Case 278: Alma Tirtschke (Part 2)
Update: 2024-04-0627
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*** Content warnings: Child victim, sexual assault ***
[Part 2 of 2]
Colin Ross maintained his innocence for the murder of Alma Tirtschke right up until his execution. Could he have been telling the truth?
---
Narration – Anonymous Host
Research & writing – Milly Raso
Creative direction – Milly Raso
Production and music – Mike Migas
Music – Andrew D.B. Joslyn
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For all credits and sources, please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-278-alma-tirtschke-part-2
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00:00:00
2. Our episodes deal with serious and often
00:00:15
distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local
00:00:21
crisis center. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support and for a more detailed
00:00:27
list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or
00:00:33
on our website. Today's episode involves crimes against children and won't be suitable
00:00:39
for all listeners. Shortly after 3 on the afternoon of Friday
00:00:47
December 30, 1921, Melbourne cab driver Joseph Graham was strolling up a little Colin Street
00:00:54
on his way to the grocery store. All of a sudden, a piercing, high-pitched screen rang
00:01:00
out. The area was notoriously rowdy, but in the hundreds of times that Joseph had been
00:01:06
there, he'd never heard such a heart-rending scream. He described it as sounding like,
00:01:13
a little girl terrified at what was occurring or what was about to occur.
00:01:20
It's infestimated that the girl was between the ages of 10 and 15. It sounded as if she
00:01:26
was being dragged somewhere close by. Five or six more screams followed, each more terrifying
00:01:33
than the last, as the girl was slowly drained of energy. Further down the street, another
00:01:40
man also heard the screams. He and Joseph glanced around trying to identify where exactly
00:01:47
the noise was coming from. While they couldn't narrow down an exact spot, they seemed to be
00:01:53
coming from the direction of gun alley.
00:02:22
When Joseph Graham heard about Ahmet Tursky's murder a little over a week later, he went
00:02:26
straight to the police to report the screams he'd heard on Little Colin Street on the afternoon
00:02:31
of December 30.
00:02:33
The officers didn't seem interested. Plenty of people brought their children into the city
00:02:38
and it wasn't unusual to hear them screeching for a litany of innocent reasons. Some local
00:02:44
business owners brought their children to work with them, including a nearby barber, whose
00:02:48
young daughter was known for her screeching. Despite these explanations, Joseph remained
00:02:55
certain that what he'd heard wasn't just a child playfully acting up. Meanwhile, at a police
00:03:01
station in the regional town of Ballarat, the other man who heard the screams also came
00:03:07
forward. Like Joseph, he reported that the screaming occurred sometime between around
00:03:12
3.05 and 3.25 pm. But unlike Joseph, he didn't think there were multiple screams, just a single
00:03:22
scream that echoed down the street. He thought it was emanating from a derelict lodging house
00:03:28
next to gun alley, but as he walked towards the distressing sound, it suddenly stopped.
00:03:36
The man convinced himself it was just an unruly child being disciplined by an exasperated parent
00:03:42
and carried on with his day. When he heard about Alma Tursky's murder, he thought about contacting
00:03:49
the police, but he was unwell at the time and didn't want the publicity. He also assumed
00:03:55
that the other witness, Joseph Graham, would report it, thus negating his need to do so.
00:04:02
When the days passed with no reports about the screams in the papers, he finally decided
00:04:07
to come forward, saying there was a stallholder in the eastern market who could corroborate
00:04:12
his version of events. Ballarat police forwarded this information to the detectives, fronting
00:04:18
the Tursky case. They now had two independent accounts of a girl screaming in fright around
00:04:25
a little colon street between 3.30 pm on Friday, December 30. These reports are lined with
00:04:33
the last confirmed sighting of Alma Tursky after she left the eastern arcade on the very
00:04:38
corner where the lodging house was located. This posed a major problem for investigators.
00:04:46
They'd been working on the theory that Alma had been lured somewhere private to be assaulted
00:04:51
before her body was dumped in gun alley later that night. What's more, if the screams
00:04:57
heard had indeed come from Alma, it vindicated their prime suspect, Colin Ross.
00:05:07
When Colin Ross was found guilty of the 12-year-old's murder, his family were left stunned.
00:05:14
From the outset of the investigation, they knew there was no way he could have done it. For
00:05:19
starters, Colin's brother Stanley Ross worked alongside Colin at the Australian wine saloon.
00:05:26
At around 2pm on Friday, December 30, 1921, Stanley was in his usual spot behind the bar when
00:05:33
Colin arrived for work. It was a relatively quiet afternoon. The brothers spent the entire
00:05:40
afternoon serving and interacting with the few clientele. At no point did Stanley see
00:05:47
a young girl matching Alma Tursky's description in the saloon. Colin sometimes brought women
00:05:54
into the private room behind the bar, but they were never as young as Alma.
00:06:01
Former bartender Rive Matthews and saloon customer Frances Upton had both served as star witnesses
00:06:07
for the prosecution, implicating Colin in the young girl's murder. Both claimed they had
00:06:14
been drinking at the Australian wine saloon Friday, December 30, 1921, where they ordered
00:06:19
a drink at the bar. But Stanley had been behind the bar all afternoon, and at no point did
00:06:26
he see either one of them. The only witness he did see was Oliv Maddox. Oliv had
00:06:33
testified to seeing an underage girl matching Alma's description drinking in the parlour and
00:06:39
had confronted Colin about it. Yet, according to Stanley, this never happened. Oliv did briefly
00:06:47
greet Colin at the bar, but the pair didn't engage in any meaningful conversation, and she
00:06:53
never mentioned the presence of a young girl.
00:06:58
Stanley and Colin remained at the saloon together until closing time, at which point Colin
00:07:03
went home for dinner while Stanley ate it at nearby restaurant. At 7.30pm, Stanley returned
00:07:10
to the saloon to use the bathroom. No one else was in there.
00:07:16
Colin had always maintained that he'd met his friend Gladys in the city before returning
00:07:20
home at around midnight and going straight to bed. His mother, Edie Ross, vouched for this.
00:07:28
She recalled that Colin had arrived home at around 7.30pm, ate dinner, and then went out
00:07:34
again. Edie was still up when Colin returned around midnight. He went straight to the bedroom
00:07:41
he shared with another of his brothers, Ronald. A military man who'd served overseas, Ronald
00:07:48
was a light sleeper who woke at the slightest of noises. He stirred when Colin entered the
00:07:54
room, and was certain he couldn't have left during the night without waking him.
