MRS MERRETT'S DEATH.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18916, 3 February 1927, Page 9

MRS MERRETT'S DEATH.

SON CHARGED WITH MURDER. ACCUSED'S MONEY TROUBLES. I N —COPYRIGHT.) IAUSTIHLIAN AN!' N.s. CABLE ASSOCIATION'.) LONDON, February 1 i-ix women jurors wero empanelled when John Donald Merrett stood his trial at Edinburgh on a charge of murdering his mother. lie appeared in the deck in an overcoat and wearing horn-rimmed spectacles. He pleaded iiot guilty. Mrs Sutherland, a housemaid, pave evidence that after she left Mrs ivierrett was writing in the sitting-room, whero John was reading. She heard a shot and a scream, and John entered the kitchen and said his mother had shot herself. John added: "I have been wasting; mother's money. I think she is worried." Mrs Sutherland found Mrs Merrett lying on the floor near a revolver. She denied telling a detective that she siiw a revolver falling from her mistress's hand. Her mistress told her sho had had a hard life, losing her husband during the Russian revolution. She was devoted to John, and they appeared to bo on the most affectionate t<;rms. Inspector Fleming read John's statement declaring that his mother complained that he was spending too much money and neglecting his studies. His mother was writing, when he pointed out a wrongly-addressed envelope. She said: "Go away! You hother me!" "I went to the other side of tho room to get 6ome books, and heard a report. I saw my mother falling on the floor." Inspector Fleming said deceased's hanking account was overdrawn. He questioned accused regarding three cheques amounting to £B3, dated after his mother's admission to the hospital. John said his mother had sinned the cheques, and he filled in the amounts, which was a customary arrangement. Merrett was also charged with forging his mother's signature, to cheques totalling £-157. Ho explained that he bought a revolver and 50 cartridges for £5. intending to use them, while on a holt' day in France. Hi« mother took the revolver on March 13th last, and he did not see it arnin. Inspector Fleming added that other cheques and counterfoils were missing. Tho en c e was adjourned. [A cable message from London in December stated that after a lapse of eight months a New Zealander. John Donaid Merrett, aged 19, had been arrestod on a charge of murdering his mother, Mrs Bertha aged 60. The son entered Edinburgh Lniversity, and the mother took a three months' lease of a flat, in a fashionable quarter of Edinburgh. The week after they entered into possession the pother was found shot. The son told the police that ho was seated beside the diningroom fire on March 17th, when he was startled by a revolver shot, and, turning, he saw his mother, who was eitting at the bureau writing, fall on the floor, bleeding from a wound in the ear. The tragedy was nt first attributed to an accident, but the detective unceasingly continued investigations. The 6on, meanwhile, began studying for Oxford. He took up his residence at Hujrhenden, Buckinghamshire, where he was arrested and further charged with forging cheques fo r £300.]