Dead pair seen together the week prior

One of the last people to see Auckland actress Tania Ellwood alive has described seeing her walking outside a Grey Lynn boarding house with Timothy Kerr Hamilton the week before she was found dead.

“I thought that she was his girlfriend . . . people often sneak in their female companions,” said a shocked worker who stumbled across the pair’s bodies this week.

The bodies of Ellwood, 39, and Hamilton, 36, were found at Dryden Lodge on Tuesday.

A man at the property who came across the bodies before police were called in, said Hamilton had moved into the Lodge the week before.

“I showed him to his room,” the man said.

“I got a good vibe from him. He seemed cool — I figured he was from the streets and just wanted a roof over his head.”

The man, who did not want to be named, said Tania wasn’t staying at the lodge. He had seen her with Hamilton shortly after he moved in.

“Both of them were walking on the street outside the boarding house last Tuesday or Wednesday.”

The man said he saw something the following Tuesday that made him suspicious. He knew something terrible had happened inside the room, so opened the locked door and went inside.

What he discovered he said, was “too bad” to talk about.

“All I knew was that he was in the room. I didn’t know that she was in there.”

Tributes for Ellwood and Hamilton were being made online by family and friends yesterday.

Katrina Ellwood paid tribute to her sister in a Facebook post. “RIP [my] beautiful sis,” she wrote with a photo with Ellwood. “I love you with all my heart and I’m going to miss you every single day.”

Two of Hamilton’s nephews also paid tribute to their uncle. “Rest in Peace Uncle Tim,” Julian Rika said in a Facebook post.

A resident living at the boarding house said the incident had come as a total shock, describing the people living there as being like a “big family”.