CHARGE OF MURDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19964, 4 December 1926, Page 13

CHARGE OF MURDER

NEW ZEALANDER ARRESTED. CALLOUS GRIME INDICATED: MOTHER FOUND FATAIiBYi SHOT. (Press Association— By Telegraph—Copyright.) , LONDON, December 2. After a lapse of eight months a Nevr Zealander, John Donald Merrett, 19 years of age, lias 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, and he entered the Edinburgh University. The mother took a three months’ lease of a flat in a fashionable quarter of Edinburgh, and a week after they entered into possession the mother was found shot. The son told the police that he was seated beside the dining room fire on March 17, when he was startled by a revolver shot, and turning, he saw his mother, who was sitting at a bureau writing, fall on the; floor bleeding from a wound in the ear* The doctors found a bullet embedded in the nose. The mother did not recover consciousness. The tragedy was at first attributed to an accident, but the detectives unceasingly continued their investigations. The son meanwhile began studying for Oxford, and took up his residence at Hughenden, Buckinghamshire, where he was arrested, and further charged with forging cheques for £3OO. He was popular in the village, and played and Badminton. Tt isunderstood that 1 received an allowance from the Public Trustee. —Sydney Sun , Cable. ADDITIONAL DETAILS. LONDON, December 2. (Received December 3, at 10 p.m.) Merritt was arrested on a charge of murder and also of forging his mother's signature to cheques to the value of £3OO. The explanation of Mrs Merritt’s death hitherto accepted was that she accident-,, ally shot herself while handling her son’s pistol, which waa lying in the drawer of a desk at which she was writing a letter, and that John, who was sitting beside the., fire, heard the shot and saw his mother fall to the floor. She lingered for a night and died without regaining con- * sciousness. Merritt had lately hpep staying at the;. Vicarage at where he was being coached, in expectation of going tor. Oxford. When he was driven off_ in the . police car he was seen to be crying bitterly.—A. and N-Z. Cable.