MURDER ALLEGED

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12621, 4 December 1926, Page 5

MURDER ALLEGED

MEW ZEALANDER ARRESTED ACCUSED OF KILLING HIS MOTHER SAYS SHE KILLED HERSELF By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright “Sun*’ Cable.* LONDON, December 2After a lapse of eight months a New Zealander, John Donald Merrctt, 19 years old, has been arrested on a charge of murdering his mother, Mrs Bertha Merrett, aged SG. Botli came from a New Zealand station to complete the son’s education for tho Diplomatic Service. He entered Edinburgh University, and the mother took a three months’ loase 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 dining-room fire on March 17th. when lie 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 doctors found a bullet was embedded in her nose. She did not recover consciousness. The tragedy was *at first attributed to accident, but the detectives unceasingly 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 cheques for £3OO. He was popular in the village, and played Rugby for Badmington. It is understood that he received an allowance from the Public Trustee. ACCIDENTAL DEATH THEORY ACCEPTED UNTIL NOW. (Received December 3, 8.15 p.ni.) LONDON, December 3. Eight months after the death of Mrs Bertha Merritt in Edinburgh, her son, John Donald, aged 18, lias been arrested on a charge of murder, and forging his mother’s signature to cheques for £3OO. The explanation of Mrs Merritt’s death hitherto accepted was that she accidentally shot herself while handling her son’s pistol, which was lying in a drawer of a desk at which she was writing a letter, and that John, sitting beside the fire, heard the shot and saw his mother fall to the floor. She lingered a fortnight, and died without regaining consciousness. John had lately been staying at the vicarage at Hughenden. and was being coached in expectation of going to Oxford. When he w-as driven off. in a police car, he was seen to be crying bitterly.