Murder of Mary Speir Gunn

[5] Mary had stayed at Port William to tie up the family affairs and when she joined them in Taynuilt she found that she was just expected to work on the farm.

[9] In 1913 at the age of 51 Mary was living at the remote and inaccessible Northbank Cottage, an old farm situated beneath the precipitous red sandstone cliffs on the raised beach near Portencross with her sister Jessie and brother-in-law Alex.

[12] Alexander had recently sold the sheep from his old Taynuilt farm at a Perth auction and therefore had £100 that a potential thief may have thought was held as cash by him at Northbank Cottage.

[13] On the dark, wet and stormy evening of Saturday 18 October 1913 the family were relaxing in front of an open fire in the parlour with only an oil lamp throwing a low light over the room.

The two ladies were knitting and Alexander was reading aloud from a book, At Sunwich Port by W. W. Jacobs[8] with his back to the only window in the room.

[16] Alexander, not aware that he had been shot at first, leapt to his feet, pushing his wife to the floor and then rushing out to release his collie and eight-month-old Scottish terrier pup[3] from an outhouse in an effort to catch the murderer.

[15] The gun was found through the calibre of the shell case to be a heavy army revolver of the Colt-type,[17] however it was never located and may have been disposed of in the sea.

The Southern Necropolis in Glasgow is the final resting place of Mary Speir Gunn, interred wearing her favourite plaid.

[18] It was odd that the dogs in their nearby outhouse had not barked as they usually would have at the occasional passing stranger and the revolver was fired at an acute angle through the window as if the perpetrator was afraid that he or she would be recognised as someone known to the victims.

[10] One police theory was that the murderer committed suicide by drowning, an unsuccessful watch was kept for a body and the Ardneil Woods were searched without success.

[21] Alexander and Jessie left Northbank Cottage and seem to have moved to Garnock Street in Dalry, possibly living with a friend.

[23] It was thought by some that Alexander was involved in the murder as he hoped to marry the marginally younger and more attractive Mary, however given their respective ages this seems unlikely given average lifespan at the time.