PIHA FIRE MYSTERY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 16 March 1939, Page 5

PIHA FIRE MYSTERY

LEG FOUND ON WAIHEKE ISLAND PATHOLOGISTS’ VIEW AUCKLAND, 15th March. There were no major developments to-day in the Piha fire case. The leg retrieved on Tuesday morning from the beach between Cowes Bay and Connells Bay on Waiheke Island was examined by pathologists, who are of opinion that it belonged to a much younger man than Patrick Henry Shine, whose body was missing from its coffin when the police reopened a grave i n Waikumete Cemetery on Friday. The precautions taken by the police in this instance are common to cases such as the one they have in hand. Though there is no conclusive evidence, there is a suggestion that the leg found on Waiheke may have belonged to one of four people drowned in Hauraki Gulf since the beginning of the year. No one other than those persons immediately concerned has been permitted to see the remains found at Piha, and Dr Gilmour, who has charge of the pathological examination, has not made an official report to the police. The scope of investigations, either by scientists in their examination of the various materials or by detectives in their field work, is so wide that it may be several weeks before they are able to prepare their final reports.