"AFTER HIS LAST FAILED APPEAL ROSS COMPOSED HIMSELF WITH DIGNITY FOR HIS QUIET BUT RESOLUTE STATEMENT FROM THE SCAFFOLD:
I AM NOW FACE TO FACE WITH MY MAKER, AND I SWEAR BY ALMIGHTY GOD THAT I AM AN INNOCENT MAN. I NEVER SAW THE CHILD. I NEVER COMMITTED THE CRIME, AND I DON'T KNOW WHO DID. I NEVER CONFESSED TO ANYONE. I ASK GOD TO FORGIVE THOSE WHO HAVE SWORN MY LIFE AWAY, AND I PRAY GOD TO HAVE MERCY ON MY POOR DARLING MOTHER, AND MY FAMILY. BEFORE HIS EXECUTION IN HIS FAREWELL LETTER TO HIS FAMILY, ROSS WROTE THAT 'THE DAY IS COMING WHEN MY INNOCENCE WILL BE PROVED'.
WEST AUSTRALIA INNOCENCE PROJECT;
PHOTO RIGHT: CAMERON TODD WILLINGHAM; PHOTO LEFT; COLIN ROSS;
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: While visiting the Old Melbourne Jail, in Melbourne Australia, earlier this year I was astounded to learn about some of the compelling similarities between the wrongful convictions of Colin Ross, an Aussie executed 24 April, 1922, and Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texan executed on February 17, 2004 - though separated by more than eighty years half a century in time and located at opposite ends of the Globe. Both men were were sent to their deaths on the basis of junk science; both men's convictions were assured by self-serving cellmate or unsavoury convict evidence, and both men vehemently cried out their innocence to their last breath. The one glaring difference is that the Victorian Government granted a posthumous pardon to Colin Ross on 27 May 2008, in what is believed to be an Australian legal first. The government of Texas appears to be doing everything can to deny Cameron Todd's innocence, avoid accountability for his wrongful conviction and impede his exoneration.
BACKGROUND: COLIN ROSS: "Hawthorn schoolgirl Alma Tirtschke was raped and strangled while in the city running errands for her mother. Her naked body was found by a bottle gatherer in Gun Alley, off Little Collins Street, on December 31, 1921. Ross, who ran a nearby wine bar, was arrested at his Maidstone home on January 12. After a short trial and two failed appeals, he was executed 115 days after the murder. Prosecutors claimed that Ross, 28, lured Alma into his wine saloon in the Eastern Arcade in Bourke Street, took her into a small room off the main bar, then plied her with alcohol before he raped and strangled her. The court was told Ross then put her body in a nearby laneway, where it was found the next morning. However, Ross was able to produce alibi witnesses who said they saw him at work and on the tram heading home at the time of the murder. The key evidence against him was given by two contradictory and unreliable "witnesses" — prostitute Ivy Matthews and career thief Sydney John Harding, who claimed Ross independently "confessed" to the murder. But the petition of mercy says the prosecution failed to tell the court that Harding was a known and repeated perjurer. The Crown was aware that his military record included convictions for making a false statement to a superior officer and giving false sworn answers on his attestation papers. The only forensic link came from hairs found on a blanket discovered at Ross' home, which were said to match hairs taken from the victim. Government analyst Charles Price, a chemist by occupation and not a forensic expert, gave evidence that the hairs "were derived from the scalp of one and the same person". But after the hair samples were rediscovered in long-forgotten archives by methodical researcher-turned-author Kevin Morgan in 1995, he pushed for them to be retested. Mr Morgan has since written a book based on the case called Gun Alley: Murder, Lies and Failure of Justice. Three years later, a microscopic examination by Dr Bentley Atchison, of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, showed the hairs were not from the same scalp. A second test by Australian Federal Police forensic expert Dr James Robertson, a world authority on hair identification, confirmed that Price's conclusion was wrong. (The information for this background comes from the Australian newspaper "The Age"); Although some legal experts viewed the pardon as tantamount to exoneration the fact remains that Ross was never formally acquitted. The Australian Broadcasting Network quoted a member of the victim's family who contended that a pardon was not good enough because "A pardon means, 'I am forgiving you for something you have done'. Shouldn't it rather be an exoneration, which means, 'I accept you didn't do this in the first place'?" But Victorian Premier John Brumby told ABC that the pardon does come close to exonerating Colin Ross because "Science in particular has proven beyond reasonable doubt that he could not have committed that crime." ABC went on to say that "The Premier says the case shows how far forensic technology has come - and it reinforces the decision to formally abolish the death penalty in Victoria in 1975."
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"Colin Campbell Ross was convicted of The Gun Alley Murder which was the rape and murder of 12-year-old Alma Tirtschke in Melbourne Australia, in 1921," the West Australian Innocence Project analysis begins.
"Alma Tirtschke, a Hawthorn schoolgirl, was raped and strangled while in Melbourne shopping for her aunty.A bottle gatherer found her naked body in Gun Alley, off Little Collins Street, on December 31, 1921," the analysis continues.
"The press, notably the Herald under Sir Keith Murdoch, fanned public outrage, pressured police for an arrest and matched the government's initial reward, which was quickly raised from £250 to £1000.
The owner of the Australian Wine Saloon, Colin Campbell Ross, was soon after charged with Alma's rape and murder.
The case against him was based on a red hair found at his saloon, apparently from Tirtschke's head, which provided a vital connection between the girl and Ross; plus the evidence of two Crown witnesses.
The two witnesses the police relied on were dubious characters, including the fortune-teller 'Madame Ghurka", who claimed that Ross had confessed to violating and choking the girl.
Ross could account for his movements at the time Alma disappeared, and later that night, when her body was dumped in Gun Alley.
His defence would eventually produce that alibi evidence at his trial, but despite this and Ross' firm assertions of his innocence, Ross was convicted after his January 12 arrest. .
The Herald prejudiced his trial by publishing his photograph and printing the names and addresses of the jury.
Just 115 days after the murder, he was executed, following a short trial and two failed appeals
After his last failed appeal Ross composed himself with dignity for his quiet but resolute statement from the scaffold:
I am now face to face with my Maker, and I swear by Almighty God that I am an innocent man. I never saw the child. I never committed the crime, and I don't know who did. I never confessed to anyone. I ask God to forgive those who have sworn my life away, and I pray God to have mercy on my poor darling mother, and my family.
Before his execution in his farewell letter to his family, Ross wrote that 'the day is coming when my innocence will be proved'.
A new investigation over 70 years later has since ruled out any link between Ross and the only physical evidence said to connect him to the crime — hairs found on a blanket at the suspect's home, which the jury was told came from the scalp of the victim.
In 1995 researcher Kevin Morgan traced the exhibit to an archive and pushed for the hair to be re-examined using modern technology.
In 1998 a test by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine found the hairs were not from the same scalp.
A second test by Australian Federal Police confirmed that the key evidence was wrong.
Prosecutors used two witnesses who claimed Ross had confessed to the crime. But the jury was not told that one of the key prosecution witnesses was a convicted perjurer."
http://www.innocenceprojectwa.org.au/colin_campbell_ross.html
Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;
