Captured: Portraits of Crime 1870-1930 - Flipbook - Page 110
Collins was tried for the murder of Mollie Lawrence on 3 December 1925 at
Central Criminal Court before Mr Justice James. The Court heard evidence from
witnesses. One recalled Collins saying “I will give [it to] you [for] going with other
men” before shooting Mollie. After he had inflicted injuries on the woman, Collins
‘tenderly’ picked her up and carried her out to the street where he commandeered a
sulky to take her to Sydney Hospital. The driver said that Collins told him to “drive
to the hospital as quick as you can” while he held Mollie on his lap. Collins was
arrested in the casualty ward covered in Mollie’s blood. The treating medical officer,
Dr J.P. Findlay, told the Court that Collins asked him to stop the bleeding: ‘He sat
on a chair in the cubicle and seemed to be very shocked. He told me he shot [the]
deceased.’ The arresting officer, Sergeant Joseph Lynch, reported that Collins said,
“I shot her because she had been knocking about with other men ... she is my bigamous
wife. She committed bigamy with me”. Following Mollie’s death on 29 August Sergeant
Lynch took Collins to the morgue to view her body. “Yes that is my poor wife ... may I
kiss her ... will I be allowed to go to her funeral?” a distraught Collins said before
being charging with murder.
Newspaper accounts of the trial reported that Collins had killed Mollie out of
jealousy. Collins testified that on the night in question he had followed Mollie and
seen her meet two men in the street, one of whom tickled her under the chin and laughed
with her. Collins remembered walking up to Mollie and punching her in the ribs. She
refused to go home with him remarking “I wouldn’t go home with a ---- ugly, disfigured
---- like you”. This sent something ‘dizzy in his brain’, and the next thing he
remembered was Mollie lying on the floor of the fruit shop. Dr Chisholm Ross, a ‘mental
specialist’, testified that Collins’ war injuries meant he did not have the will power
‘to prevent his increasing jealousy from finally culminating in insane jealousy’.
The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter with a strong recommendation for
mercy due to Collins’ ‘previous character and because of provocation’. At his
sentencing hearing, Collins’ counsel presented evidence that showed his love for
Mollie. He had even paid for her funeral. Mr Justice James accepted Collins’ good
character but said that his love for Mollie was no reason for killing her. The judge
sentenced Collins to three years in gaol, stating that he ‘could not overlook the fact
that human life had been taken with a deadly weapon. No one was at liberty to take the
law into his own hands’.
Collins served his sentence at Goulburn Gaol before being sent to Brookfield
Afforestation Camp at Mila on 29 September 1927. He was eventually released on license
on 18 February 1928. Collins became a nightwatchman at Sydney Technical College and
married Alma Wilton in 1945. He died on 9 April 1958.
110