00:08:01
According to prosecution witness Sydney Harding, Colin had confessed to killing Alma in
00:08:07
the back room behind the bar before cleaning the scene. Stanley Ross had returned to the
00:08:13
Australian wine saloon on Saturday morning to prepare for the day's trade. He swept
00:08:18
the floor and scrubbed surfaces. There was no indication that the saloon, or its back
00:08:24
room, had been cleaned the previous night.
00:08:29
The Ross family testified at trial in support of Colin and corroborated his version of
00:08:33
events. Edie described Colin as a good son who was a bit rough around the edges, but certainly
00:08:40
not a child killer.
00:08:43
Another one of Colin's brothers named Thomas told the court that when the family heard
00:08:48
news of Colin's arrest, they found it comical in its absurdity. Thomas explained, "I thought
00:08:56
that my brother would have been the last man in the world to be detained."
00:09:02
Two outsiders, the Ross family, were just protecting one of their own. No one seemed to consider
00:09:08
the possibility that they were telling the truth.
00:09:16
After Colin's conviction, his family gathered at their home to plot their next move. They agreed
00:09:22
without hesitation to mortgage their house to fund an appeal. All of a sudden there was
00:09:28
a knock at the front door. Standing outside was a young woman who introduced herself as
00:09:34
Florence Rudkin. She was well aware of the infamous Tursky case. The vicious frenzy it
00:09:42
had stirred up in Melbourne had prevented Florence from coming forward sooner as she wanted
00:09:47
no association with it. But with Colin being found guilty, Florence put her personal feelings
00:09:54
aside to reveal what she knew.
00:09:58
At around five on the afternoon of Friday, December 30, 1921, Florence had stopped in at the Australian
00:10:05
Wines Saloon. She visited occasionally as it was a quiet establishment where she could
00:10:10
be left alone. Florence settled into a dark corner in the parlour. It was an uneventful
00:10:17
visit until Olive Matic dropped in. Boisterous and unsteady, Olive was clearly intoxicated.
00:10:26
She stood at the parlour's entrance and examined the room before moving off. Florence was still
00:10:32
in the parlour when Olive reappeared an hour later right before closing time. When Florence
00:10:38
went to leave, Colin Ross was still there. She caught a glimpse of the private room behind
00:10:44
the bar. There was no one there. The reason Florence felt it was so important to come forward
00:10:52
with this information was that she had flowing red hair. At the time of her visit to the
00:10:59
saloon, she'd been wearing a hat, just like Alma Tursky. Given that the parlour was dimly
00:11:06
lit and Olive Matic's had been intoxicated, Florence feared that Olive had mistaken
00:11:12
her for Alma. Stanley Ross had remembered Florence
00:11:17
Rugkin as one of their few customers that day. He'd sought her out when his brother was initially
00:11:23
detained, but he only knew her as flurry and was unable to track her down.
00:11:31
Florence Rugkin was told to take her story to a man named Thomas Brennan. An experienced
00:11:37
formidable criminal attorney, Brennan was one part of Colin's two-man legal team.
00:11:44
Like the Ross's, Brennan was left speechless by Colin's conviction. He'd never doubted
00:11:51
the man was innocent, and after hearing the entirety of the prosecution's evidence in person,
00:11:56
he couldn't believe the jury had found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
00:12:02
In the Defences' opinion, the prosecution's case was not only absolutely incoherent, but
00:12:08
absolutely inconsistent. After detailing all of its flaws and inconsistencies, they
00:12:15
were certain Colin was going to walk from court a free man.
00:12:20
As far as the defence were concerned, the prosecution's star witnesses were a "quintant"
00:12:25
of disreputables. For starters, there was Francis Upton, the man who claimed to have visited
00:12:32
the Australian wine saloon after midnight on December 30 to encounter Colin Ross with
00:12:38
blood-stained hands. Francis had also implicated an unidentified woman who he claimed to have
00:12:45
heard in the saloon with Colin.
00:12:48
Thomas Brennan was incredulous of Francis' testimony from the outset. In Brennan's words,
00:12:55
Francis was "a derelict, a drunkard, a wife-deserter, a notorious romanceer, and convicted criminal."
00:13:04
His rap sheet included charges for lasiny, drunkenness, and embezzlement. In court, Francis described
00:13:12
himself as a bad character, who'd skipped out on his wife and kids and spent all his earnings
00:13:18
on alcohol.
00:13:21
Brennan hoped the jury would realise that testimony beginning with the witness regained
00:13:25
consciousness in a park after a bender, necessitated a considerable degree of skepticism.
00:13:32
Francis even admitted during cross-examination that he usually got so drunk he didn't remember
00:13:37
anything. In fact, he was such a prolific alcoholic that he had no memories of ever visiting
00:13:44
the Australian wine saloon, except for on December 30.
00:13:50
Francis said he'd learnt of our Matursky's murder on January 2, yet he only approached
00:13:56
police to implicate Colin Ross after the 1,000-pound reward was offered.
00:14:06
Then there were the two jailbirds, Sydney Harding and Joseph Dunston. Sydney testified that
00:14:13
Colin had confessed to killing Alma while they were in the prison yard. Joseph corroborated
00:14:19
this, saying he overheard parts of the confession.
00:14:24
Thomas Brennan had explained to the jury why they should be wary of these claims. Sydney
00:14:29
and Joseph were convicted criminals with a history including assault, larceny, receiving
00:14:34
stolen goods, and even perjury. Not only were they known to one another, they were on
00:14:41
remand for a house breaking they committed together.
00:14:46
Sydney Harding had come forward to the police before the coronal inquest, but after the
00:14:51
big reward was announced. After establishing himself as a star prosecution witness, Sydney
00:14:58
was permitted to leave the confines of jail and to live in Farcosia lodging near the city.
00:15:05
It was a fitting prize for a man other prisoners referred to as a dog due to his reputation
00:15:10
as a snitch. Colin Ross knew of Sydney's dishonorable notoriety and in no way considered
00:15:18
him a friend. Thomas Brennan assumed the jury would realise how comical the whole setup
00:15:24
was. Why would his client trust the criminal he barely knew who had a reputation for leaking
00:15:30
information to police? During one prison visit, Colin's legal team had warned him, saying
00:15:38
nothing, they'll plant people in here to testify against you. It made no sense for him
00:15:44
to then go and divulge everything about the murder to a random inmate.
00:15:50
Joseph Dunston came forward to police after the coronal inquests, but before the trial.
