Born John Donald Merrett in 1908, over his lifetime he had many names and probably many more mistresses. Even as a young man he proved to be a dishonest and incorrigible person who would stop at nothing to get his own way, as the suspicious death of his mother would show. Forger, smuggler, Motor Gun Boat captain, blockade runner, and last but not least, murderer, Merrett's life would eventually end the same way he claimed his mother's had when his sins caught up with him: a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

The case of Donald Merrett is mostly forgotten today (he didn't even have a Wikipedia page until May 2021) but his murders and the subsequent manhunt in the 1950s were a sensation that spanned two nations, Britain and Germany. If you are ever to visit the Black Museum in Scotland Yard, you will find his forearms there, still preserved in formaldehyde.

This is the last of the 'missing' Great Crimes and Trials episodes from Series 3.

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