FOUR TEEN-AGERS KILLED; ONE MISSING

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31412, 4 July 1967, Page 26

FOUR TEEN-AGERS KILLED; ONE MISSING

(New Zealand Press Association;

WANGANUI, July 3.

Four Ohakune teen-agers in a late model car hurtled 150 ft to their deaths on Saturday night at the Manganui-O-Te Ao bridge, 13 miles north of Raetihi.

The bodies were recovered from the wrecked car, perched overturned on an outcrop of rock on the northern side of the Manganui - 0- Te Ao river, this morning.

Those killed were Denise Trainor, aged 15, a shop assistant; Kevin Rudolph, aged 17, a garage attendant; Kenneth St. John, aged 17, a garage attendant; and Charles York, aged 17, a farm hand.

Another teen-ager, Denny Patrick Trainor, a brother of Miss Trainor, is missing. Denny Patrick Trainor was seen in the car at 9 p.m. on Saturday and is thought to have been in it at the time of the accident. When the bodies were recovered there were three people in the front seat and one in the rear. It is possible that a second person in the rear seat could have been thrown into the stream.

The five were reported missing on Sunday morning after they failed to return home from a dance the previous night.

A search for the car was mounted on Sunday and several Ohakune residents drove along roads within a 40-mile radius of Ohakune looking for the car and its occupants. At 8.30 a.m. yesterday, Mr M. K. St. John, father of one of the missing youths, sighted the car lying upside down below a bridge across the Ma-nganui-O-Te-Ao stream, about 15 miles north of Ohakune, on State highway 4. It appears that the car was travelling north, went into a skid on a wet or icy road, and careered through a narrow gap to the right of the bridge. It would have then bounced off a ledge, and fallen into the deep gorge of the stream. A search in heavy rain was

made of the narrow gorge below the Manganui-O-Te-Aa bridge today, but no trace was found of the missing youth. The search will resume tomorrow morning.