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Gun Alley
"Gun Alley is the riveting story of how botched policework, trial by media and lynch-law hysteria spawned a staggering conspiracy to convict and hang an innocent man, and reveals for the first time the vital clues -- missed in the original investigation -- that point, more than 80 years on, to the true killer."
Unknown Binding
First published May 1, 2012
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About the author
Kevin Morgan
88 books5 followersKevin Morgan is an Australian author and researcher renowned for his investigative work into historical legal injustices. His notable book, "Gun Alley: Murder, Lies and Failure of Justice," delves into the 1921 wrongful conviction and execution of Colin Campbell Ross for the murder of 12-year-old Alma Tirtschke in Melbourne. Morgan's meticulous research played a pivotal role in posthumously pardoning Ross in 2008, marking Australia's first pardon of a judicially executed individual.
Beyond "Gun Alley," Morgan has authored several other works, including a biography of Ramsay MacDonald, reflecting his diverse interests and commitment to uncovering historical truths.
Beyond "Gun Alley," Morgan has authored several other works, including a biography of Ramsay MacDonald, reflecting his diverse interests and commitment to uncovering historical truths.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 17, 2009
This is part of what is my telling of this story. I have taken friends on walks around Melbourne to the sites of the various key places involved in this story. This story can all too easily become an obsession.
The Gun Alley story almost always begins in the same way. A bottle-o and his daughter are wandering through the early morning streets of the city collecting bottles that have been discarded into the gutters and laneways when they discover the body of a naked twelve year old girl lying on the bluestones of Gun Alley off Little Collins Street. The murdered girl had been raped and then strangled, it seemed, with a thin cord.
You see, the bottle-o and daughter always begin this story not just because it is an image of great pathos. It is also an image that plays with dark archetypes and taboos that confront us in ways few other images are capable of doing.
The idea of a man and his pre-pubescent daughter discovering the naked, murdered body of another pre-pubescent daughter is reminiscent of something from a folk tale or from Ovid. Not just because of the standard incest taboos that make any sexually charged scene which parents and their children are forced to endure together – but more because this is an acting out (if vicariously) of every parent’s worst nightmare. In fact, the vicarious nature of the nightmare actually adds horror to the story, as no father would ever want to show his daughter the body of a raped and murdered little girl about his daughter’s own age. A body so horribly violated that it is clear that the father is not going to be able to cover the horrors of this scene from his daughter. Once this door has been opened at all, and the first glimpse is taken of what is kept within this bloody chamber, there is no closing the door again.
The other reason why starting the story here is so compelling is that it directly mirrors how the public came to hear of the story. Up until Alma’s body was found no one believed she was really ‘missing’ accept her grandmother who had stayed up all night awaiting word that she was all right.
This story begins with the undeniable fact of Alma’s dead, naked body, but it quickly becomes apparent that the fact that Alma is dead is about the only certain fact available.
Melbourne’s obsession with the story begins immediately –1500 people a day start parading through Gun Alley to view the scene. Because it was known that Alma had first gone to her uncle’s butcher shop to collect a parcel of meat someone decides to leave a parcel of meat at the scene – another leaves shoe buttons – both as fake evidence. Finally the police leave someone at the scene to prevent sightseers. In the rush to gather further evidence a police car is dispatched which subsequently drives too quickly around a corner and overturns, injuring the detectives inside. The whole investigation starts to sound like something from the Keystone Cops – which is something the papers are more than happy to point out.
And when I say papers, I mean The Herald. Rupert Murdoch’s father, Keith, has just become editor of the paper and the paper is not doing well. If he is going to turn the paper around he needs to find a way to boost circulation – and his method of choice is to keep the Gun Alley Murder on the front page for as long as is humanly possible. On the day of the verdict people were so keen to get hold of a copy of the paper that windows were broken at newsstands.
Colin Ross had had run-ins with the police before. There had been a shooting at his wine bar, located across the road from Gun Alley, some months before and the police had nearly put him in gaol for his involvement with that until his barmaid changed her story and the police case fell apart. All the same, they made sure Colin could not renew his liquor licence and so the day Alma’s body was discovered was Colin’s last day as a bar owner.