00:15:56
He admitted that he'd spoken to Sydney before making his statement. Both men also revealed
00:16:03
that they'd read the daily paper together, which featured detailed updates on the Tursky
00:16:08
case. The stories included all the evidence, Colin's version of events, and the allegations
00:16:15
other witnesses had made against him. Another prisoner on remand with the two witnesses
00:16:21
claimed that he'd overheard Sydney told Joseph, "I have told you about Ross and I will fix
00:16:27
you up after the trial." Thomas Brennan knew better than most that assertions
00:16:35
made by prison snitches should be considered with extreme caution. Sydney and Joseph had
00:16:41
proven themselves liars in the past, pleading innocent for crimes they were ultimately found
00:16:46
guilty of. Criminals usually didn't help the police unless there was something in it
00:16:52
for them. The jury was told to consider the likelihood the pair were offered a deal to
00:16:58
testify against Colin. As for Ivy Matthews, the former bartender who claimed to have seen
00:17:07
Alma Tursky drinking in the private room behind the bar of the Australian wine saloon,
00:17:13
the defense had some serious doubts about her story. Ivy was first interviewed by detectives
00:17:19
almost a week after Alma's body was discovered. At that time, Ivy said she hadn't seen
00:17:26
Alma and knew nothing about what had happened to her. It was only weeks later that she came
00:17:32
forward to police with her story implicating Colin Ross in the crime. When asked why she
00:17:38
hadn't revealed this pertinent information during her first interview, Ivy said as a former
00:17:44
employee of Colin's, she felt a degree of loyalty to him. Both Ivy Matthews and Olive
00:17:51
Maddix claimed to have seen a girl matching Alma Tursky's description drinking at the saloon
00:17:57
on the afternoon of December 30. Colin had allegedly confessed to giving Alma upwards
00:18:03
of three glasses of wine prior to the attack. However, Alma's stomach had been examined
00:18:10
post-mortem patraces of alcohol and none were found. During Colin's trial, the defense pointed
00:18:18
out that both Ivy and Olive had added more damning claims against Colin every time they
00:18:24
were interviewed. Not only did they come forward after the 1000 pound reward was on offer,
00:18:31
they also revealed key information only when the same information had just been reported
00:18:36
by the press. Ivy and Olive were longtime friends who had admitted to having discussed the case
00:18:43
on multiple occasions before and after Colin's arrest. As far as the defense were concerned,
00:18:51
the two women had colluded to falsely accuse Colin in a bid to claim their reward money.
00:18:58
While the women claimed that they were amicable with Colin, he said otherwise. Olive and Colin
00:19:04
had a temperamental history with one another and hadn't spoken for months. Meanwhile, Ivy had
00:19:11
been aggressively demanding money from him that she felt was owed to her. She was also bitter
00:19:17
about having lost her job at the saloon with Colin asserting that Ivy would "do anything
00:19:24
for spite" to get even with him. Case file will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting
00:19:40
us by listening to this episode's sponsors. Thank you for listening to this episode's ads.
00:19:49
By supporting our sponsors, you support Case file to continue to deliver quality content.
00:20:06
As the defense pointed out, the only moments where the five key witnesses' stories aligned
00:20:11
was when they were presenting information that had been published in the papers. The other
00:20:16
mysteries of the case, such as how exactly Alma came to being the saloon and how her body
00:20:21
was disposed of, conflicted between accounts. Colin had allegedly told Ivy that Alma approached
00:20:29
him and asked for a drink. In Sydney's version of events, it was Colin who coaxed the girl into
00:20:36
his saloon. Ivy said she'd seen Alma in the room behind the bar at 3pm. While Olive said
00:20:44
she saw Alma at 5pm in the parlour. In Ivy's version, Alma was awakened alert when the attack
00:20:51
commenced. In Sydney's account, Alma was unconscious. Ivy said Colin had to driven back to the
00:20:59
city in the early hours while Sydney claimed he wrote a bicycle. Depending on the witness,
00:21:06
Alma's body was either driven or carried to gun alley. The timings of all these happenings
00:21:12
conflicted, and when taken as a whole, were completely incoherent. Colin's alleged descriptions of
00:21:21
Alma also didn't add up. Those who knew Alma best said she was a shy and naive girl with a quiet
00:21:28
temperament. Accounts from the so-called quintet of disrepidals had Colin saying Alma was a cheeky
00:21:36
little devil who demanded alcohol was forthright with men and sexually active.
00:21:42
The defense felt there was no way Colin could have interacted with Alma and come away with such an
00:21:48
inaccurate character assessment. None of this even took into account the assertions of other witnesses.
00:21:55
60 other customers visited the Australian white saloon on December 30. Based on the statements
00:22:03
provided by Olive Maddix and Ivy Matthews, Alma was in the saloon for upwards of three hours
00:22:09
that afternoon, yet aside from those two women, no one else saw her.
00:22:14
Two patrons said they'd shared a drink with Colin Ross and his brother Stanley in the room
00:22:21
behind the bar and remained there until closing time. They could say with utmost confidence
00:22:27
that Alma Tursky was not with them. These men, along with the other saloon patrons,
00:22:33
went to the police and vouched for Colin, unanimously stating that he was at the saloon between
00:22:39
two pm and closing time on December 30. They remembered him helping his brother behind the bar and
00:22:46
chatting to customers. Ivy Matthews claimed it was the following day of December 31 that Colin
00:22:53
led her out of the saloon and onto Little Collins Street where he confessed to Alma's murder.
00:22:59
But other patrons, including Florence Rugkin, had been in the saloon at the time. At no point did they
00:23:07
see Ivy Matthews there, nor did Colin leave the building at any time. If he disappeared from view,
00:23:15
it was for barely minutes at a time. According to Olive Maddix, Colin had made suspicious
00:23:22
comments to her about the Tursky case on January 5. But multiple witnesses asserted that Colin was
00:23:30
socialising at a home in West Melbourne that day, and Dollyf wasn't there. In the lead up to and
00:23:38
during the trial, each of the prosecution's witnesses were paid sustenance payments, which rewarded
00:23:45
witness cooperation. Post-conviction, they were each eligible to receive a share of the £1,000 reward.
00:23:57
Thomas Brennan hoped the jury would realise the danger of hinging a man's life or death on
00:24:03
conflicting circumstantial evidence. Yet, even if the jury had dismissed the witness's claims,
00:24:10
there was still the matter of the prosecution's smoking gun. Alma's hairs found on the blankets from
00:24:16
Colin's saloon. This was concrete evidence that she'd been there, the kind of evidence that was
00:24:23
impervious to deceit, pressure, or influence. Or was it? When the saloon closed down after failing
00:24:32
to secure a new liquor licence, most of its contents were taken to the Ross family home in
00:24:37
Fitzgrey, including the two blankets from the back room, one brown, one blue.
