Missing man might not be missing at all
On a clear spring morning in 2004, Robert Te Paewhenua Roberts’ work van plunged off the Kaimai lookout in Waikato.
The mangled wreck was located
250 metres down the cliff. Roberts, however, was never found. It took
13 years for the case to reach the Coroner but days before findings were due to be released, key new evidence emerged.
There wasn’t much to go on in
2004. A Swanndri, believed to be the 53-year-old’s, was found in a creek bed. Months later, blue overalls and brown leather work boots turned up in a hollowed log. But the Te Puke man, known as Bob to his mates, vanished.
Earlier this month, Coroner Gordon Matenga presided over an inquest into Roberts’ disappearance and adjourned to consider his findings. Two new witnesses have now come forward, prompted by a
article on the inquest, and Matenga will now look at evidence submitted at the eleventh hour.
Both witnesses were working for Fulton Hogan on the day Roberts disappeared. Brian Worth was at Bayfair Shopping Centre in Tauranga five years ago - or eight years after Roberts went missing when he spotted a familiar face. Worth worked with Roberts for several months in 2003 on a Fulton Hogan site in Tauranga, a chemical plant called Orica.
‘‘I was within three metres of him and I locked eyes with him when I walked past,’’ Worth said. ’’Then it dawned on me - that’s Bob.’’
Roberts was talking to a group of people and didn’t appear to be homeless or out of sorts, he said. Worth made the connection after going into the Vodafone store to buy a phone. When he emerged, he went to find Roberts and query him about his disappearance, but the man he saw had vanished.
‘‘I actually thought that seeing him that one time, that the mystery was over,’’ the 62-year-old said.
Worth hadn’t heard much about the case in the intervening years. ‘‘I looked at the police missing persons website and I didn’t see his profile any more and thought it was all done and dusted.
Worth recalls the day of the disappearance, November 30, 2004.
Roberts was working on a site on Oropi Road and borrowed a colleague’s work van.
‘‘He made up some excuse to borrow that van. He wasn’t going home, it was for some personal reason. He was told not to crash it, so it was ironic if he had that in mind.’’ Worth is confident the man he saw five years ago was Roberts. He signed a sworn statement that was sent to the coroner on Wednesday.
Worth wasn’t the only colleague to see him, and he was able to steer police to the other witness.
Two years ago, Worth was building a house in Tauranga when he bumped into Conrad Carroll, who’d also worked at Fulton Hogan.
‘‘In the course of our conversation, we started talking about Bob and he said, ‘Oh, God, I saw Bob - he’s alive.’ And I told him I had seen him, too,’’ Worth said.
Carroll said he saw Roberts in Auckland a year after he ‘‘disappeared’’. Carroll was a passenger in a car travelling slowly - about 30kmh - when he saw Roberts on the side of the road in Ellerslie, dressed in overalls, working on the road.
‘‘It was surreal,’’ Carroll said to
’’I thought the mystery was over. I never knew he was still missing.’’
At the inquest, experts said they believe Roberts survived the crash, but that he didn’t want to be found. Any directives for police to follow will come from Coroner Matenga. Matenga is yet to release his decision.