BODY OF CHILD FOUND

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 211, 22 June 1950, Page 3

BODY OF CHILD FOUND

POLICE SEARCH NORTH OF AUCKLAND BURIED FOUR FEET IN CLAY (P.A.) AUCKLAND, June 21. The police search for a missing six-year-old boy, Ronald Leslie Shortcliffe, is thought to have ended. The body of a child, buried four feet deep in clay soil close to where the boy was last seen IS months ago, was partly uncovered late this afternoon at Helena Bay.

For the last fortnight a police party of 10 men, assisted by local settlers, has been intensively searching the Helena Bay district. It was here that the boy was last seen in January of last year, when he w 7 as living with his father, Mr Ronald Leslie Shortcliffe, in a tent alongside a stream in an isolated section of this sparsely settled area on the east coast between Whangarei and Russell.

The father was engaged in a scrubcutting contract, but later left the district.

Under Inspector Munro and Detec-tive-Sergeant Mahood the search party, with spades, shovels, picks, and gum spears, first covered the creek bed and both banks for about threequarters of a mile. The soil here is of clay and gravel, with dead vegetation, The ground slopes steeply from the creek, and many slips have occurred. Adverse weather with heavy rain has also added to the difficulties. About 3.30 p.m. to-day DetectiveSergeant Mahood searched along a small ravine about 200 yards from the camp site. He noticed a place where the earth appeared to have been disturbed. Constable Allsop dug in this spot, and soon saw spade marks in the hole he was digging. Then his spade uncovered the head of a child. The body was left as it was found, the hole being covered by a sheet. A police guard was placed. The body will not be disturbed until a pathologist and photographer, as well as the district coroner, have examined it. Although the boy was last seen in Janliafy of last year, it Avas not until October that the police became aware that he might be missing. It was then that Mrs Katerina Monk, of Akerana, asked Constable Muir, of Kawakawa, to make inquiries about the boy. Mrs Monk was an aunt of the boy’s mother, who had died of tuberculosis in the Kawakawa Public Hospital on February 5 of last year.