Fresh Development In Police Search For Girl

Press, Volume C, Issue 29626, 23 September 1961, Page 10

Fresh Development In Police Search For Girl

itiZ. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, September 22.

The Wellington police tonight released the name and description of a man they believe may lead them to Miss Wendy Catherine Mayes, aged 16, who has been missing from her Whites Line east home, Lower Hutt, since early last Monday. She was last seen in the city soon after 5 pan. that day.

The man the police are searching for is John Frederick Maltby, a native of England, and now a resident of Wellington. The television stations in Auckland, Wellington an I Christchurch tonight showed a photgraph of Mr Maltby on their programmes and the police also released a detailed description of him. The missing man. aged 30, but who is described as looking older, is sft Win wiki brown eyes and dark brown hair receding across his forehead, He is well built and has a faint scar under his left eye. , When he was last seen he was bearing a white shirt, dark striped trousers and black shoes. He has been in New Zealand for -five years and is believed to have conducted a business in Island Bay and lived in a house in Edinburgh terrace.

He is also believed to have been the man seen running from a house in Edinburgh terrace about 4.45 a.m. yesterday. The man disappeared into thick . gorse-covered country behina Melrose. Detective Chief Inspector W. S. Craigie, who is in charge of the search, said tonight that the police feared for the girl’s safety. “But she could still be alive. I don’t discount the possibility.” Mr Craigie said the police would welcome any informa-

tion from the public which would assist the widespread inquiries. The decision to turn to the public for help was made after two days of an intensive yard-by-yard search of rugged, gorse-clad hills in Melrose, a southern Wellington suburb.

A 70-strong police party today spread out over a wider area than yesterday, ranging along 20 miles of coastline from Evans Bay in Wellington harbour to Makara, 20 miles away in the south-west. Searchers also covered

fresh ground in the hills of Island Bay and parts of Mount Victoria. A party with dogs left Ohiro Bay this morning and came out at the Karori stream, eight miles further round the coast, about 4 p.m. Another party completed a search of the Melrose area by midday today. The search operations were again conducted from the Martin Luckie Park pavilion by Mr Craigie and Detective Senior Sergeant A. W. McDougall. Mr Craigie plans tomorrow to concentrate the search in the Mount Victoria area. The police are watching all transport outlets from Wellington, including bus stations. Similar checks are being made at other centres, including Auckland.