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The Injustice of Colin Campbell Ross: A Century Too Late

The only thing that Colin Campbell Ross had in common with Ned Kelly was that they were both hanged on the same gallows, albeit 42 years apart. The differences in their executions were that while Kelly died swiftly, Ross died in agony, and that while some may dispute Kelly’s guilt, Ross was an innocent man railroaded to the gallows for a crime he didn’t commit. Just before he was hanged, Colin Ross wrote to his family saying that one day his innocence would be proved. It was. It took 86 years.

One of Australia’s most terrible murders took place on the afternoon of 30 December 1921, when 12-year-old Alma Tirtschke went missing while on an errand for her aunt. When Alma hadn’t returned home by dark her family called the police, who searched unsuccessfully throughout the night. The following morning Alma’s naked body was found in Gun Alley, a laneway along the way where Alma was on her errand, off nearby Little Collins Street. Alma had been raped and strangled.

The murder of Alma Tirtschke was sensationalised by the Melbourne press, who told the citizens that there was a madman in their midst who was likely to strike again soon. A reward of £1250 was instigated, one of the largest in Australia’s history at that time. The papers called for an immediate arrest, and public pressure on the police grew. They had to come up with someone. Anyone. Colin Ross fitted the profile. The problem was that he had an alibi. But it was only a minor problem.

Ross, 28, had been in trouble with the police and was in the window of opportunity to murder the girl. In 1920 Ross had threatened his fiancée, and was sent to prison for two weeks and fined for carrying a firearm. In 1921, Ross and his two brothers bought a sleazy wine saloon in inner Melbourne. In October 1921, Colin Ross and an accomplice were charged with attempting to rob a customer at gunpoint. Ross’ associate was sent to prison for six months, while Ross was acquitted.

The last time Alma was seen alive was between 2.30pm and 3pm near the lane where her body was found, at the corner of Alfred Place and Little Collins Street. Among the many men questioned was Colin Ross, who owned a nearby saloon and accurately described a girl matching Alma’s description standing outside his bar. Several other witnesses confirmed his memory of the events. Despite the fact that several other witnesses confirmed that he had never left his saloon all afternoon, police decided that Ross was their man and, on 12 January 1922, he was arrested and charged with getting the girl drunk in his saloon and then raping and murdering her.

Colin Ross’ trial was a joke from the outset, with the prosecution determined to deliver a culprit to appease the newspapers and the seething masses that turned up at the court every day. But Ross told his lawyers, family and friends that he had nothing to fear. He was an innocent man and justice would prevail. The prosecution’s first witness was John Harding, Ross’ cellmate and convicted perjurer, who testified that Ross had admitted his guilt to him in prison. After the trial, Harding’s current sentence was reduced significantly for his testimony.

A prostitute, Ivy Matthews, and a fortune-teller named ‘Madame Gurkha’, also testified that Ross had confessed the crime to them. The pair split the reward after Ross was found guilty. Six credible witnesses who were in Ross’ wine bar with him all afternoon and a cab driver who heard what is believed to have been the girl being murdered while Ross was working were not allowed to testify.

Strands of hair from Alma Tirtschke’s corpse were compared with hair found on a rug in Ross’ possession by the government analyst, Charles Price, a trained chemist with little previous experience in the new field of forensic science. Price concluded that the hair from Ross’ house was light auburn while Alma’s hair was dark red, and concluded the diameter of the hairs were a different thickness. Mr Price testified that the hairs on Ross’ blanket had most likely fallen from the head of a regular visitor, such as Ross’ girlfriend, but then changed his mind and said that the hairs were ‘derived from the scalp of one and the same person’. His contradiction was accepted by the judge without comment. The defence protested and requested that a further examination be carried out by a more qualified person, but the judge refused. The jury found Ross guilty of murder and he was sentenced to death by hanging. He was refused the right to appeal, as the judge stated that Ross’ guilt had been proven beyond doubt.

Awaiting his execution, Ross received a letter from an anonymous man who admitted that he had killed Alma but was not willing to come forward as it would cause grief to his family. On the eve of his execution, a letter believed to have been written by the real killer was sent to Ross’ lawyer. But it was all too late. Before his execution in his farewell letter to his family, Ross wrote: ‘The day is coming when my innocence will be proved.’ Colin Ross died the most horrible death. The noose didn’t do its job in snapping his neck cleanly and his subsequent death by asphyxiation took as long as 20 minutes.

Over the years there were several attempts to exonerate Ross but the Victorian Government wasn’t interested, and it wasn’t until 1993 that schoolteacher Kevin Morgan took an interest in the case. From interviews and court transcripts, Morgan discovered information that had been kept from the court, including the testimony of six reliable witnesses who saw Ross inside his saloon the entire afternoon of Alma Tirtschke’s murder.

Furthermore, a cab driver, Joseph Graham, had heard screams coming from a building in Collins Street at 3pm, while Ross was in his saloon. Graham’s interview had been disregarded by police and he had not been called to give evidence. Kevin Morgan hit the jackpot when he found a file containing the original hair samples, which had been thought lost. Through DNA the Victoria Institute of Forensic Medicine found that the hairs did not come from the same person, thereby disproving the most damning piece of evidence presented at Ross’ trial.

On 23 October 2006 the Victorian Attorney-General wrote to the Chief Justice asking to consider a plea of mercy for Ross. The subsequent pardon, granted on 27 May 2008, is the first case in Victoria’s legal history of a posthumous pardon.

Alma Tirtschke’s believes that Colin Ross’ pardon does not go far enough and that he should be exonerated completely. In his book Gun Alley: Murder, Lies and Failure of Justice, Kevin Morgan says the true murderer may well have been a close Tirtschke family relative, George Murphy, a disturbed war veteran with paedophilic tendencies and a history of pestering Alma’s sister Viola. Murphy was believed to have been seen in the vicinity of where Alma disappeared on the day she was murdered, but the police never investigated it.

On 18 October 2010, the remains of Colin Campbell Ross were handed back to his family at a service at the Old Melbourne Gaol so that he could be buried a free man. Little consolation for arguably the worst case of blind justice in Australia’s history.