COLIN ROSS' END.

Waipa Post, Volume XX, Issue 1243, 16 May 1922, Page 3

COLIN ROSS' END.

GUN ALLEY MURDERER EXECUTED. SYDNEY, April 26. There were many strange incidents in connection with the last days of Colin Ross, who was executed on Monday last for the murder of the little 12-year-old girl, Alma Tirtschke, the discovery of whose naked body in Gun Alley, Melbourne, created a greater thrill of horror throughout Australia than has any crime for many a day. An appeal to the High Court having failed, right up to the last moment there was an endeavour to have the execution postponed in order that a final appeal might be made to the Privy Council. This was refusied by the /Victorian Attorney-general, and in consequence he was showered with | numerous threatening letters. Other members of the Crown Law Department were also threatened. In refusing any postponement of the sentence of the court the Attorney-gen-eral said he was in possession of facts which, if i published, would convict the condemned man in five minutes. If circumstances warranted the Government publishing this evidence it would be done. The life of one of the principal witnesses for the prosecution, Ivy Matthews, was also threatened, and she had to be afforded police protection. One anonymous letter received by the authorities' was from a woman, who alleged that her husband com.mitted the diabolical crime of which Ross was convicted. The day before the excution an old grey-headed man, 75 years of age, called at the Melbourne gaol and offered to take the condemned man's place on the gallows. Ross died protesting his innocence.