Accidental Drowning, or Murder?

In the second half of the nineteenth century it was quite common for seamen to ‘jump ship’ at New Zealand

ports.  Hundreds deserted, lured ashore by plentiful grog, and the hopes of plentiful gold. Many escapes were well planned, coordinated efforts; in expectation of rescue sailors would set fire to their ship, or await an opportunity to steal a lifeboat and row ashore.  Other escape attempts were simply desperate.                        

In January 1865, the steamer Mulloch was leaving Lyttelton harbour when it encountered a man perched inside an ordinary wooden tub, floating in the ocean near Godley Head.  The runaway sailor and his supplies (a bottle of rum and a boot full of ship’s biscuits) were taken on board the steamer, but as soon as the vessel neared shore, the man plunged into the ocean, swam ashore and ran off.  This might seem to be the obvious means of escaping from a ship, but in the nineteenth century, swimming was usually a seaman’s last method of choice – most had never learned this skill.

This was the case on the night of February 12th 1862, when three seamen jumped into the sea from the clipper ship Young America, soon after it had anchored at the Otago Heads.  One man attempted to keep himself afloat by attaching a bundle of corks wrapped in canvas to his back; his dead body was found, back afloat but head submerged next morning,  The body of the second seaman was discovered days later, half buried in the beach at Purakaunui, "much decomposed."  He was identified by the boots that he had unwisely tied around his waist. The third man - John Grey, ex third officer of the Young America swam safely to shore.  On this occasion his swimming ability saved his life, soon after, this same ability would lead to a charge of murder. 

John Grey was a fugitive who had good cause to avoid the police.  If caught he risked being arrested and charged with desertion, however it was much more likely that he would simply be returned to the Young America and punished.  Ships Captains rewarded local police for returning deserters and Constable Coffey of Port Chalmers was known to be a particularly successful bounty hunter.  John Grey fled over the hills to Blueskin, where he found temporary employment helping a local settler dip sheep. 

There was no disputing that fact that on the night of April 6^th 1862, John Grey had been drinking.  When called to give evidence at the coroner’s inquest Grey recalled visiting Dickson’s Half Way House on the Blueskin road and ‘shouting’ drinks for a group of four strangers before leaving the hotel with a bottle of whisky. He claimed to have no recollection of accompanying the group a mile and a half downhill to their boat.  One of the survivors of that boat trip disputed Grey’s claims of drunkenness stating that “he was the worse for liquor, but could walk down to the boat and knew well enough what he was about.” Whether he remembered it or not, Grey willingly agreed to accompany the group who set off rowing across the bay, intent on returning to their camp site at Purakaunui. The boat soon stuck fast in the mud.  John Grey and a man named John Cross leaped out and pushed while the others shoved with oars, but the boat remained hard aground.  Soon after, Grey and Cross set off wading through the shallow water towards the shore.                                         

Shortly afterwards Cross was heard shouting “for God’s sake come and save me, I am drowning.” The drowning man was known to be a good swimmer and was relatively sober but there was deep mud in places around the harbour’s edge.  His three companions were drunk and could not swim, nobody volunteered to leave the boat in order to rescue their drowning mate. 

Within a short time John Grey returned to the boat, soaking wet and missing his cap, having been completely submerged.  When asked if he could swim, Grey replied that he had escaped from the Young America by swimming ashore.  The three men in the boat begged Grey to rescue their drowning companion, gave him whiskey for sustenance and lit matches to mark the position of their boat in the darkness. Grey could be heard ‘Coo-eeing’ in the darkness, while Cross continued to scream for help.  After about fifteen minutes nothing further was heard so the three men settled down on a “swag and a sail” in the boat and slept, assuming that their mate had been rescued.

At high tide the next morning the boat floated free and so the men returned to Dickson’s where they ate breakfast and drank until the afternoon.  Returning to their boat, they discovered that the tide was dead low and so they set off to walk back to their camp.  About five hundred yards from their boat they discovered the dead body of John Cross, lying face down among the sea shells, surrounded by crabs. When they turned the body over in order to carry it above the high tide mark they noticed cuts beneath the eyes and blood on the dead man’s face.  The Constable who was called to the scene considered the wounds to be suspicious and soon afterwards John Grey was located, five miles away ‘washing sheep.’ Grey denied all knowledge of the dead man and when questioned “appeared to be stupid or ignorant.” He was taken into custody and searched, when a blood stained razor was found inside his boot he was charged with the wilful murder of John Cross.

Three days after the body was discovered an inquest was held at the Port Chalmers Hotel.  Immediately after being sworn in, the jury was taken to examine the single item of evidence – the dead man’s body, which had been placed in an adjoining shed. The ‘marks of violence’ on the corpse’s face were the only indications of unnatural death; police detectives had been unable to uncover either a motive or a single additional piece of physical evidence.                                                     

The examining doctor stated that the facial wounds were merely superficial and announced that death was due to “suffocation in water.” His scrutiny of the corpse’s head showed that the cuts beneath the eyes had been caused by a blunt object, and certainly not by a sharp one (such as a razor) and that these wounds were unlikely to have been created by contact with sharp shells. He also noted that the cartilage at the edges of the dead man’s ears had been ‘eroded’.

The jury returned an open verdict and John Grey was released from custody however the Coroner was far from happy with the facts that had emerged at the inquest.  Blame was spread widely.  John Grey’s dubious ancestry and his history as a deserter were criticised, the Coroner advised Grey to learn from this experience and hoped that he might choose to redeem his character, however his harshest criticism was reserved for the disgraceful behaviour of the three men who had remained in their boat, sending “a mere lad to do their work”.                       The Coroner thundered: “I cannot believe it possible, that in any part of her Majesty’s dominions, three men, aye, three ENGLISHMEN could be found who hearing a fellow creature, and that fellow creature their own mate, call to them “For God’s sakes save me I am drowning” could coolly lie down in their boat and endeavour to go to sleep without rendering him assistance.”

The question of how the dead man had acquired superficial facial wounds was not resolved; no evidence suggested that they had been caused by John Grey.  The coroner had supposed that because they were located beneath the eyes, rather than on the ‘prominent’ facial features, they could not have been caused by the body coming into contact with shells on the bay’s oyster beds. Strangely no person ever considered that they might have been caused by the numerous crabs that surrounded the body when it

was discovered.