Police make arrests in Auckland killing

Press, 2 September 1980, Page 6

Police make arrests in Auckland killing

' .- ■ Auckland Two men were , arrested -last evening., and . charged with the murder of a Poly- / '.jiesian man . whose;, identity remains a mystery. Intensive efforts are being /made by - detectives to identify, the body found in the Potters Wheel tavern' at New Lynn on Friday evening. /'. // Members of the same homicide inquiry yesterday charged two men, aged 18 ■ and 20, with the murder. /They will appear in the Dis- ; trict Court at Henderson this morning.' // j The man heading the New ./.■Lynniriquiry; Detective In- . spector A. R. White, said de- - -tectives were still working - hard on the case. They were urgently seeking public - assistance to identify the dead man, a part-Polynesian male in his early 30s. <"'■ Two other killings are //under investigation in Auckland. A significant find has been made by detectives ■working on the Blunden inquiry/? ■ 'A shoe belonging to the . teen-age; girl who died after being attacked in a TakaSuna street 10 days ago has een found in Mount Albert. A-black handbag and a .pair of shoes were missing after Jacqueline Hazel Blun- , den, aged 16, was left unconscious-, with head injuries in Anzac Street, Takapuna. Detective Chief Inspector R. N. Macdonald had said '

the; jriissing shoes and handbag were probably the most important clues in tracking Miss Blunden’s killer. Children in Springleigh Avenue, found one • of the shoes, which has been positively,, identified by the dead girl’s parents. Mr Macdonald said yesterday there was no apparent explanation why the shoe turned up in Mount Albert. The shoe . had been scientifically examined and the new lead /looked ‘.‘interesting.” The team hunting the killer of Alicia ’ O’Reilly, aged six, was scaled from 40 to 32 detectives'yesterday with the scene search completed

and- the door-to-dobr canvass almost finished. . ■/ The ‘ Assistant Commissioner of Police in Auckland, Mr- E. J. Trappitt, said it was a particularly difficult case, but he praised the team, saying it had amassed a huge amount of information on the rape and murder in Avondale on August 16. The man heading that inquiry, Detective Inspector Barry Matthews, said tee in- | quiry .was. not winding down. His. men; were.’checking a list of 400 named suspects and also waiting for the results of D.S.I.R. tests which could give further clues.