The 'Mary Russell' was a trading boat that set sail from the harbour of Cobh in County Cork on 8 February 1828, carrying a cargo of mules bound for Barbados. When it returned to Cobh on 25 June 1828, the horrified people of Cork found a cabin awash with blood and the bound and battered corpses of the ship's crew. Two mutilated survivors and a group of young boys who were unharmed were able to testify to the bizarre events of the voyage, during which the ship's captain, William Stewart, had become increasingly paranoid about an imagined mutiny on board and felt himself compelled to murder his shipmates.