into police detectives and their investigative practice.
Whilst researching Liverpool City Police, I came across three cases of ‘murder on the high seas’. The first took place onboard a ship bound for West Africa in 1860. During the voyage, steward William Henderson was repeatedly attacked by the captain. He died from his injuries and was buried onshore in Nigeria. Four years later, 15-year-old Thomas McKenzie set sail on a ship for South America as an apprentice. When he returned home to Liverpool, his health was so poor that his parents suspected that he had been subjected to violence. Sadly, he too died of his injuries and the ship’s first mate was tried for his murder, although it did not end as expected.
My final case for this lecture is a rather strange tale of a domestic murder with a very unusual motive. Josephina Coelho was fatally shot by her husband on a Royal Mail steamship while travelling from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro in 1914. He was eventually convicted of her murder and when he died, some 15 years later, the reason for his act was finally revealed, which was connected with a Brazilian saint!
If you would like to know more about these cases, I’ll be posting them on my Sleuthing Adventures blog on Substack.
Land of Fire and Ice: Tales of Nordic Noir
For my onboard lecture series, I like to include at least one talk on the crime history of the country we’re visiting and this time, it is Iceland, which gave me an excellent opportunity to uncover new stories that I had never encountered before. The real-life crime cases from throughout the country’s millennium of existence include a notorious Viking warrior, a relentless witchfinder, Iceland’s only known serial killer, and two historical crimes of passion, both of which led to death and destruction.
My talk begins right at the beginning of Iceland’s settled history, from the Viking era, and this is the earliest crime history I’ve ever researched. Egil Skallagrímsson is a household name in Iceland. A Viking-Age warrior and poet, he is infamous for having first killed a man when he was only seven years old, which apparently his mother said showed that he had the makings of a great Viking. He went on to kill members of the king and queen of Norway’s family in a bloody feud as well as his own brothers-in-law. However, despite his fierce temper and violent outbursts, he is mostly remembered for his poetry, which was passed down through generations of Icelanders.
Next, I move 600 years forward to share the chilling story of Iceland’s only known serial killer, Björn Pétursson, who is believed to have murdered at least eighteen visitors to his farm throughout the late 1500s. He and his wife killed them, stole their possessions and buried their bodies on his land. He was convicted and sentenced to death by breaking wheel, a particularly gruesome form of execution.
Icelandic history includes a long tradition of sorcery, witchcraft and magical practices. One of the most infamous witch trials in the country’s past began with the actions of one man, Jón Magússon, who was not a witch or a warlock, but a very troubled priest. In 1656, he accused a father and son of sorcery after he fell ill, which led to their deaths.
Finally, I arrive back in the more comfortable environment (for me!) of the nineteenth century for two crimes of passion. The first was a case of two illicit lovers, both of whom were married, who killed their spouses. And the second was another brutal double homicide, after the victims perished in a fire set deliberately by two individuals involved in a complex romantic entanglement.
An Arctic murder mystery and Scottish crime
My final two talks onboard Seabourn Sojourn are ‘Murder in the Frozen North’ and ‘Bloody Scotland’. The first is the extraordinary story of American explorer, Charles Frances Hall who, in 1871, set out on the Polaris to be the first person to reach the North Pole. He and his team managed to trek further than anyone had done previously but he died of arsenic poisoning during the expedition in mysterious circumstances. His murder was never solved, although there was a likely perpetrator among his crew, and apart from the historical homicide, their actual journey to the Arctic and the relentless race to discover the North Pole is compelling and includes some terrible ordeals, such as being stranded on an ice floe for months on end.
As we travel back down to Scotland, my last presentation covers three iconic crime cases from Scottish history, beginning with the iconic murder spree of bodysnatchers, Burke and Hare. This is followed by the very different tale of Madeleine Smith who was accused of poisoning her lover, Emile L’Angelier with arsenic (you can read the full details of this case on my Sleuthing Adventures blog), and then an account of the baffling Jigsaw Murders (the victims’ remains were found in Scotland), which was solved by ground-breaking forensic science techniques in the 1930s, leading to the apprehension of Dr Buck Ruxton.
I love sharing this rather gruesome true crimes and fortunately for me, it turns out that passengers on cruises enjoy a murder!