Search for Lewis winds down

Press, 13 May 1987, Page 3

Search for Lewis winds down

The Buller Gorge search for Christopher John Lewis has been wound down.

The four members of the Christchurch armed offenders squad who have been searching the gorge daily were to return home this evening. The police are little wiser about the fate of Lewis, aged 23, who fled into the bush 13 days ago

after crashing the stolen car he was driving. None of the clues uncovered by the police point directly to Lewis, who is wanted for questioning over bank robberies in Christchurch and Dunedin. Fresh footprints were found near Windy Point, where Lewis crashed the car, but these were ‘ not confirmed as being Lewis’s.

Two sightings were reported of a person fitting Lewis’s description at the week-end; one near Murchison, the other in the Upper Buller Gorge. The police checked both without success. Fugitives often leave some trace — burglaries, thefts of food or the conversion of a car. The police know of just one burglary but there

are now serious doubts that the offender was Lewis. The Island Creek scout den, six kilometres up the gorge, was broken into some time after Lewis’s disappearance. Sergeant Pat Baker, of Westport, said fingerprints were removed from louvre windows and checked by the police fingerprints section. “Although they cannot

suy with any degree ef certainty, they are of the opinion the prints do not belong to Lewis, k? <?

“It is just being treated as a normal burglary but, of course, we cannot discount the possibility that Lewis was there.”

No further searches were planned unless further information comes to light, said Sergeant Baker.