Police Search For Rifle At Haast

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32336, 30 June 1970, Page 1

Police Search For Rifle At Haast

Police searched unsuccessfully in Haast yesterday for the rifle used in the murder there and for the motive.

The dead man. Cleave Edward Jones, aged 39, a bridge worker, was found dead in his Ministry of Works hut about 1.30 p.m. on Saturday. The police believe they know the type of weapon they are looking for. Detective Superintendent F. A. Gordon, regional controller of the Criminal Investigation Branch, agreed it was strange that no person living nearby or in the camp had heard the shot but added that it would depend on the type of weapon used. “We have a good idea about that,” he said. Mr Gordon said that the person who had fired the shot had entered Mr Jones’s hut through an unlocked door. He said that Mr Jones had been shot in the head but he declined to answer a question as to whether there were powder burns on Mr Jones which would suggest a shot fired at close range. “That is a question the pathologist and the laboratories will have to answer.” Mr Jones lived in the M.O.W. camp area in one of 30 huts in the middle of the town. About 16 of the huts were occupied at the time of the murder. Detective Inspector E. T. Mitten, officer in charge of the C. 1.8. in Otago and Southland and the man who has had charge of the inquiry into tfie death of Miss Jennifer Beard, returned to Dunedin yesterday and Detective Superintendent Gordon will return to Christchurch today Chief Inspector M. J. K. Ford officer in charge of the Grey mouth police district, re turned to Greymouth yesterday.

From Wellington Detective Inspector A. W. Baker, of Wellington, who has been brought in to head the Inquiry, said last evening that the police knew Mr Jones’s movements on Friday night. He had watched television with a friend in the camp that night, but the friend, who lived in the next hut, had heard no shot. The huts surrounding Mr Jones’s are all occupied. “There is no suggestion that "MrTones had been in a fight or dispute that night. He has lived in the camp for the last 12 months and had lived there before. He has friends in the camp but they have not been able to help us,” Mr Bakei said.

A post-mortem examinations on Mr Jones will be made today. The 12 police in the area|;

[spent yesterday interviewing [persons in Haast and inspecting firearms. They also made ia search of the M.O.W. camp.