Help needed to crack 60-year cold case

The family of a former Taranaki man missing for close to 60 years hopes someone still living in the region can help solve the mystery of what happened to him.

Bill Carswell has spent several years trying to find out the fate of his half-brother Trevor Schultz, who disappeared in February 1957.

At the time Schultz was a nurse at Tokanui Hospital, but one day he went for a walk near Te Awamutu and never returned.

Despite police finding his bicycle and a maroon jumper he was wearing, and officers carrying out an extensive search through scrub and swamp land nearby, no trace of the 25-year-old was ever found.

Carswell said after his parents divorced, Schultz came to live with his father in New Plymouth and also went to school in the city as well.

Through years of his own research, Carswell has been able to track his half sibling to addresses in Urenui, Okato and New Ply- mouth and also discovered he completed compulsory military training before getting at job at Tokanui, a role he had for six months before he went missing.

Hastings-based Carswell said due to the family split, neither he nor Schultz’s full brother Ray, had much to do with him growing up. The three men share the same mother.

The first he heard of Schultz going missing was as a 13-year-old, when he saw a snippet about the search in the newspaper.

Carswell said Ray Schultz had been part of the initial search party but all efforts to find the missing man had come to nothing.’’We never solved what had actually happened,’’ he said.

He said rumours had swirled about what had happened to Schultz, including speculation he was still alive and living overseas.

‘‘There were a few stories going around but there was no evidence to prove them one way or the other,’’ he said.

Carswell said he had folders full of information about Schultz’s life. He said police had been unable to find their original file on Schultz but he had verified that the coroner had not been involved and no death certificate had been issued.

‘‘He still remains a missing person. It’s just a mystery.’’

‘‘There’s a lot of unanswered questions,’’ he said.

Carswell said there had to be people in Taranaki who either remembered Schultz or his family and might have the information needed to finally crack the case.

Do you know anything? Email wcarswell@xtra.co.nz or call 06 876 3945.