00:24:43
The blankets were often laid out on the veranda for guests to sit on. At no point did Colin's mother
00:24:51
Edie see any long red hairs on them. If there were any, she believed they'd likely come from a red-headed
00:24:59
female relative who had been staying over. When the blankets were taken into police custody,
00:25:06
they weren't secured in any way to avoid contamination. After being freely transported in a police car,
00:25:13
they were left on a detective's desk for an extended period of time until the analyst was ready
00:25:18
to examine them. The Ross trial marked the first conviction in Australasia using a scientific
00:25:25
comparison of hairs, and it was not as reliable as it seemed. The analysis was done on appearance alone.
00:25:33
The analyst who performed the comparison was a chemist by trade. He had no expert knowledge in
00:25:40
hair analysis and had never previously analysed any hair samples. While the hairs were all red in colour,
00:25:47
they varied in tone, length and texture. Colin admitted to bringing women into the saloon's
00:25:54
back room. Two red-haired women even testified to having combed their hair while in there,
00:26:00
using a mirror which hung above the couch where the blankets were laid.
00:26:03
Gladys, the friend Colin brought to his saloon on the night of December 30, also had a red hair.
00:26:10
Had the hairs being forcefully pulled from someone's scalp, one would expect they would still
00:26:17
contain their roots. However, only one of their hair still had its root attached.
00:26:22
In the state they were found in, the hairs aligned more with having fallen out naturally,
00:26:28
not forcefully. The one root the analyst did have was essentially useless. He couldn't compare it
00:26:36
to the sample of Alma's hair as it had been cut six inches from her scalp and therefore didn't
00:26:41
have any roots attached either. The analyst concluded that all the hairs had come from Alma,
00:26:48
but without a form of testing that could prove it, his findings were nothing more than personal opinion.
00:26:54
Colin had initially identified the brown blanket where 22 of the red hairs were found as having
00:27:02
been inside his saloon, but he later realised that he'd confused it with another blanket.
00:27:09
He now claimed that the one taken in his evidence had never been in his saloon.
00:27:14
When shown the exhibit, even former bartender Ivy Matthew said she'd never seen that blanket before.
00:27:21
Seaman stains found on the blue blanket were deemed evidence that Colin had raped Alma.
00:27:27
However, when the blanket was kept at the Ross House, several of Colin's brothers had sprawled on it
00:27:34
with their girlfriends. There was no way to test who the seamen originated from.
00:27:40
The torn up of blue fabric allegedly found on Foots Gray Road before Colin's trial wasn't a
00:27:46
reliable piece of evidence either. It had been given weight because it supported Sydney Harding
00:27:52
statement that Colin shredded Alma's clothing and scattered the pieces at that location after her murder.
00:27:58
The piece of fabric was never proven to have originated from Alma's clothing.
00:28:05
It was also surprisingly clean considering it had allegedly been on the side of a busy road for
00:28:10
months. Furthermore, the police had never even bothered to search the area where it was recovered.
00:28:17
Given the hoaxes that had arisen around Gunn Alley, it wasn't outrageous to consider that the
00:28:23
fabric could have been planted there. In any case, if Sydney's statement was alive, as the
00:28:30
defense argued, the fabric held no relevance at all. Even if Colin Ross had killed Alma Tursky,
00:28:41
in each alleged diversion of the crime, the manner in which the death occurred was described as
00:28:46
accidental, not deliberate. Ivy Matthews' original statement even contained the line,
00:28:53
Colin did not intend to kill her, a crucial point she failed to repeat a trial. The
00:29:01
defense felt that even if the confessions were true, Colin should have been charged with the
00:29:06
lesser crime of manslaughter. With all this in mind, Thomas Brennan couldn't believe Colin Ross
00:29:13
was handed a guilty verdict for murder. Expressing an opinion that was ahead of its time,
00:29:20
Brennan believed that the jury were unconsciously swayed by the sensational and salacious press.
00:29:26
Their articles inflamed public perception of Colin the moment he entered the investigation.
00:29:32
In Brennan's opinion, his client came into the dock convicted. He said,
00:29:39
"Never in the history of serious crimes in Victoria, or indeed in the British Empire,
00:29:46
has a man been convicted on such a jumbled mass of contradictions."
00:29:50
The only explanation is that the jury, quite unconsciously, formed opinions before they went
00:29:57
into the box, and with their judgments clouded by their natural indignation, they were unable to
00:30:03
view the matter dispassionately. In the months following Colin's trial, several jurors spoken
00:30:11
anonymously with their herald and newspaper. One said that during proceedings he'd locked
00:30:17
eyes with Colin who quickly averted his gaze. This one fleeting action led the jury to conclude
00:30:24
that Colin was a guilty man. Another said there was a fear among the jury of speaking critically
00:30:31
about the evidence presented against Colin, in case, quote, "The hand of public scorn might point
00:30:38
them out forever." He admitted that the jury had disregarded the claims by prosecution witness
00:30:45
Francis Upton, and there was scattered support for the others. The majority believed diving
00:30:52
Matthews, but only half believed Sydney Harding. The guilty verdict would have been reached in
00:30:59
minutes had it not been for two jurors expressing doubts that dragged the process out.
00:31:05
One of the dissenting jurors was an elderly man who broke down in tears when the verdict was
00:31:10
read out in court. Another became emotional once he got home, saying, "I never want to serve on
00:31:18
another jury charged with having to decide on a man's fate again."
00:31:22
The defense had presented all the points justifying Colin's innocence during the trial and still
00:31:32
lost. They couldn't pursue an appeal with the same information. With Florence Rudkin coming forward
00:31:39
post-conviction, Thomas Brennan had something new to work with, and Florence wasn't the only one.
00:31:46
Prompted by the conviction, Taxi Driver Joseph Graham came forward to Colin Ross's legal team
00:31:53
to detail his story about hearing a young girl screaming on Little Colin Street on the afternoon
00:31:58
of Friday, December 30, 1921. Although the police had been aware of this information,
00:32:05
and a second witness from Ballarat had corroborated it, this was the first time the defense had ever
00:32:11
heard of it. While detectives had taken notes, they never followed up with either of the men,
00:32:18
nor were further investigations made into the claims. The information was never given to the press
00:32:24
to see if anyone else could elaborate on it. Neither Joseph Graham, nor the man from Ballarat,
00:32:30
were contacted to participate in the coronal inquest, or murder trial, relating to amateursky's death.
00:32:37
Two critics of the investigation, the men's exclusion highlighted the detective's attitude
00:32:43
towards evidence that vindicated Colin. The level of disinterest from authorities
00:32:49
about these witness accounts resulted in the name and contact details of the Ballarat man,
00:32:54
getting misplaced. Thomas Brennan took chief responsibility for appealing Colin's verdict.
