Life and death in Petone
A semblance of normality has returned for residents living within a Housing New Zealand complex where a 71-year-old man was killed on Friday.
On Friday night, police were called to the flats in Petone, Lower Hutt and a homicide investigation was launched.
Today, an autopsy will take place and the victim will be formally identified.
But while the scene examination is expected to take several more days, yesterday residents living in the faded blue and grey apartment buildings were going about their day.
Hark The Herald Angels Sing blasted across the complex’s green lawn, while a man was hanging his washing out.
While adults carried groceries inside, children played with beach balls under and around the red and white police crime scene tape marking a perimeter around two of the complex’s four buildings.
Police are focusing on two flats in the Petone complex as the homicide investigation continues.
Forensic teams could be seen collecting evidence from an apartment on the ground floor of the building closest to the road with a badly smashed glass door.
Police tents were set up outside two adjacent apartment buildings.
In one, a forensic team could be seen dusting for fingerprints on worn mustard-yellow chairs.
The officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Inspector Shane Cotter, said the body was found in one apartment.
‘‘We’re examining a flat in each of the buildings to see what the significance of the flats are to our investigation.’’
He would not clarify whether the man’s body had been found in the apartment he lived in or not.
Cotter said the investigation had not determined how the victim died. ‘‘We are here to
investigate what occurred to him, so that’s what we’re looking at now.’’
Neighbours who knew the man remembered him as a friendly, long-time resident with a keen interest in photography. He would often snap photos of property developments going on in the neighbourhood or hang out in the parking lot in his station wagon.
Resident Pio Moeau would regularly go with him to the food bank down the road. ‘‘I was sorry when I heard it was him.’’ He noticed the man’s station wagon was no longer parked by the apartments.
‘‘He is a good man, I really don’t know why a coward person would do that to a 71-year-old man.’’
Moeau and several other residents were surprised to learn the man was 71, all thinking he was much younger.
On Saturday, the Hutt City councillor for the area, Tui Lewis, said she knew the man.
Lewis said the man would have lived in the building on the east-end of Jackson St for more than 20 years.
A Housing NZ spokesman said they would not be making any comment on the ‘‘tragic incident’’, as it was the subject of a police investigation.
Neighbour Richard Warren said the crime was ‘‘too close to home’’.
As a result of the investigation, a 41-year-old-man has been arrested on unrelated matters.
He appeared in Lower Hutt District Court on Saturday on charges relating to wilful damage and drug possession.
Cotter said it was ‘‘still too early’’ to determine whether the 41-year-old was involved in the death.
He expected the police would continue to have a presence at the Jackson St apartments until Wednesday.
The man’s relatives are being assisted by Victim Support.