Mystery rifle to be examined

Press, 2 September 1981, Page 6

Mystery rifle to be examined

PA Auckland The Auckland police have * taken possession of a' .22 rifle which was found more than a year ago on the Pukekawa farm on which Arthur Allan Thomas lived with his

family. The rifle barrel, with the bolt mechanism rusted to it, was handed to an Auckland scientific analyst, Dr T. J. Sprott, last month by the Thomas family. Dr Sprott said yesterday his investigations had found that the .22 had six land

marks with a right-hand twist, as did the weapon used to kill Harvey and Jeanette Crewe at Pukekawa in 1970.

He was unable to identify all the serial numbers and letters on the rusted barrel.

The Auckland regional controller of the Criminal

Investigation Branch, Detec- * five Chief Superintendent Brian Wilkinson, said yesterday that the rifle would be sent to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in Wellington for fur-

ther tests. “I think_.it needs to be identified,” he said. Mr Wilkinson did not know when the identification tests by the D.SI.R. would be completed. . He would not say if the weapon could have fired the fatal bullets.