00:33:01
When he made the application, he asked the court of criminal appeal for time. After all,
00:33:08
two new and extraordinary witnesses had come forward, and he needed to investigate their claims
00:33:14
thoroughly. The judges weren't willing to hold up proceedings to allow such investigations to
00:33:20
take place. Brennan told them, "Surely, in a case of life and death, time should be given to prepare
00:33:28
the appeal." His request was denied, and the appeal was scheduled to take place one week later.
00:33:35
Colin Ross appeared for the four-day hearing. He was worn, as he hadn't been sleeping,
00:33:43
and was in a constant state of anxiety. As a man on death row, he was isolated from other
00:33:48
prisoners and was only let out into the yard when it was empty. From there, he had a full view of the
00:33:55
gallows. Due to the lack of preparation time, Thomas Brennan wasn't able to schedule all the
00:34:02
witnesses he'd intended to present at Colin's appeal. He had to work with what he had, hoping it
00:34:08
would be enough. During the appeal process, a third new witness approached the Ross family.
00:34:17
His name was George Crilly, and he'd been motivated to come forward after reading about Colin's
00:34:22
ordeal, and the implication of police suppression and manipulation of evidence.
00:34:27
George claimed that on the afternoon of Friday, December 30, 1921, he was walking up
00:34:34
little Colin Street between 1.30 and 1.45 pm, when he noticed a girl matching Amateursky's description.
00:34:43
A man was following uncomfortably close behind her, so much so that George felt an urge to confront him.
00:34:50
A short time later, George's attention was drawn to the facade of the eastern arcade.
00:34:56
The man and girl were standing there together, talking.
00:35:01
George didn't know who the man was, but it wasn't Colin Ross.
00:35:09
George had given this information to police during their investigations, and was questioned
00:35:14
several times over the matter, but nothing further was done. When Thomas Brennan informed the court
00:35:21
of criminal appeal of George Crilly's story, the chief justice replied,
00:35:25
"There is nothing remarkable in somebody seen talking to a little girl."
00:35:30
Brennan argued otherwise, and while the judges agreed to consider George's statement,
00:35:38
they decided that they'd hear no further evidence and immediately retired to consider their verdict.
00:35:43
When it was time to make their announcement, the chief justice stated that it was not
00:35:49
part of the court's function to put aside the verdict of a jury unless a miscarriage of justice
00:35:55
could be proven. With that, he announced that Colin Ross's appeal was denied.
00:36:03
Colin sat quietly while his mother and Florence Ruggans sobbed behind him.
00:36:08
Colin was taken back to prison to await his death sentence.
00:36:12
Thomas Brennan filed a new appeal this time with the High Court. The proceedings commenced
00:36:21
to just weeks before Colin was due to be executed. The High Court judges respected the jury's decision
00:36:28
and rejected most of the grounds brought forth by the defense. One judge acknowledged that
00:36:35
while Colin's two alleged confessions varied in facts, both ultimately had him admit to raping
00:36:41
and killing Almaterchki. Quote, "If there is any inconsistency, it is an inconsistency in the
00:36:49
prison's statement, not any inconsistency in the evidence of the witnesses to the alleged confessions."
00:36:57
The High Court, by a majority of four to one, rejected the motion for a retrial.
00:37:02
Colin cried out, "I am innocent, and if they hang me, they will hang an innocent man."
00:37:10
Edie Ross sold the family home to fund her son's appeals. She fought desperately for his life,
00:37:21
taking her campaign all the way to high-ranking religious leaders, politicians,
00:37:26
and even the attorney general. She brought along a bundle of letters from sympathetic members
00:37:32
of the public and a petition against Colin's conviction with 2000 signatures of support.
00:37:37
The public perception of Colin was shifting. As a result of their actions post-trial,
00:37:46
the integrity of the prosecution's star witnesses were being questioned.
00:37:51
Having essentially been identified as a grifter, Frank Upton adopted an alias and fled the state
00:37:57
fearing retribution from Colin's supporters. Sydney Harding and Joseph Dunston were convicted of
00:38:03
their joint house breaking charge, though Sydney was granted early release, and Joseph was pardoned.
00:38:10
This added credence to the theory the men were offered deals to testify against Colin Ross.
00:38:18
Olive Maddix wound up imprisoned for sex work and drunkenness.
00:38:21
Ivy Matthews gave an interview to the Midnight Sun newspaper about the Tursky case
00:38:27
that was full of inaccuracies, with the publication concluding.
00:38:31
The question of to what extent Matthews can be relied on, either in speaking of herself or
00:38:38
others, is a very open one indeed. While most Australians still believed in Colin's guilt,
00:38:46
some felt capital punishment should be reserved for the most cold blooded and calculated offenders.
00:38:52
Letters were sent to the governor seeking mercy for Colin, while others asked that he at least
00:38:59
be given a proper opportunity to prove his innocence. Edie Ross was nevertheless fighting an uphill
00:39:06
battle. When she told one politician, "My boy is as innocent as me." The politician responded,
00:39:15
"I am perfectly satisfied that you are wasting your time and money."
00:39:20
She managed to get the attorney general to acknowledge there were weaknesses in the prosecution's case,
00:39:27
but he refused to halt the execution.
00:39:30
On the morning of, Colin's family went to see him one last time.
00:39:38
They struggled to find any words, but Colin was talkative and appeared accepting of his fate.
00:39:46
He expressed his gratitude for their belief in him and encouraged them to live on without him.
00:39:51
His mother reassured him that she'd continued to fight for him until her last breath.
00:39:57
She wasn't permitted to hug Colin, so the brief meeting ended with an unceremonious,
00:40:04
verbal farewell. More than 1,000 people encircled Melbourne jail on the morning of Colin's
00:40:12
execution. In his final moments, Colin sat quietly with a reverent and wrote a letter to his family.
00:40:19
It rared in part. "Goodbye, my darling mother and brothers. On this, the last day of my life,
00:40:28
I want to tell you that I love you more than ever. Do not fear, for I know God will be with me.
00:40:36
Try it to forgive my enemies, let God deal with them. Do not fret too much for me. The day is coming when
00:40:43
my innocence will be proved." When the cell door opened, Colin remained silent. He handed the
00:40:53
reverent the Bible he'd possessed during his incarceration, then placed his hand on the reverent
00:40:58
shoulders in a way described as "more eloquent than words." Colin was then led to the gallows.
