Woman bashed to death

Press, 22 September 1983, Page 1

Woman bashed to death

PA Auckland The police last evening were looking for a man who boarded with a woman found battered to death in her Grey Lynn home early yesterday.

A post-mortem examination confirmed that the woman had been bashed on the head with a heavy instrument and stabbed once in the neck. She was

Olga Anne Howe, aged 56. The police said Mrs Howe was attacked on Tuesday night. Detectives believe that two weapons removed from the house were used in the attack. One of two men who boarded in the house has disappeared, together with an orange Datsun 120 Y car. The man leading the homicide inquiry, Inspector P. I. Jenkinson, said last evening that the police urgently wanted to speak to the man, a European, aged 43, believed to have boarded at the house for periods over the last five years. The other boarder, a bus inspector with the Auckland Regional Authority, found Mrs Howe lying in a pool of blood in her bedroom about 6.30 a.m. yesterday. “We are following a positive lead,” said Mr Jenkinson. Detectives were considering a possible motive, but he refused to discuss it. He said that Mrs Howe’s injuries were the result of “quite a vicious attack.” Mrs Howe, who had apparently lived in the street a number of years, was said to be well liked by neighbours. One neighbour described her as “a really nice lady” who always chatted to passers-by when walking her dog or working in her garden.