The Herald became increasingly frantic in its stories about the horrors of the case – every day the paper filled its columns with reports of the failings of the police investigation and with speculations about who had been involved in the murder (the local Chinese were suspected since the murder occurred a block away from China Town, but the simple-minded were also prime suspects as only someone with a mental deficiency could have committed such a crime and so this was another clear reason to push for Eugenics). And there were riots on the streets with the door of someone’s house being smashed open as rumours became believed and then acted upon. Finally, a huge reward was offered for information leading to an arrest of whoever had done this murder – so much money that finding the murderer would be like winning the lottery.
Colin Ross couldn’t know it, but his days were numbered and a series of threads were coming together (stop me before I say, that would twist into the rope that would eventually hang him… Damn, too late…)
This story is the realisation of the line from Yeats’ The Second Coming – where the best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with a passionate intensity. There is a Russian Princess who is working as a Spiritualist, a number of prostitutes, a scorned woman who could just as easily be Iago from Othello, a blind defence Barrister, a hero who never quite succeeds, and villains that lie and cheat and in the end are rewarded for their foul deeds.
I learnt about this story years before the book came out – I’m lucky enough to even be mentioned in the acknowledgements, something I’m terribly proud of. I began researching this murder and like Kevin Morgan had come to the conclusion that Colin was innocent. I felt this story was important in so many ways – and not the least because of what it says about the nature of justice and the problem of capital punishment. When I first met Kevin I had spent three months researching this case - he had spent 7 years. In the end I guess he probably spent 10 years fulltime researching this book. Kevin believes he knows who committed the murder and much of the last part of this book is devoted to explaining why he believes this.
What is beyond question is that Kevin has proven Colin Ross’s innocence – and in doing so has even achieved a pardon for him from the State Government.
This is a remarkable story, a challenging story, and an incredibly painful story. To make their case stick against Colin the prosecution had to make Alma a slut in the minds of the jury. They had to make her a victim twice over – in deed and in memory. This is a story of prejudice and fear and greed. It is also a very human story showing both the dark and light sides of we humans, we all too flawed creatures.
I would love to tell you about the jury that convicted Colin, about Ivy’s lies, about the feathers and the wine bottle covered in blood, of Charles Blackman’s series of drawings that were inspired by this murder, of the man impersonating one of the detectives involved in the case so as to pass off fake cheques – but most of this has been done already by Kevin Morgan in this truly remarkable book.
The last I heard there was talk of making this into a film – this would make a remarkably breathtaking film. If you can get your hands on this book, I can’t recommend it too highly. It is a story, I am sure, that will haunt me all my life.
The Gun Alley story almost always begins in the same way. A bottle-o and his daughter are wandering through the early morning streets of the city collecting bottles that have been discarded into the gutters and laneways when they discover the body of a naked twelve year old girl lying on the bluestones of Gun Alley off Little Collins Street. The murdered girl had been raped and then strangled, it seemed, with a thin cord.
You see, the bottle-o and daughter always begin this story not just because it is an image of great pathos. It is also an image that plays with dark archetypes and taboos that confront us in ways few other images are capable of doing.
The idea of a man and his pre-pubescent daughter discovering the naked, murdered body of another pre-pubescent daughter is reminiscent of something from a folk tale or from Ovid. Not just because of the standard incest taboos that make any sexually charged scene which parents and their children are forced to endure together – but more because this is an acting out (if vicariously) of every parent’s worst nightmare. In fact, the vicarious nature of the nightmare actually adds horror to the story, as no father would ever want to show his daughter the body of a raped and murdered little girl about his daughter’s own age. A body so horribly violated that it is clear that the father is not going to be able to cover the horrors of this scene from his daughter. Once this door has been opened at all, and the first glimpse is taken of what is kept within this bloody chamber, there is no closing the door again.