00:41:07
An experimental four-strand rope was used for the occasion, though never again, as it ended up
00:41:15
taking upwards of 20 minutes for Colin Ross to die. Colin's prison Bible was passed on to his mother.
00:41:24
The inside was full of annotations and alterations he'd made to the text to make it relevant to
00:41:30
his current circumstances. They depicted a man fighting desperately against the world determined
00:41:37
to condemn him, with lines like "false witnesses rose up against me. They laid to my charge things
00:41:45
that I knew not. Time will tell." And the police, wickedness, is in the midst thereof,
00:41:54
deceit and guile depart not from her streets. Melbourne.
00:42:00
On one page, Colin underlined the words "full of bribes" and wrote next to it.
00:42:07
This is our police force, which our people think so much of.
00:42:13
With the execution of Colin Ross, the gun alley murder, as it came to be known, faded from
00:42:21
headlines until eventually people stopped talking about it altogether. Edie Ross maintained her
00:42:28
promise to fight for her son's name. She wrote a letter to the people of Australia that urged,
00:42:34
"I view with horror the awful crime for which my son was wrongly executed.
00:42:41
I quite understand the indignation and wrath that must sway the judgment of the public at the
00:42:47
committal of the shocking deed. But, as his mother, I protest with all my soul that my boy should
00:42:54
be made the innocent victim of that indignation and wrath. I have gone from place to place,
00:43:01
from one to another, pleading for my boy's life, pleading for justice and mercy, only to be turned
00:43:09
away without hope. As my dear son Colin has suffered all that the law can do to him,
00:43:16
I now make her mother's appeal to the public of Australia to help me clear my son's name
00:43:22
from the terrible stigma that has been placed upon it."
00:43:27
Melbourne, however, was prepared to move on and it did.
00:43:38
Case file will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors.
00:43:56
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00:44:01
you support Case file to continue to deliver quality content.
00:44:05
71 years later, in 1993, a retrospective exhibition on Australian artist Charles Blackman was
00:44:20
hold at the National Gallery of Victoria, titled "School Girls and Angels" that featured a series
00:44:26
of paintings and drawings Blackman produced in the 1950s depicting bleak, deserted cityscapes
00:44:32
reminiscent of Melbourne in the 1920s. A girl wearing a school uniform and a straw hat
00:44:38
wandered among the streets as if lost, her eyes wide in fear.
00:44:42
37-year-old Kevin Morgan was a trainee librarian at the National Gallery.
00:44:49
Every time he walked to his workspace, he passed Blackman's art.
00:44:53
Kevin didn't know what inspired the menacing images, but they intrigued him.
00:44:59
He found himself asking, "Who was this mysterious child?"
00:45:04
He later explained, quote, "There was something about her, haunting and taunted,
00:45:11
that seemed to beg the heart. This child had a sense of death around her."
00:45:18
Seeking an explanation, Kevin read a catalog about Charles Blackman that contained quotes
00:45:23
from an interview he'd given many years earlier. Blackman discussed his inspiration for the artwork,
00:45:30
saying, "A schoolgirl was once murdered in the lane near the old eastern market,
00:45:36
and it left a direct and languished effect on me."
00:45:38
Kevin Morgan had never heard of Elmetersky, but Blackman's confronting art had drove him to learn
00:45:46
more about her case. By that point, the families of the victim and the convicted and all the witnesses
00:45:53
and investigators involved in the original case had passed away. Key locations like Gun Alley and
00:46:00
the eastern arcade no longer existed. Still, Kevin dug up as much information as he could,
00:46:07
examining newspaper archives and the writings of Defence Attorney Thomas Brennan.
00:46:13
The more Kevin studied the case, the more he came to realize it featured two innocent victims.
00:46:18
The obvious one was Elmetersky. The other was Colin Ross.
00:46:24
Although Colin had died 34 years before Kevin was born, Kevin could feel Colin's presence in
00:46:32
everything he read. It felt as though he was crying out for his name to be cleared.
00:46:38
Kevin left his job to devote the next seven years of his life to conducting a deep dive into the
00:46:44
Tersky case. He reached out to the living relatives of those involved and obtained Colin's old
00:46:50
prison Bible which had been stored in a shed. Upon taking in all the messages Colin had
00:46:57
scrolled in it, Kevin was deeply affected. He accessed the original court documents, absorbing
00:47:04
the mess of contradictions and anomalies in the prosecution witness testimony. He read about the
00:47:10
witnesses who had gone ignored, but whose recollections might have rescued Colin from the gallows.
00:47:16
But the biggest revelation was yet to come.
00:47:20
As Kevin examined the archives of the Office of Public Prosecutions Library, he made a discovery.
00:47:27
Upon looking inside an old forgotten box, he came across an envelope marked with the words,
00:47:34
on his majesty's service. Inside were several white cards with a small amount of hair stocked to
00:47:41
them. One card was labelled as "Almatersky's hair". The other held the hairs lifted from Colin
00:47:48
Ross's brown blanket. In 1922, these hairs played a major role in securing Colin's conviction.
00:47:57
Even after so many years, they were as vibrant a red hue as ever. Kevin had been told that all
00:48:05
the physical evidence pertaining to the case had been destroyed, so this was a major find.
00:48:10
With the advancement of forensic technology, Kevin sought to have the hair reexamined.
00:48:16
A long bureaucratic and legal battle followed. It took three years, but Kevin was finally permitted
00:48:25
to carry out the tests. In 1998, the results were in. An analyst from the Victorian Institute of
00:48:34
forensic medicine concluded that the hairs were easily differentiated at the microscopic level.
00:48:40
There were very clear differences in colour, pigmentation and other features.
00:48:45
They had not originated from the same scalp as had been claimed during Colin Ross's murder trial.
00:48:54
The samples were retested by the Federal Police Investigation Unit, who concluded,
00:48:59
the hairs from the brown blanket could not have come from Almatersky.
00:49:05
In 2005, Kevin Morgan released a book on his findings titled "Gone Alley, Murder, Lies and
00:49:16
Failure of Justice". That year, assisted by legal experts, he prepared a petition to the Victorian
00:49:23
government asking for the verdict in Almatersky's murder to be annulled. Such requests were typically
00:49:31
made by the convicted person themselves, but this was the first time in Australian legal history
00:49:36
that the request was made posthumously. Kevin had been given permission to go ahead by both Colin
00:49:43
and Dalma's living relatives, who all signed the petition. The attorney general considered
00:49:50
the petition for a year before referring the matter to the chief justice of the Supreme Court of
00:49:55
Victoria. Fourteen months later, after the court's most senior judges had poured through all the
00:50:02
new and old evidence of the case, a report was completed. They concluded that if the 1922 jury
00:50:10
were given access to the recent hair test results, Colin Ross would have been found to not guilty.
