SON AND MOTHER

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 134, 3 December 1926, Page 8

SON AND MOTHER

ALLEGATION OF MURDER

A NEW ZEALAND BOY.

(Sydney Sun Cable.) (Received 3rd December, 2.15 p.m.) LONDON, 2nd December. After a lapse of eight mouths, a New Zealander, John Douald Mcrrett, aged nineteen, lias been arrested on a charge of murdering his mother, Mrs. Bertha Merrctt, aged 56. Both came from a New Zealand station to cdmplete the son's education for the Diplomatic Service. He en- | tered 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. Merrctt was found shot. The son told the police that he was seated beside the dining-room fire on 17th March, 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 car. The doctors found a bullet was embedded in the nose. The woman did not recover consciousness. The tragedy was at first attributed to accident, but the deteeives unceasingly continued their investigations. The sou, meanwhile, began studying for Oxford. He took up residence.at Hughendc-ii, Buckinghamshire, where he was arrested. • Mcrrett is further charged with forging cheques for £.300. He was popular in the village, and played Rugby for Badmington. • It is understood that he received an allowance from the Public Trustee.