SOUTHLAND MAN’S DISAPPEARANCE

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27665, 23 May 1955, Page 10

SOUTHLAND MAN’S DISAPPEARANCE

Information Sought About Rifle REPORTS ON CAR JOURNEYS (New Zealand PTeee Association) INVERCARGILL, May 22. Police who are inquiring into -the disappearance of John Joseph Hughes, aged 34, of Makarewa, have established that his car was in Invercargill on March 16. The driver was not Mr Hughes. Since a party of leading detectives, headed by Inspector F. N. Aplin, of Auckland, arrived in Invercargill yes-

terday, they have made intensive inquiries in the areas where Mr Hughes may have been.

It has been established that Mr Hughes left Dunedin on March 14, three days after he was reported missing. His intention then was apparently to return to his work as a solo butcher at the Makarewa freezing works.

Mr Hughes's car was seen on the roadside at Edendale, 20 miles north of Invercargill, on the night of March

Two days later, the car, a 1950 model Rover, painted grey-blue, was seen in Invercargill in the ' possession of another man.

So far. the public had co-operated well in the search for Mr Hughes, said Inspector Aplin today. He asked that anyone who considered he could give information should communicate with the police.

Inspector Aplin also appealed for in'ormation on the whereabouts of a .22 single-shot bolt-action Melior rifle known to have been carried in Mr Hughes’s car. Curing the police inquiries in Southland, many persons have been in’erviewed Inspector Aplin said many others had yet to be questioned. Itr Hughes’s Rover car was sold In Chsistchurch in April. The seller, who wa s definitely not Mr Hughes, bought a Ford car, which has been found at Wanaka.