00:50:17
The trial was formally ruled a miscarriage of justice.
00:50:21
Referring to the case as a "travesty", the attorney general presented a framed letter of pardon
00:50:28
for Colin Ross that was handed to members of his and the Torsky families.
00:50:33
One of Colin's nieces felt a great sense of relief, saying,
00:50:38
"I had lived with this fear and doubt for most of my life. The more so was I began to have children
00:50:45
that perhaps I carried the jeans of a murderer. That shadow has gone."
00:50:51
Alma's relatives felt the pardon wasn't enough. A second cousin of hers said,
00:50:59
"A pardon means I am forgiving you for something you have done.
00:51:03
Shouldn't it rather be an exoneration, which means I accept you didn't do this in the first place?"
00:51:12
Nevertheless, they were grateful for the impact the pardon would have on the country's collective
00:51:17
memory of Alma. One of Alma's nieces said, "The pardon has also helped restore the reputation of
00:51:25
Alma because it shows that she didn't enter the wine bar, as was said in the trial. She was a good girl."
00:51:32
Colin's remains were ordered to be removed from the unmarked prison grave they were resting in,
00:51:39
so he could be given a proper burial. Melbourne jail had long since been decommissioned,
00:51:45
and the remains of deceased prisoners buried there were moved around and re-barried at different
00:51:50
sites. Colin's remains were in a coffin shared by three other men, and it took years to
00:51:56
track down where exactly they had been placed, and which remains among them belonged to Colin.
00:52:03
In October 2010, Colin's relatives held a funeral service on his behalf on the site where he'd been
00:52:10
executed. The relatives of our Matersky attended in a show of solidarity. One of Colin's relatives
00:52:18
stated, "This morning we leave behind us the cold stones of the Melbourne jail. Colin is at last
00:52:25
set free. He is with his family once again." Colin's remains were cremated and interred beside
00:52:33
those of his mother in rural Victoria. Kevin Morgan, whose actions led to Colin Ross' vindication,
00:52:42
told the age newspaper. "A big stain on the legal system has finally been expunged,
00:52:49
and a shadow on two Australian families has also been lifted. That justice has finally
00:52:55
been done for the Ross and Tursky families after 86 years is a tremendous outcome."
00:53:00
Reflecting on the entire experience for his book, Kevin said,
00:53:06
17 years earlier, as I walked through the pitcher gallery pondering the identity of Charles Blackman's
00:53:13
schoolgirl, I could not have guessed what ordinary people could do, let alone achieve in the face of
00:53:20
a perceived injustice. With Colin Ross pardoned, the question remained. Who killed our Matersky?
00:53:31
Based on the known facts of the case, Kevin Morgan was surprised Colin Ross was ever considered
00:53:38
a suspect. He had no history of sexual based offending, and in Kevin's words, he was
00:53:45
an impulsive, bungling criminal, acting without forefoot, as exemplified by him proposing at
00:53:51
gunpoint and the planned robbery that went awry. He could be stupid to put it frankly.
00:53:58
In contrast, Kevin concluded Almer's killer was, "Someone possessed of a clear mind,
00:54:07
capable of thinking ahead, and aware of the sorts of clues that might disclose his identity.
00:54:13
This person was not stupid or careless, may indeed have been educated,
00:54:18
and appears to have known about techniques of crime detection as they were then applied,
00:54:23
and the state of forensic medicine in 1922."
00:54:26
Other known child killers were tenuously linked to Almer, but none were considered genuine
00:54:34
suspects. While researching his book, Kevin Morgan collated all the information provided by Almer's
00:54:41
younger sister, Viola, who was 10 years old in 1921. In doing so, Kevin discovered a chilling secret.
00:54:50
After Almer's murder, Viola was plagued by nightmares of being pursued by a male figure
00:54:57
through dark places. Sometimes she'd have visions of the man poking his head through her bedroom window.
00:55:05
During one nightmare, he entered Viola's room and told her, "I came home at one o'clock."
00:55:11
Viola believed that the man in her nightmares was George Murphy, the husband of one of her older cousins.
00:55:20
She sensed George was a pedophile and that he'd wanted to sexually assault her from a young age.
00:55:26
It all started when she was around six or seven years old and he rubbed her legs in an inappropriate
00:55:33
manner. From then onwards, Viola felt George was trying to groom her.
00:55:38
She took to hiding in a wardrobe whenever he visited and asked other family members to keep
00:55:45
close to her whenever he was around. On one occasion, he chased her out onto the street and continued
00:55:52
to pursue her until she reached safety. When Viola was 16, George asked her to marry him.
00:56:00
She refused. Viola didn't tell anyone about George's actions at the time as she felt no one would
00:56:07
believe her. Her silence was fueled by the era's conservative culture, as the topic of sex,
00:56:14
even non-consensual sex, was never openly discussed. In an interview in 1997, Viola revealed that
00:56:23
she wasn't questioned by anybody, including the police, about her sister's murder.
00:56:29
Therefore, she never implicated George Murphy in the crime, saying,
00:56:33
"I was kept right out of it, right out of it all together."
00:56:39
Kevin Morgan discovered that in December 1921, George Murphy was working as a draftman for the
00:56:50
office of the Register General and Register of Titles. His office was on Queen Street in Melbourne's
00:56:57
CBD, which intersected all the main thoroughfares relevant to the Tursky case, including Birk,
00:57:03
Little Collins and Collins Streets. Kevin theorized that after unsuccessfully grooming Viola,
00:57:12
George Murphy set his sights on Alma. Of the two sisters, Alma was the more trusting and obedient,
00:57:19
a befitting target for a child predator. If Alma hadn't duet any form of sexual abuse,
00:57:26
it was reasonable to assume she wouldn't have spoken out about it.
00:57:30
The fact that it involved a family member would have made it even more unmentionable.
00:57:35
Maybe her uncle-in-law had scared her silent.
00:57:39
A month before her murder, Alma told her friends that a spiritualist had warned that she'd die soon.
00:57:47
Although this story was proven false, Kevin Morgan wondered whether Alma was exposing a very real
00:57:54
fear she had within a fictitious narrative. George Murphy could have threatened to kill Alma if she
00:58:01
exposed his crimes. When George learnt Alma was leaving Melbourne to live with her father in
00:58:07
regional Victoria, he might have feared losing control of her. Outside of his reach,
00:58:14
she could be compelled to expose him. As Kevin theorized, George might have felt like he had to
00:58:21
silence her once and for all. By the time Kevin Morgan began looking into George Murphy
00:58:28
as a suspect in the Tursky case, the records of his former employer were no longer available.
