The Gun Alley Tragedy: Record of the Trial of Colin Campbell Ross

by T. C. Brennan

“If hairs were cast off,” Mr. Price was asked, “would there be any distinction in their colour as compared with hair that was actually growing?” “Well, I cannot say that directly,” he replied, “but the conclusion I formed, as regards the hairs I found on the blanket, was that they did not come from the frontal portion; that they had not been exposed much to the light; that they came from the back portion of the head, and that that is the reason why their colour was not as deep as those on the front portion.” The two sets of hair, he said, were “very similar.” Microscopically, they agreed, because there was a kind of coarseness about them, and when treated with caustic soda it tended to bring out the pith portion of the hair, “and that pith was identical with the hairs on the blanket.” The five hairs from the grey blanket, Mr. Price said, were “similar in colour” to the hairs on the reddish brown blanket, but that was all he had to say about them. When being re-examined, he said that his reason for thinking the front and back of the hair would differ was that in one head he had tested “the frontal portion was quite red, and the hair from the back of the head quite dark.”

On cross-examination, Mr. Price admitted that it was “several years” since he had last made an examination of hairs from any woman’s head. “It does not often come under my notice,” he added. He had made very few such examinations in his life. Not only did the hairs from the child’s head and the hairs from the blankets differ in colour, he said, but they differed in diameter, and it was possible, but not probable, that the hairs on the blankets may have come from another head. He had examined many hairs since he had conducted this particular examination, and he had, in the course of his examination, found some hairs that were as like Alma Tirtschke’s as the hairs on the blankets.

It will be shown later that Mr. Price might, on the facts which he deposed to, have been called as a powerful witness for the defence. Yet in the atmosphere that prevailed, it seemed to be assumed that his evidence advanced the case for the prosecution.

THE FINDING OF THE SERGE.

The finding of some pieces of serge on the Footscray Road, on the 26th or 27th day of January, was also relied on strongly by the Crown. Mrs. Violet May Sullivan was on the Footscray Road on January 26, and she saw certain strips of serge on the left-hand side going to Kensington. She didn’t pick them up. On the next day she read, in the alleged confession to Harding, that Ross had said that he had strewn the serge of the girl’s dress on the Footscray Road, and Mrs. Sullivan went back to the road, and on the opposite side to where she had seen it on the previous day she saw a roll of serge. She picked it up and handed it to the local police. One piece she left at home. The serge was produced in court. One piece was fairly large, in no sense a strip, looked quite new and fresh, and bore no signs, as Mr. Justice Isaacs indicated in his High Court judgment, of having lain on a dusty and busy road for nearly four weeks. Of the rest, one was a strip of a quite different texture, and looked much older than the piece. There were also a couple of other fragments. None of them appeared to have been four weeks in the dust. The serge that she had seen on the first day, Mrs. Sullivan said, resembled the fragments, but were not like the larger piece, so that, whether it was the same bundle she saw on both days does not appear. When Mrs. Murdoch, the girl’s aunt, was in the box, the serge was handed to her for identification, and she was asked to say what she had to say about it. “It is very similar to the serge she had on on that day,” said the witness. “All of it?” she was asked. “That has nothing to do with it, I should say,” said the witness, discarding the larger piece. The three other pieces, she said, were “very similar” to the material of which the girl’s dress was composed. When asked further, she said she recognised a row of stitching on two of the pieces. “Do you recognise it as a row of stitching you did yourself?” she was asked, and she answered: “No; I fancy the stitching there is from the old stuff I made up. I believe that is the stitching. It did have stitching on.” She remembered the old stitching, because she had had some difficulty in ironing it out. She made the dress out of old material. It was box-pleated, and the stuff she had in her hand looked to be box-pleated, but there was a portion missing.

Summarised, then, Mrs. Murdoch’s identification amounted to this, that she remembered there was some stitching on the dress that she had made up, and there was also a little bit of stitching on two of the three pieces handed to her which she “fancied” was the same stitching, while the fourth piece handed to her, which was part of the same bundle, “had nothing to do with it.” It was on such “evidence” that Colin Ross was hanged!

It will be remembered that Harding’s account of what Ross said was that he “tore the clothing into strips and bits, and distributed them along the road.” Yet we are asked to believe that, by some operation of the laws of cohesion peculiar to the Footscray Road, four or more of them had rolled themselves together by the 26th, and that they had succeeded by the next day in crossing the road and joining up with another and dissimilar piece of blue serge.

On January 23 the police knew that Ross was supposed to have said that he scattered the fragments of the girl’s dress along the Footscray Road. If this could have been verified it would have clinched the case against Ross, for it would have established beyond question the fact of some confession. Every effort should have been directed to clearing up this point. The road Ross said he took was clearly indicated—so clearly that it showed beyond question that Harding knew the locality well. If that is doubted, let anyone who does not know the locality try to describe Ross’s alleged route after reading the description once. If one knows the locality, he has a mental picture, as the words are spoken, which he can reproduce. If he does not, the words are words merely, and cannot be repeated without rehearsal. But the point is that, on getting this alleged confession, the detectives should have got half a dozen men to take the road, or the two roads if necessary, in a face in order to discover the serge. It was so plain, Mrs. Sullivan said, that “it could not be missed.” The local police did not find it, the detective’s agents did not find it, but a casual wayfarer stumbles across it twice, because “you could not miss it.” Piggott’s answers to questions were that, on learning of the confession, “we took certain steps,” and “gave certain directions”; and his explanation of the failure to find the serge was that his men searched the wrong road! One would have liked to have heard the comments of, say, the late Mr. Justice Hodges, on this extraordinary admission.

THE MEDICAL EVIDENCE.

The last class of evidence, though given first on the trial, was the medical testimony. It showed that there was an abrasion on the left side of the neck which extended across the mid-line, and measured 2½ inches in length by ⁷/₁₆ of an inch in breadth at its widest part. Below this, on the left side of the neck, there was a narrower abrasion, about ⅛ of an inch in width, and not extending across the mid-line. There was another abrasion on the left side of the lower jaw, an inch in length, and a quarter of an inch in breadth. There was a small abrasion on the outer side of the right eye, a small abrasion in the centre of the upper lip, another small abrasion at the back of the right elbow, and the skin of the back of the left elbow had been slightly rubbed. There was some bruising and lividity on the right side of the face. The upper part of the chest was livid, and showed small hæmorrhages. Hæmorrhages were also found in the scalp and on the surface of the eyes. There were some small bruises on the right side of the neck. Internally, there was a bruise on the left tonsil.