The threesome that went for a night drive into the Kenya bush would never have guessed that only one of them would return alive. That one was Charles Ross, 19. The two who died were his girl friend, Winnie Stevenson, 20, and her friend Margaret Keppie, also 20.
The trio set out on December 1st, 1932. When Ross returned alone at dawn he appeared to be distressed and unable to speak. Two days later Miss Keppies body was found, and a week after that police recovered the body of Miss Stevenson. Both had been shot dead.
Ross told the police: Miss Keppie wanted to touch my gun and I didnt like that. I marched her 50 yards into the bush and shot her in the head. I threw her body into a pit and went back to the car.
He found his girl friend Winnie cowering in fear, so he marched her into the bush and shot her dead too.
At his trial it was suggested that he had committed the double-murder as a kind of sexual thrill. He had apparently told a prison officer while in custody that he became excited at the terror he instilled in the young women. He was suffering from a sexually transmitted disease and the trousers he was wearing on the night of the murder bore semen stains.
He was hanged at Nairobi Prison on Wednesday, January 11th, 1933. It was only the second time a European had been hanged in Kenya.