00:58:34
Therefore, George's whereabouts that day couldn't be proven.
00:58:38
When Alma had arrived at the butcher shop on the day of her disappearance, she wasn't in a state
00:58:45
of distress. Therefore, Kevin Morgan believed that her ordeal began shortly after she left the shop.
00:58:52
Witnesses had reported seeing a man following Alma along Little Collins Street before confronting
00:58:59
her outside the Eastern Arcade. Alma wasn't inclined to speak to strangers, so it was possible
00:59:06
that she knew the man. Alma had been instructed to leave the parcel of meat at her aunt's flat,
00:59:14
knowing that the flat itself would be empty. In a move that was completely out of character for
00:59:20
a girl who wrote a school essay titled "Judy First," Alma instead slowly and nervously
00:59:26
wandered around at the neighboring streets, avoiding her intended destination.
00:59:30
According to Kevin Morgan, quote, "The meeting altered Alma's course. She diverged from her route
00:59:39
to her aunt's flat 10 minutes away because it was no longer a sanctuary."
00:59:44
Kevin considered whether Alma had told the man where she was headed and then
00:59:51
stored for time out of fear that he would go there and wait for her. Perhaps she was seeking
00:59:56
safety by remaining in a public populated area. She wandered into the Eastern Arcade only to realize
01:00:04
it wasn't a suitable space for lone children, so she headed back outside. Shortly after this,
01:00:10
the screams of a distressed young girl were heard echoing up Little Collins Street.
01:00:15
When speaking to the press in January 1922, investigators leading the Tursky case assured the public
01:00:29
no piece of information was disregarded and every supposed clue was subjected to the closest scrutiny.
01:00:35
At that time, the case's lead detective, Fred Piggitt, was considered a real life Sherlock Holmes.
01:00:44
A hard-nosed detective with a knife in detail, Piggitt was a celebrity due to his work on many
01:00:51
high-profile homicide cases. He was widely regarded as one of the best detectives of his era.
01:00:58
His work on the Tursky case not only earned him accolades and respect, but credited him as helping
01:01:05
bring forensic science into Australian courtrooms. Detective Piggitt had passed away by the time Colin
01:01:13
Ross was pardoned. During his illustrious career, he was involved in a case involving a husband
01:01:19
accused of fatally shooting his wife. In a groundbreaking move, Piggitt carried out what was then
01:01:26
the first example of blood spatter interpretation in a Victorian criminal case. He determined that
01:01:33
the killing was in fact a suicide and his work saved the accused from being executed.
01:01:39
What exactly went wrong for Piggitt in the Tursky case will never be fully understood.
01:01:46
He was the type of detective to put in the work to ensure justice was correctly served,
01:01:52
but had failed spectacularly in that instance. It's believed that Piggitt put too much faith in
01:01:59
the analysis of their hair evidence, even though it wasn't reliable. Still, this didn't answer why
01:02:07
so many significant pieces of evidence that exonerated Colin Ross went willfully ignored.
01:02:13
In 1961, Detective Piggitt gave an interview that touched on the Tursky case,
01:02:20
during which he stated, "The public were clamoring for police action and the politicians,
01:02:27
of course, were harassing us. We survived the uproar long enough to plump for the theory that
01:02:33
Ross ravished and strangled Alma in the saloon. But we were well aware that our evidence was only
01:02:40
circumstantial." He also said, "While I suspected Ross, we desired to build up the chain of evidence
01:02:50
that was being forged against him." In his book on the case, Kevin Morgan added his own thoughts
01:02:57
to this assertion, writing, "Thus, when a piece of evidence could not be forged into a link,
01:03:04
it seems it was simply discarded."
01:03:06
Throughout his time as Colin's attorney, Thomas Brennan had received many letters.
01:03:17
Some warned him against helping Colin, while others expressed their support of the condemned man.
01:03:23
There were even multiple alleged confessions from someone claiming to be Alma Tursky's real killer.
01:03:29
Brennan easily recognized the confessions as hoaxes. Some had been panned by Colin's supporters
01:03:37
in the hopes they could somehow prevent his execution. But on Sunday, April 23, 1922,
01:03:45
the eve before Colin Ross was set to be executed, an anonymous letter arrived at Brennan's office
01:03:51
that he felt was genuine. The author left behind no identifying information,
01:03:58
say for a postmark indicating the letter had been sent from a country town in Victoria.
01:04:02
As reproduced in Brennan's book on the case, titled "The Gun Alley Tragedy," the letter read,
01:04:12
to Colin Ross at Melbourne Jail. You have been condemned for a crime which you never committed,
01:04:20
and are to suffer for another's fault. Since your conviction you have no doubt
01:04:26
wondered what manner of man the real murderer is, and who could not only encompass the girl's death,
01:04:32
but allow you to suffer in his stead. My dear Ross, if it is any satisfaction for you to know it,
01:04:40
believe me that you will die but once, but he will continue to die for the rest of his life.
01:04:46
Honored and formed upon by those who know him, the smile upon his lips but hides the canker
01:04:54
eating into his soul. Day and night, his life is a hell without the hope of reprieve.
01:05:01
Gladly would he take your place on Monday next if he had himself alone to consider?
01:05:08
His reason, then briefly stated, is this. A devoted and loving mother is ill. A shock would be fatal.
01:05:17
Himself he will sacrifice when his mother passes away. He will do it by his own hand. He will
01:05:26
board the ferry across the sticks with a lie on his lips, with the only hope that religion is a myth
01:05:33
and a death annihilation. It is too painful for him to go into the details of the crime.
01:05:41
It is simply a jackal and hired existence. By a freak of nature, he was not made as other men.
01:05:49
This girl was not the first, with a procurus, all things are possible.
01:05:57
In this case, there was no intention of murder. The victim unexpectedly collapsed.
01:06:03
May it be some satisfaction to yourself, your devoted mother and the members of your family
01:06:10
to know that at least one of the legions of the damned, who is the cause of your death,
01:06:16
is suffering the pangs of hell. He may not ask your forgiveness or sympathy,
01:06:23
but he asks for your understanding.
01:06:33
[Music]
01:06:55
[BLANK_AUDIO]
how the hell can they even verify facts from that long ago? too old
I could not get into this story. Hard to follow and too drawn out.
bad day?
FUCK Casefile/Casey has changed. I truly miss the....... Monotone, not so polished episodes. EVERY podcast I loved SUCKS after it's full of ads and OVER editing/scriptung.