Shane Ross death: Heartbreak over loss of ‘gentle’ father

A former Comanchero bikie turned clothing line owner, Shane Ross had attempted to turn his life around – before his past caught up with him, police allege.

A FORMER Comanchero bikie turned clothing line owner, Shane Ross had attempted to turn his life around – before his past caught up with him, police allege.

A notorious bikie, Mr Ross had his fair shares of run-ins with the law, but according to friends and family, the father, husband and business partner had begun the hard journey of leaving his past behind.

Alex Ross, the wife of Shane Ross, during her appeal for information.

His wife Alex made a heartfelt plea this month for information to help solve the double murder, to help give answers to her children.

“A young father has had his life cut short in the most despicable way,” she said. “There is no justification for that. Shane was not an arrogant or aggressive man and a choice from his very distant past did not define him as a human being.

“Shane was a gentle man. He was kind, caring, incredibly funny and he loved our children beyond words. We were his everything and alike, he was ours. No amount of benevolence or pleading will bring him back and the shock and trauma of his absence will follow my daughters and I every day for the rest of our lives.”

Alex Ross, the wife of Shane Ross and Ted Martin, the father of Cameron Martin.

She said her daughters were struggling to comprehend their devastating loss.

“Our three-year-old daughter wants to know if daddy is coming back. She wants to know when he is coming home, why did he leave and will he stay dead forever mummy?

“Those are the questions I suffer through daily. Those are the questions that reflect the pain and suffering that has been inflicted on innocent children as a result of my husband’s senseless murder.

“They want to know why someone has taken their daddy away from them and at the very least, they deserve those answers.”

Mrs Ross said her husband had been robbed of the opportunity to watch his daughters grow up.

“He was a man who had fought hard to better himself in every way possible and had reached that point in his life, where he was the best version of himself,” she said.

“He was so undeserving of this. It is hard to fathom how anybody could justify taking his life in such a horrific way and give no thought to the impact this will continue to have on our family.

“He’s been robbed of the opportunity to watch our daughters grow, they no longer have their dad tucking them in and wishing them sweet dreams. They can’t tell him about their day at school and they don’t have him to guide them through life. They desperately miss that.”

Friends and family attend the funeral of former Comanchero bikie Shane Ross at Southport Church of Christ. Pic of father Les Ross (middle with goatee) NO BYLINE PLEASE.

Mr Ross’s father Les Ross said his son had tried hard to turn his life around, leaving the Comancheros more than four years before his death, when he left Sydney to come to the Gold Coast.

Les Ross told the Bulletin in January that he never had a problem with his son when he was in the gang, but believed him when he said he was out.

“I’m his dad, I never had a problem when he was in the club. He was old enough to do what he wanted to do,” Les Ross said.

“I used to have a go at him a bit about it, until about three years ago. We were having a beer and Shane would tell me everything. Before he joined the Comancheros he used to be a Lone Wolf, then he swapped over. I knew all that, he told me everything.

“I said to him: ‘Shane, tell me the truth. It doesn’t worry me, but tell me the truth, are you in the club still?’ He said he wasn’t in the club and that he’d been out for about a year and a half. So that was about 4½ years he was out.

“He got out of that life down there and moved up here. There was no Comancheros at his funeral. He wasn’t in it any more.

“He’s not here to defend himself, you know what I mean? I know he had that court case coming up, but that had nothing to do with bikies.”

Shane Ross with his mother Sharon in hospital.

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The chequered history of Shane Ross

Shane Ross’s murder came two months after the death of Les’s wife Sharon, Shane’s mother.

“We’ve been going through a terrible time. It’s really painful. He’s not here, we’re grieving and we miss him so much,” Les Ross said.

“The whole family is hurting. I loved my boy, you’ve got to understand that. I miss him and my wife so much. He wasn’t supposed to die first. I was supposed to go before him.

“He was an absolutely beautiful bloke. Anybody you talk to would tell you that, he’d do anything for anybody.

“He was a pleasure. He was coming around here every day to see me after he lost his mother.

“The morning he got killed, he come here, my wife’s urn is here and he had a big cry. He was upset about losing his mum. That night he got killed.”

Les Ross said the death of Mr Martin had also hurt his family.

“Cameron, he wasn’t a bikie at all, he was my son’s business partner, the most beautiful bloke you’d ever meet. When my wife died he was coming around here once or twice a week to be with my daughter and I.

“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m not just grieving for my son, I’m grieving for Cameron too. He done so much for us when I lost my wife.”

Les said his daughter Kellie, who has an intellectual disability, was having a tough time.

“My daughter has really bad nightmares, waking up screaming for him. She’s 40 years old with an intellectual handicap. Shane and Kellie were really, really close. She misses him and cries for him all the time.”

Cameron Martin’s father Ted.

Ted Martin, the father of Cameron Martin, said his son was just a boy from the bush with a high sense of values.

“He spent all of his younger life in the bush,” he said. “He went to school all over Northern Australia.

“His life experience and life skills were learnt in some of the toughest camps in the country. His sense of values were very, very high.

“He was generous, kind, he was known as the gentle giant everywhere he went. He had many good mates.

“His life was cut short and the opportunity for him to see all the rest of his dreams will never happen. That is not fair in anybody’s language.

“Our family miss Cameron desperately. We will remember him for the man that he was.”