PUKEKAWA CASE Search warrant executed

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32406, 19 September 1970, Page 1

PUKEKAWA CASE Search warrant executed

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, September 18. . Detectives investigating the killing of Mr and Mrs D. H. Crewe, of Pukekawa, today executed a search warrant in the district.

The officer in charge of the murder inquirv. Detective Inspector B. T. N. Hutton, declined this evening to say what the detectives were looking for. While police divers are trying to find the murder weapon—believed to bp a .22 calibre rifle—detectives are trying to identify a car front axle used to weight Mr Crewe’s body in the Waikato River. The decomposing body of Mr Crewe, who weighed about 16 stone, was attached by copper wire to a 501 b to 601 b front axle when it was found in the river about three miles below the Tuakau Bridge on Wednesday morning. In their efforts to establish the make and model of the vehicle from which the axle came, detectives have spoken to welders, engineers, Pukekawa residents, and a vintage car enthusiast Mr Hutton has appealed to anyone who might have owned such an axle, or who has above-average knowledge of old vehicles, to get in touch with the C. 1.8. at the Otahuhu Police Station as soon as possible. He said that the axle came from a very

old type of vehicle, possibly about the 19205, present indications being that the axle was not produced by General Motors. The axle had been used oh a trailer and then removed, Mr Hutton said. The housing round one kingpin had been cut away. A piece of one tie-rod was still welded in place. There was no evidence of a second tie-rod being welded on the other end. Mr Hutton said it was possible that the axle might originally have been left at a rubbish dump near the Tuakau bridge, or in other dumps in the area. Mr Crewe, aged 29, and Mrs Crewe, aged 30, disappeared from their home some time on the night of June 17. Their daughter, Rochelle Janeane, aged 18 months, was found alone in her cot at the farmhouse, about 19 miles south-east of Pukekohe, on the afternoon of June 22. The police believe that someone fed the child during the five days between her parents’ disappearance and when she was found by her grandfather, Mr L. W. Dernier.