Stop-go trial: It started with
It was a murder like no other - the seemingly random gunpoint execution of a stop-go man on a remote road.
covered the trial and investigation.
Avehicle pulls up to a onelane bridge roadworks diversion over the Waikato River near Atiamuri. The driver beckons the rotund, 67-year-old lollipop man to the passenger-side window.
He fires a .22 rifle, the bullet entering the worker’s skull above his left eye, sending him flailing backwards.
The vehicle speeds across the bridge, past the other lollipop worker, and is last seen in the nearby Pureora Forest.
First responders rush to the scene but the road worker is dead and the killer has disappeared.
So begins one of New Zealand’s most fascinating and unusual whodunit murders, a saga that would culminate three-and-a-half years years later in the conviction of the man police were convinced had so cold-bloodedly killed an innocent grandfather.
From the start, it was clear that the investigation into who murdered George Taiaroa on March 19, 2013 would be a long, painstaking one.
There was little forensic or eyewitness evidence, but police was the same as always: be objective, professional, don’t assume anything, check everything twice, corroborate. He was satisfied he had some of the best investigators in the country.
The first task was a massive one – to trawl through the names of more than 10,000 Jeep Cherokee owners, the priority the 4000 or so darker coloured vehicles.
‘‘We had a lot of people coming to us to eliminate themselves,’’ Anderson says. ‘‘We had drivers of blue Jeep Cherokees complaining because they’d been stopped four times by the police.
‘‘I think it was the media appeal that solved this case. We got the message to the public and then key witnesses came forward.’’
One of those was a resident of
‘‘We had drivers of blue Jeep Cherokees complaining because they’d been stopped four times by the police. ’’