The other reason why starting the story here is so compelling is that it directly mirrors how the public came to hear of the story. Up until Alma’s body was found no one believed she was really ‘missing’ accept her grandmother who had stayed up all night awaiting word that she was all right.
This story begins with the undeniable fact of Alma’s dead, naked body, but it quickly becomes apparent that the fact that Alma is dead is about the only certain fact available.
Melbourne’s obsession with the story begins immediately –1500 people a day start parading through Gun Alley to view the scene. Because it was known that Alma had first gone to her uncle’s butcher shop to collect a parcel of meat someone decides to leave a parcel of meat at the scene – another leaves shoe buttons – both as fake evidence. Finally the police leave someone at the scene to prevent sightseers. In the rush to gather further evidence a police car is dispatched which subsequently drives too quickly around a corner and overturns, injuring the detectives inside. The whole investigation starts to sound like something from the Keystone Cops – which is something the papers are more than happy to point out.
And when I say papers, I mean The Herald. Rupert Murdoch’s father, Keith, has just become editor of the paper and the paper is not doing well. If he is going to turn the paper around he needs to find a way to boost circulation – and his method of choice is to keep the Gun Alley Murder on the front page for as long as is humanly possible. On the day of the verdict people were so keen to get hold of a copy of the paper that windows were broken at newsstands.
Colin Ross had had run-ins with the police before. There had been a shooting at his wine bar, located across the road from Gun Alley, some months before and the police had nearly put him in gaol for his involvement with that until his barmaid changed her story and the police case fell apart. All the same, they made sure Colin could not renew his liquor licence and so the day Alma’s body was discovered was Colin’s last day as a bar owner.
The Herald became increasingly frantic in its stories about the horrors of the case – every day the paper filled its columns with reports of the failings of the police investigation and with speculations about who had been involved in the murder (the local Chinese were suspected since the murder occurred a block away from China Town, but the simple-minded were also prime suspects as only someone with a mental deficiency could have committed such a crime and so this was another clear reason to push for Eugenics). And there were riots on the streets with the door of someone’s house being smashed open as rumours became believed and then acted upon. Finally, a huge reward was offered for information leading to an arrest of whoever had done this murder – so much money that finding the murderer would be like winning the lottery.
Colin Ross couldn’t know it, but his days were numbered and a series of threads were coming together (stop me before I say, that would twist into the rope that would eventually hang him… Damn, too late…)
This story is the realisation of the line from Yeats’ The Second Coming – where the best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with a passionate intensity. There is a Russian Princess who is working as a Spiritualist, a number of prostitutes, a scorned woman who could just as easily be Iago from Othello, a blind defence Barrister, a hero who never quite succeeds, and villains that lie and cheat and in the end are rewarded for their foul deeds.
I learnt about this story years before the book came out – I’m lucky enough to even be mentioned in the acknowledgements, something I’m terribly proud of. I began researching this murder and like Kevin Morgan had come to the conclusion that Colin was innocent. I felt this story was important in so many ways – and not the least because of what it says about the nature of justice and the problem of capital punishment. When I first met Kevin I had spent three months researching this case - he had spent 7 years. In the end I guess he probably spent 10 years fulltime researching this book. Kevin believes he knows who committed the murder and much of the last part of this book is devoted to explaining why he believes this.
What is beyond question is that Kevin has proven Colin Ross’s innocence – and in doing so has even achieved a pardon for him from the State Government.
This is a remarkable story, a challenging story, and an incredibly painful story. To make their case stick against Colin the prosecution had to make Alma a slut in the minds of the jury. They had to make her a victim twice over – in deed and in memory. This is a story of prejudice and fear and greed. It is also a very human story showing both the dark and light sides of we humans, we all too flawed creatures.
I would love to tell you about the jury that convicted Colin, about Ivy’s lies, about the feathers and the wine bottle covered in blood, of Charles Blackman’s series of drawings that were inspired by this murder, of the man impersonating one of the detectives involved in the case so as to pass off fake cheques – but most of this has been done already by Kevin Morgan in this truly remarkable book.
