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- Mary Celeste
- Episode 6
Mary Celeste: Full Sails. Full Cargo. No Crew.Episode 61:16
The Three-Month Trial of an Empty Ship
Witnesses and experts spend months trying to prove a crime aboard a ship that offers no convincing crime scene.
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Transcript
The Mary Celeste's lifeboat was missing when found.
The deserted brigantine drifted near the Azores December 4th, 1872.
Oliver Deveau boarded the Mary Celeste from the Dei Gratia. The boarding party found nobody aboard the Mary Celeste.
The last log entry had been written ten days before discovery.
Below deck, the ship’s cat had been tied up so it could not run away.
A six-month supply of food and water remained aboard.
Yet 3.5 feet of water sloshed in the ship’s bottom.
One of the ship’s two pumps had been disassembled.
But the captain’s and crew’s personal belongings were left undisturbed.
Even the cargo—around 1,700 barrels of alcohol—was largely intact.
At Gibraltar, a British vice admiralty court convened December 17th, 1872.
The Gibraltar inquiry lasted over three months, with proceedings until February 25th, 1873.
Captain Shufeldt rejected mutiny because he found no evidence of violence on decks or in cabins.
The inquiry record preserved Shufeldt's assessment for the Gibraltar court.
Where it leaves off
The Gibraltar court found no evidence of foul play.
Sources
- Mary Celeste - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.orgsecondary
- The mystery of the Mary Celeste | Royal Museums Greenwichrmg.co.uksecondary
- Sgecdisteentesacearchive.orgsecondary
- Abandoned Ship: The Mary Celestesmithsonianmag.comsecondary
- The Mary Celeste - Facts not Fictionmaryceleste.netprimary
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