Allison cold case: daughter on trial for 2013 murder

Ten years after the death of 88-year-old Ronald Russell Allison in a house fire at Te Karaka, his daughter Lynne Maree Martin, has gone on trial charged with his murder. The trial began today in the High Court at Gisborne. Martin is pictured in the dock flanked by two prison officers. Photo / S Curtis

More than 10 years after the death of Ronald Russell Allison in a suspicious house fire at Te Karaka, a woman has gone on trial for his murder.

Charged last November, the woman’s identity was previously kept secret due to an interim suppression order. However, that lapsed this morning with the start of the trial, Justice Helen Cull saying Mr Allison’s daughter - Lynne Maree Martin, a 63-year-old caregiver – can now be named as his suspected killer. She has been living in Karapiro, in the Matamata-Piako district.

Media were permitted to take a single photograph of Ms Martin as she sat in the dock at the start of the trial.

Mr Allison, 88, known by his middle name – Russell – was a World War 2 veteran, widely respected farmer, and a devoted husband to wife Marie, who died seven years ahead of him.

Russell and Marie were married 53 years, had two children together - Lynne and John - and four grandchildren.

John, who lived a short distance away from his dad, helped him run the farm and visited him every night in his final six years. John would stay until his dad fell asleep and on January 25, 2013, left after 12.30am.

Within an hour of arriving home and going to bed himself, John was woken by a phone call from a volunteer firefighter friend, telling him the service was on its way to Russell’s house.

Mr Allison did not survive the blaze. His ashes and those of wife Marie, which had been in an urn in the house, were recovered by police and later buried together at Gisborne (Taruheru) cemetery.

Three months after the fire, police appealed for sightings of a blue Nissan March hatchback car that travelled between Tauranga and Gisborne on January 24 and 25. It was believed to have been driven by a middle-aged Caucasian woman.

In November, 2020, police offered a $100,000 reward for information that could lead to the identity and conviction of anyone responsible for the death. However, no one came forward and the offer expired.

There was insufficient evidence to charge anyone until November, last year (2022).

The trial has been set down for five weeks in the High Court at Gisborne and involves about 50 Crown witnesses. The jury empanelment took longer than usual as several people asked to be excused; some because they knew witnesses, others because their employers couldn't accommodate a five-week absence.