CHARGE OF MURDER

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 60, 4 December 1926, Page 9

CHARGE OF MURDER

AGAINST FORMER NEW ZEALANDER MOTHER SHOT LAST MARCH London, December 2. After a lapse of eight months, a New Zealander, John Donald Merrett, aged 19, has been arrested on a charge of murdering his mother, Mrs. Bertha Merrett, aged 56. Both came from a New Zealand station to complete the son’s education for the Diplomatic Service. He entered Edinburgh University, and the mother took a three months’ lease of a flat in a fashionable quarter of Edinburgh. A week afterwards it was entered and Mrs. Merrett was found shot. The son told the police that he was seated beside the dming-room fire on March 17, when he was startled by a revolver shot. On turning he saw his mother, who was sitting at a bureau writing, fall on the floor bleeding from a wound in the ear. The doctor found a bullet was embedded in the nose. The woman did not recover consciousness. The tragedy was at first attributed to accident, but the detectives .unceasing! v continued their investigations.. The son, meanwhile, began studying for Oxford. He took up residence at Hughenden, Buckinghamshire, where he was arrested. Merrett is further charged with forging cheanes for £3OO. He was popular in the village, and plaved Rugby for Badminton. It is understood that he received an allowance from the Public Trustee.—Sydney “Sun” Cable. (Rec. December 3, 8.15 p.m.) . London, December 3. The exnlanation of Mrs. Merritt’s death hitherto accepted was that she accidentally shot herself while handling her son’s nistol. which was lying in a drawer of the desk at which she was writing a letter, and John, who was sitting beside, the fire, heard the shot and saw his mother fall to the floor. She lingered for a fortnight and died without remaining consciousness.. John had latelv been stavinv at the. vicarage at Hughenden. being coached in expectation of going to Oxford. ■ When he was driven off in the noFee car he was seen to be erving bitterly.