The last I heard there was talk of making this into a film – this would make a remarkably breathtaking film. If you can get your hands on this book, I can’t recommend it too highly. It is a story, I am sure, that will haunt me all my life.
February 22, 2019
This is a fascinating account of the 1922 trial and conviction for murder of Colin Ross, a man who was most likely innocent and was later pardoned in 2008. He was the victim of shoddy policework, trial by media and public outcry.
On the morning of New Year's Eve 1921, the naked body of a young girl was found dumped in Gun Alley at the back of a busy arcade in Melbourne. Later identified as Alma Tirtschke, aged 12, she had been sexually molested and strangled, possibly accidently. Alma had been sent into the city in the middle of the day to collect a package from a butcher for her aunt. The cashier at the butcher's remembered her waiting for the package of meat to be made up then leave the shop, but she never made it to her aunt's apartment. The sensational nature of the case caused a media frenzy and both the government and a newspaper posted a large reward for information leading to arrest of the murderer, causing a frenzy amongst the public.
Under pressure by the media and the public, police eventually arrested Colin Ross, a wine saloon owner for Alma's murder, even though he could account for all his movements that day. Amongst the witnesses for the prosecution were a local prostitute who said she saw the girl in the saloon, an ex barmaid (sacked by Colin) who said Colin confessed to her and a prisoner who said Colin also told him he killed Alma. All these people received money from the police ('sustenance money') and went on to share in the reward. Forensic evidence was also provided that hair on a blanket belonged to Alma although when this was re-analysed in 1996 was found not to be similar to Alma's hair.
Kevin Morgan became interested in Alma Tirtschke in 1993 when he saw Charles Blackman's haunting paintings of her. With his wife Linda Tarraran, he researched her trial and became convinced that Colin Ross was convicted by a jury that could not be impartial due to the intensity of the media coverage and the quantity of information divulged before the trial. He also felt that the police were so driven to make an arrest that they encouraged their witnesses to fit their evidence to convict Colin and ignored all the evidence for Colin's innocence, allowing the real murderer to escape punishment. In 2005, with members of the Ross and Tirtschke families, Morgan successfully petitioned the Attorney General asking him to review the case and grant Colin Ross a posthumous pardon. Of course it's much too late to go back and look for the real perpetrator but Morgan does provide a credible suggestion of who might have been responsible.
On the morning of New Year's Eve 1921, the naked body of a young girl was found dumped in Gun Alley at the back of a busy arcade in Melbourne. Later identified as Alma Tirtschke, aged 12, she had been sexually molested and strangled, possibly accidently. Alma had been sent into the city in the middle of the day to collect a package from a butcher for her aunt. The cashier at the butcher's remembered her waiting for the package of meat to be made up then leave the shop, but she never made it to her aunt's apartment. The sensational nature of the case caused a media frenzy and both the government and a newspaper posted a large reward for information leading to arrest of the murderer, causing a frenzy amongst the public.
Under pressure by the media and the public, police eventually arrested Colin Ross, a wine saloon owner for Alma's murder, even though he could account for all his movements that day. Amongst the witnesses for the prosecution were a local prostitute who said she saw the girl in the saloon, an ex barmaid (sacked by Colin) who said Colin confessed to her and a prisoner who said Colin also told him he killed Alma. All these people received money from the police ('sustenance money') and went on to share in the reward. Forensic evidence was also provided that hair on a blanket belonged to Alma although when this was re-analysed in 1996 was found not to be similar to Alma's hair.
Kevin Morgan became interested in Alma Tirtschke in 1993 when he saw Charles Blackman's haunting paintings of her. With his wife Linda Tarraran, he researched her trial and became convinced that Colin Ross was convicted by a jury that could not be impartial due to the intensity of the media coverage and the quantity of information divulged before the trial. He also felt that the police were so driven to make an arrest that they encouraged their witnesses to fit their evidence to convict Colin and ignored all the evidence for Colin's innocence, allowing the real murderer to escape punishment. In 2005, with members of the Ross and Tirtschke families, Morgan successfully petitioned the Attorney General asking him to review the case and grant Colin Ross a posthumous pardon. Of course it's much too late to go back and look for the real perpetrator but Morgan does provide a credible suggestion of who might have been responsible.
