BODY IN SCRUB CASE: MISSING MAN SOUGHT

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 February 1950, Page 3

BODY IN SCRUB CASE: MISSING MAN SOUGHT

AUCKLAND February 15 (PA.). —The police are carrying out a widespread investigation in connection with the Onepu case. With a gunshot wound in the chest, the body of Frederick Stanley Hodson, aged 59, a married man, bacteriologist _at the factory of the Rangitaiki Plains Dairy Company, Ltd, at Edgecumbe, was found covered with sand, scrub, and tins behind manuka bushes a few yards from the edge of Grieves road, Onepu, at 8 p.m. on Tuesday. No weapon has been found and a widespread search is being made for Mr Hodson’s missing car.

The police are also trying to find a missing Edgecumbe resident. Mr Hodson has been bacteriologist at the Rangitaiki Plains dairy factory, the second largest in New Zealand, for 17 years. Before that he was bacteriologist at the New Plymouth Hospital. Farmers and members of the company’s staff describe him as a popular officer. Mr Hodson travelled to the factory every day from his home at Lake Rotoma, about 20 miles away. He generally used the service car, but occasionally used his own car. Police Notified In Morning About 8.30 a.m. on Monday he left for the factory in his car. When he did not return home that evening Mrs Hodson became anxious, but she was unable to notify the W’hakatane police until yesterday morning. No clue to Mi' Hodson’s disappearance was received until last evening. It came from an Edgecumbe carrier, Mr T. H. Anderson, who had driven his truck from Edgecumbe along Grieves road on Monday morning to pick up some pigs in the Onepu district. About 10 a.m. he noticed Mr Hodson’s car run off the road into the manuka scrub, but he did not pay particular attention to it. On his return journey to Edgecumbe about an hour later the car was not there. Mr Anderson reported this to the police when he learned last evening of Mr Hodson’s disappearance. Accompanied by Constables Julian and D. Jones, of Whakatane, he went to the spot at which he had seen the car. Mr Hodson’s body was found a few yards away, covered with sand, scrub, and tins, apparently in an attempt to disguise it as a rubbish heap. About 6 a.m. on Monday a man had been seen on a bicycle in the Te Toko district, and in the next two or three hours several persons saw him walking about. Mr R. F. Duckworth, who said he saw the man walking on the main road towards Rotorua about 7.45 a.m., said he was not armed. At 10 a.m. the man was seen near Mr Hodson’s car. Petrol Obtained For Car Mr Hodson’s car, driven by the same man, called at Te Toko Motors’ garage and the man obtained five gallons of petrol. When the car left it was going towards Rotorua. Although an extensive police search has been made of the Whakatane and surrounding districts, the car has not yet been found. It could be several hundred miles from Te Toko by now.