Mystery man had drug links

Press, 18 November 1981, Page 1

Mystery man had drug links

PA Auckland A man who disappeared before he was due to face several drugs charges in Timaru eariy last year has been identified as the mvstery victim of a fata) motor accident in Mount Roskill on Friday. He was Howard Campbell Wilson, aged 31, a fitter-welder, of Titirangi, and formerly of Christcburch. The man’s identity had baffled the police until information from his former wife, associates, and several. Auckland employers poured in yesterday. He was killed when the car he was driving and a van collided at the corner of White Swann Road and Hills-

borough Road about 9.10 p.m. The Avondale police investigating the accident learned yesterday that Wilson was due to face charges ,of growing cannabis last year but absconded for the second time after being released on bail. Wilson was to appear in the District Court at Timaru in April on charges related to the discovery of 10110 cannabis plants near Pleasant Point in 1979. A warrant for his arrest was issued after he failed to appear on a number of separate charges. These charges related to a motor accident in MidCanterbury in October, 1979, when Wilson was alleged to have assaulted two persons

and was carrying a loaded pistol at the time. He appeared in court and was granted bail, in spite of police opposition. He did not appear on the remand date, but was arrested four months later, and again against the wishes of police was allowed bail. Wilson eluded apprehension for the next 18 months in Auckland using at least six different names and addresses. He left his wife and three children in Christchurch and worked part-time as a welder for several Auckland firms under various names, including Steve Voung, Bruce Young, Steve Cross, and Steve Lane. He was well known to the South Island police because

of his extensive list of criminal convictions, many of them involving drugs. The police located his de facto wife, who knew him as Steve Cross, soon after she called at a firm yesterday to collect money owed to him. It was her information that eventually led to a positive identification. Wilson’s movements over the last 18 months aroused the interest of Auckland drug squad detectives after a number of false identification documents were found on him at the accident scene. Several papers identified him as Bruce Robert Young, but inquiries have shown this to be the identity of a boy, aged eight, who died in 1950. Addresses given on some

of the papers were false and Wilson’s car, recently registered, was in the name of Bruce Young at one of these addresses. A check on the earless day sticker still displayed in the 1967 Anglia showed that the old registration of the car had not been cancelled. The Avondale police had a breakthrough yesterday when a Christchurch woman said she was convinced the dead man was her estranged husband. A photograph she provided of her husband matched with Wilson. - . ; The police had yet to receive fingerprint test results from Wellington, but said these were not essential now.