Crime Immemorial

Fifty-one-year-old Mary Speir Gunn was born in Stevenston, North Ayrshire, Scotland, to Jane Speir and Gilbert Gunn, a well-known railway contractor, and lived a varied life. Known as the “Beauty of Beith” in her youth, she worked as one of Scotland’s first telephone operators in Ardrossan and briefly lived in Canada with her sister before returning to Scotland. By 1913, she resided with her sister Jessie and Jessie’s husband, Alexander McLaren, a retired farmer and evangelist, in the isolated Northbank Cottage, nestled beneath red sandstone cliffs on a raised beach near Portencross. The trio had moved there in May 1913, seeking a quiet retirement.

On the stormy night of Saturday, October 18th, 1913, the family sat in the dimly lit parlor, warmed by an open fire. Mary and Jessie were knitting, while Alexander read aloud from At Sunwich Port by W.W. Jacobs, his back to the room’s only window, which had no curtains drawn.

At around eight thirty p.m., the tranquility was shattered when six shots from a heavy revolver—likely a Colt or Webley—were fired through the window. Three bullets struck Mary, one piercing her heart, killing her instantly. Jessie collapsed with two bullets in her back, one lodging near a kidney, though she survived after treatment at Kilmarnock Infirmary. Alexander sustained a wound to his left index finger, the bullet passing through the book he held. Another bullet was found outside, having ricocheted off the stone walls, and two were embedded in Alexander’s chair.

With no telephone in the cottage, Alexander ran to a nearby farm to alert Alexander Murray, then to Auchenames mansion, where the laird, William Adams, called for help. A doctor and police arrived by taxi, but the local police station lacked a phone, requiring a neighbor to physically deliver the news. Mary was pronounced dead at the scene, and Jessie underwent surgery to remove a bullet. Alexander, in shock, gave a statement at West Kilbride Police Station.

The investigation, led by Inspector Grant of Largs, was thorough for its time, despite the infancy of forensic science. Plaster casts were made of six footprints found near the cottage, and an unidentified man had been seen asking for directions to Portencross at nearby farms, corroborated by local schoolchildren. The bullets were identified as .45 caliber, suggesting a military-style revolver, but the weapon was never found, possibly discarded in the sea. Police explored leads as far as Saskatchewan, Canada, where Mary had a brief romance, but found no connection to the crime. A theory that the shooter committed suicide by drowning prompted searches of Ardneil Woods and the coastline, but no body was found.

The motive for the attack remains elusive. One early theory suggested robbery, as Alexander was thought to be wealthy and had attended a cattle market that day. However, nothing was stolen, and the targeted nature of the shooting—fired at an acute angle, possibly to avoid recognition—suggested a personal motive. The family’s dogs, housed in a nearby outhouse, unusually did not bark, hinting the shooter might have been known to them.

Suspicion briefly fell on Alexander McLaren. Some speculated he targeted Mary, hoping to marry her for her beauty, but at fifty-one, Mary was only marginally younger than he was, and life expectancy at the time made this motive unlikely. Others, like historian Jack House, suggested Alexander staged the attack, though no evidence supported this, and Jessie’s corroboration of his account was attributed to shock. A 1915 legal action by Elizabeth Gibson, a local boarding house keeper, claimed Alexander accused her of involvement, damaging her business, but she dropped the case and paid her own costs, leaving the accusation unresolved.

In 2018, West Kilbride historian Stephen Brown proposed a new theory in his book Who Killed Mary Gunn?. He argued that Elizabeth Gibson, enraged by an alleged affair between her husband, Andrew, a shoemaker, and Mary, fired the shots to scare the family and end the affair. Brown suggested the police overlooked a female suspect due to gender biases of the era. While compelling, this theory lacks definitive evidence, and some, including other historians, question its plausibility, noting the police’s thorough investigation.

Mary Speir Gunn was laid to rest in Glasgow’s Southern Necropolis, wearing her favorite plaid. Jessie recovered and, with Alexander, moved to Dalry, possibly to live with a friend. Alexander died in 1916, and the case faded from public attention as World War I dominated headlines. The loss of police files over time has hindered modern analysis, and despite renewed interest—sparked by Brown’s book and occasional discoveries like a World War II-era revolver unrelated to the crime—the murder remains unsolved.