Donald Merrett

His parents were John Alfred Merrett, a consulting engineer,[2] and his wife Bertha née Milner.

The family moved to St Petersburg in Russia where the father worked installing an electricity supply in the city, but the cold climate did not suit Bertha.

[1] Bertha remained in the safety of Switzerland (a neutral country) for the duration of the First World War.

Bertha cared for wounded British soldiers released from prisoner of war camps.

He and his wife lived together in a large Victorian townhouse purchased by Bertha at 31 Buckingham Terrace in the fashionable and expensive Learmonth district.

Donald told their maid that his mother had shot herself due to her worries over debts.

Bertha regained consciousness but was never interviewed by the police as the matter was treated as an attempted suicide.

[8][9] His trial began at the High Court in Parliament Square in central Edinburgh on 1 February 1927.

The most crucial evidence on behalf of the defence was given by Bernard Spilsbury who explained how a lack of powder burns on the head did not rule out suicide.

[9] The inactivity on the part of the police was said to stem from not believing that a 17 year old could commit such a crime and their preference for the suicide theory.

Although there was a wealth of circumstantial evidence, the jury of 15 voted in a ratio of 5 as guilty and 10 as not proven (a specific judgement in Scottish law).

[8] "Lady Menzies" joined Merrett and Vera during a period living in Malta during when Merrett (now calling himself Ronald Chesney) began gun-running boat trips from North Africa to Spain in the build up to the Spanish Civil War.

There he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, and served on Motor Gun Boat 92 in the Mediterranean, but this seems largely to have been to facilitate a smuggling exercise he was undertaking.

After the war ended, Merrett stayed in Germany based at Wilhelmshaven where he became involved in the black market and racketeering.

He was dishonourably discharged from the Royal Naval Reserve in 1946 following the discovery of his various criminal activities.

In 1945 he began an affair with a German woman, 22 year old Gerda Schaller whom he had "rescued" from the Soviet sector.

[3] In 1952 he served time in Wandsworth Prison in England for currency smuggling and offered his soon-to-be-released cellmate £1000 to kill Vera.

On release he went to Cologne where he met 26 year old Sonia Winnekes in a night club having effectively abandoned Gerda.

Chown was a real person whom Merrett had encountered in a pub and to whom he bore some similarity.

He stayed briefly ensuring he would be remembered by a policewoman during his exit from England, He spent four days in a hotel in Amsterdam under the name of Mr and Mrs Milner (his mother's maiden name).

His mother-in-law confronted him as he left and he struck her with a metal coffee pot, then strangled her to death.

He spent a final two nights with Sonia in her home town of Duren at 51 Josefstrasse and told her he was going back to England.

[8][14] He was found dead on 16 February 1954 in a wood near Cologne with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head from a Colt 45.

John Merrett senior had not died in the Russian Revolution as Bertha claimed but had returned to England.

[18] The Dunedin Palais de Dance was converted to garage use and is owned by Hertz Car Rental.