The Gun Alley Murder was the rape and murder of 12-year-old Alma Tirtschke in Melbourne, Australia, in 1921. She was a schoolgirl who attended Hawthorn West High School and had last been seen alive close to a drinking establishment, the Australian Wine Saloon; under these circumstances her murder caused a sensation. More recently, the case has become well known as a miscarriage of justice.
Murder
Tirtschke's task that day had been to go from her grandmother's house in Jolimont to the butchers Bennet and Woolcock Pty. Ltd. on Swanston Street, collect a parcel of meat, drop it at an aunt's Collins Street home and return to Jolimont. It was uncharacteristic for Tirtschke to take so long on her errands. A witness said he saw a man following Tirtschke. Reliable witnesses who had nothing to lose or gain by telling police what they knew said Tirtschke was dawdling, apprehensive and obviously afraid. Just a few metres away from the Australian Wine Saloon in the Eastern Arcade, between Bourke and Little Collins Streets, where Alfred Place runs off Little Collins Street, Tirtschke was last seen about 3 pm on 30 December 1921. Her naked body was found early the next morning in a lane running east off Gun Alley, not far from Alfred Place.
Investigation
Following the discovery of the body, the owner of the Australian Wine Saloon, Colin Campbell Ross, was charged with her rape and murder. The case against him was based on the evidence of two witnesses, plus some strands of red hair, apparently from Tirtschke's head, which provided a vital connection between Ross and the murder. Ross protested his innocence but was hanged. Ross's lawyer Thomas Brennan was convinced of his client's innocence and tried in vain to have the case appealed all the way to the Privy Council. Brennan would later go on to become an Australian senator. The two witnesses were later considered by many to be unreliable, both having had a motive to lie. The only credible piece of evidence was the red hair that connected Ross to the case. Ross could account for his movements at the time Tirtschke disappeared, and later that night, when her body was dumped in Gun Alley. With nothing to hide, Ross had told detectives who interviewed him that a little girl matching Tirtschke's description had passed his saloon, but that this was his only connection with the victim. More reliable forensic examinations in the 1990s disproved the red hair connection and showed that Ross was probably innocent. Ross was granted a pardon on 22 May 2008, the date on which the Victorian governor, as the Queen's representative, signed it. The pardon was announced publicly on 27 May 2008. It is the first – and to date only – pardon for a judicially executed person in Australia. In the book which led to Ross's pardon, author Kevin Morgan revealed for the first time the evidence missed by the police in their original investigation and identified by name Tirtschke's probable killer.
The Gun Alley Murder is depicted in 1982's Squizzy Taylor, a film about the eponymous Melbourne gangster. The film portrays Taylor assisting the authorities with the case by intimidating supposed witnesses into revealing what they know about Ross.
