Spurling was the son-in-law of Marmaduke Wetherell, a big game hunter who had been publicly ridiculed in the "Daily Mail", the newspaper that employed him. Spurling claimed that to get revenge, Marmaduke Wetherell committed the hoax. His co-conspirators were Spurling (a sculpture specialist), his son Ian Marmaduke, who bought the material for the fake Nessie, and Maurice Chambers (an insurance agent). Chambers asked surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson to offer the pictures to the "Daily Mail".