April 27, 2016
This book was especially intriguing to me because where I work is less than half a block from both where the murder took place and where the body was found. I read it during my lunch breaks at work, so was often in the very streets, lanes and the arcade (now Southern Cross Lane) where the action in the book was happening.
And although I already knew that the man who was hanged for the murder was "pardoned" ten years ago (only 86 years too late), as I read the book I was not at all convinced of his innocence until very near the final chapters.
The book presents a very engaging true-crime story, showing how poorly evidence was handled and used back in those times, and how such a miscarriage of justice could have taken place.
To quote a tombstone epitaph in Tombstone, Arizona: "He was right, we was wrong, but we strung him up and now he's gone."
And although I already knew that the man who was hanged for the murder was "pardoned" ten years ago (only 86 years too late), as I read the book I was not at all convinced of his innocence until very near the final chapters.
The book presents a very engaging true-crime story, showing how poorly evidence was handled and used back in those times, and how such a miscarriage of justice could have taken place.
To quote a tombstone epitaph in Tombstone, Arizona: "He was right, we was wrong, but we strung him up and now he's gone."
April 1, 2025
Not the most pleasant of reads, quite heavy and confronting at times, but a story that deserved to be told.
There were two victims here and neither were well treated by the police or the justice system.
There were two victims here and neither were well treated by the police or the justice system.
October 31, 2017
I possess a morbid fascination for true crime, travesty of justice, stories (Helen Garner's Joe Cinque's Consolation & Mara Leveritt's The Devil's Knot spring to mind) & the better they are, the more enraged I become. This book doesn't quite reach the incendiary level of the other 2 I have mentioned but it's still a chilling insight into the process of solving serious crimes, in Melbourne, around 100 years ago. Crime scenes were not sealed, forensic examination was non-existent, & even police detectives had received no formal training in their craft. The rape & murder of a 12 year old girl is horrific enough, & the dumping of her nude body in a dingy back alley only amplified the atrocity. But the arrest, conviction (on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence coupled with hearsay 'confessions' that wildly contradict each other & were delivered by known criminals in pursuit of a 1,000 pound reward) & subsequent hanging (!) of an obviously innocent man only compounds the horror. The author of this book was instrumental in the executed 'murderer' eventually being pardoned, some 80 years later, & his remains being exhumed from a nameless grave & re-interred beside his mother. But that's very small consolation.
November 2, 2020
An extremely well-researched, incredibly powerful, fascinating look at a historical case of wrongful conviction. This book also paints a vivid and compelling portrait of the city of Melbourne in the early 1920s - a period of time that feels tantalisingly out of reach. Colin Campbell Ross was posthumously pardoned as a result of Morgan's amazing work on this case. This is a must-read for those interested in Australian true crime or Australian history.
June 30, 2020
Interesting account of the events
January 25, 2014
This fascinating book is a thoroughly researched and well written account of the Gun Alley murder of Alma Tirtschke in Melbourne 1921. It includes a wealth of information not only about the murder itself but gives compelling insight into the many characters and the community surrounding the case. It exposes many flaws in the case against Colin Ross and makes it clear that trial by media is not a new phenomenon. I loved the book and found it was an engaging read that left me feeling great sympathy for the alleged killer and the victims family. It certainly leaves you thinking about many issues around policing,newspaper coverage of crime and the idea of justice, then and now.
July 22, 2016
A thoroughly absorbing account of a murder and subsequent miscarriage of justice. This book is also steeped in the personality of 20th century Melbourne, making it a fascinating history lesson for anyone familiar with the city.
December 9, 2016
Absolutely fascinating. Had me hooked from beginning to end. To bad we don't find out who really killed the poor girl...
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews