Colin Campbell ROSS
Colin Campbell Ross was convicted of The Gun Alley Murder which was the rape and murder of 12-year-old Alma Tirtschke in Melbourne Australia, in 1921.
Alma Tirtschke, a Hawthorn schoolgirl, was raped and strangled while in Melbourne shopping for her aunty.A bottle gatherer found her naked body in Gun Alley, off Little Collins Street, on December 31, 1921.
The press, notably the Herald under Sir Keith Murdoch, fanned public outrage, pressured police for an arrest and matched the government's initial reward, which was quickly raised from £250 to £1000.
The owner of the Australian Wine Saloon, Colin Campbell Ross, was soon after charged with Alma's rape and murder.
The case against him was based on a red hair found at his saloon, apparently from Tirtschke's head, which provided a vital connection between the girl and Ross; plus the evidence of two Crown witnesses.
The two witnesses the police relied on were dubious characters, including the fortune-teller 'Madame Ghurka", who claimed that Ross had confessed to violating and choking the girl.
Ross could account for his movements at the time Alma disappeared, and later that night, when her body was dumped in Gun Alley.
His defence would eventually produce that alibi evidence at his trial, but despite this and Ross' firm assertions of his innocence, Ross was convicted after his January 12 arrest. .
The Herald prejudiced his trial by publishing his photograph and printing the names and addresses of the jury.
Just 115 days after the murder, he was executed, following a short trial and two failed appeals
After his last failed appeal Ross composed himself with dignity for his quiet but resolute statement from the scaffold:
I am now face to face with my Maker, and I swear by Almighty God that I am an innocent man. I never saw the child. I never committed the crime, and I don't know who did. I never confessed to anyone. I ask God to forgive those who have sworn my life away, and I pray God to have mercy on my poor darling mother, and my family.
Before his execution in his farewell letter to his family, Ross wrote that 'the day is coming when my innocence will be proved'.
A new investigation over 70 years later has since ruled out any link between Ross and the only physical evidence said to connect him to the crime — hairs found on a blanket at the suspect's home, which the jury was told came from the scalp of the victim.
In 1995 researcher Kevin Morgan traced the exhibit to an archive and pushed for the hair to be re-examined using modern technology.
In 1998 a test by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine found the hairs were not from the same scalp.
A second test by Australian Federal Police confirmed that the key evidence was wrong.
Prosecutors used two witnesses who claimed Ross had confessed to the crime. But the jury was not told that one of the key prosecution witnesses was a convicted perjurer.
On this basis ,eighty-six years on, Victoria's Governor officially pardoned Colin Ross.
