Speaker 1: Hello friends. Today we're going to be talking about the
Speaker 1: disturbing and bizarre disappearances on Auckland's West coast beaches. Now,
Speaker 1: since nineteen ninety two, six people have vanished from the
Speaker 1: same small corner of Auckland's West coast, one of New
Speaker 1: Zealand's most famous beaches, Pa Beach. The authorities are convinced
Speaker 1: that it's either misadventure or people doing it to themselves.
Speaker 1: But is this true or is there a darker side
Speaker 1: to this iconic stretch of coast. What is causing these
Speaker 1: bizarre disappearances in this beautiful but isolated part of the world.
Speaker 1: Experts who have lived in the area for many years
Speaker 1: and have taken part in countless rescues dismiss claims that
Speaker 1: the disappearances are linked to heavy surf in the Tasman
Speaker 1: Sea or people slipping off the well marked trails near
Speaker 1: the cliffs. A University of Auckland study found that of
Speaker 1: the two hundred and nineteen drownings across New Zealand between
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight and two twenty seventeen, fifty eight
Speaker 1: percent of the bodies were recovered within just twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: and the majority of those were found at the same location.
Speaker 1: Seven percent were found within zero point six miles before
Speaker 1: they were reported missing, thirteen percent between zero point six
Speaker 1: to three point two miles, and nine percent were found
Speaker 1: more than three point two miles away. Just nine percent
Speaker 1: were never seen again. Between two thousand and three and
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, PA lifeguards have made more than one thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred and eighty eight water rescues. There was only
Speaker 1: one death during that period where a body was not recovered. Now.
Speaker 1: Where is PA Beach and what are the legends that
Speaker 1: surrounded PA? Is New Zealand's most famous surf beach, and
Speaker 1: it's located on the west coast of the North Island,
Speaker 1: about forty kilometers from the city of Auckland. It has
Speaker 1: a reputation for awesome surf which rolls in off the
Speaker 1: Tasman Sea. Nearby are the highest coastal ridges in New Zealand,
Speaker 1: at points as high as two hundred and forty meters
Speaker 1: above the rough sea below. The area does have a
Speaker 1: strange history. The nearby tracks or trails are guarded by
Speaker 1: the wooden statue Te ahua O Hinerangi, whose own tragic
Speaker 1: tale is the stuff of local legend and lore. The
Speaker 1: husband of Hinerangi, the Maori chiefs beautiful and only daughter,
Speaker 1: was part of a fishing party on the rocks below
Speaker 1: when a large wave engulf liment he was killed. Hinerangi
Speaker 1: could not be comforted and would sit every day on
Speaker 1: the point gazing out over the ocean. Now said today,
Speaker 1: from a certain position on the cliffs, it's said that
Speaker 1: you can see a life sized figure sitting there gazing
Speaker 1: out to sea. Ahua means likeness in Maori, and the
Speaker 1: legend was Hinerangi was taken and her face imprinted on
Speaker 1: the rock. Former way Takiri City Mayor Sir Bob Harvey
Speaker 1: said the area does indeed have a haunted past. He
Speaker 1: claims that he's seen the unmistakable face of a Maori
Speaker 1: woman many times on the cliff while running the track
Speaker 1: early in the morning light. He further states the whole
Speaker 1: place is steeped in mystery and legend. First, let's examine
Speaker 1: the disappearance of Quenton Godwin. In May of nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: Quenton Godman left a note at home indicating he was
Speaker 1: going to pee how to end his life, but he
Speaker 1: returned home, reporting to the driver who ferried him from
Speaker 1: Pia that he had second thoughts. Five days later, he vanished,
Speaker 1: never to be seen again. At just seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: Quentin had already been diagnosed as manic, depressive or bipolar. However,
Speaker 1: the time leading up to Quentin's disappearance, he was doing fine,
Speaker 1: studying in his seventh form subjects that he enjoyed. On
Speaker 1: May twentieth, nineteen ninety two, he told his younger sister
Speaker 1: he was going to the village to his after school
Speaker 1: job at the supermarket. He walked out of the family
Speaker 1: home and then simply vanished. The next morning, a note
Speaker 1: was found in Quinton's bedroom. His mother, Sarah said, I
Speaker 1: think the note wasn't explicit, but you could just read
Speaker 1: it as that type of note or a deeply unhappy note.
Speaker 1: There was obviously a plea for help. There was a
Speaker 1: huge amount of confusion and pain. Over the next few years,
Speaker 1: there would be sightings with Quinton, posters up put up
Speaker 1: all over New Zealand, strange phone calls from a woman
Speaker 1: claiming to be his wife saying they had a baby together,
Speaker 1: but all these leads came to nothing. In February of
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, an end quest concluded Quinton was dead, even
Speaker 1: though there was no evidence to prove this. Next the
Speaker 1: disappearance of Irena Asher. At nine thirty pm on Sunday,
Speaker 1: October tenth, two thousand and four, Julia Woodhouse and her
Speaker 1: teenage son Henry were driving back into Pihah from Auckland.
Speaker 1: As they rounded a bend, they were shocked to see
Speaker 1: a young woman on the road wearing nothing but underwear,
Speaker 1: ugg boots and a sweatshirt. Julie stopped the car and
Speaker 1: asked the woman if she needed help. The woman's name
Speaker 1: Arena Asher, a twenty five year old trainee teacher and
Speaker 1: part time model. Arena Asher was bipolar and was under
Speaker 1: the effects of alcohol and drugs that night. The police
Speaker 1: investigation that came later claimed that her behavior had become
Speaker 1: increasingly erratic over the previous days, and her family disagreed,
Speaker 1: as both her father and sister had seen her just
Speaker 1: the day before she disappeared, but it seems likely she
Speaker 1: was in the grip of a manic episode. She had
Speaker 1: admitted to both missing doses and doubling up on her
Speaker 1: mood stabilizing lithium pills in the month fire, and a
Speaker 1: long term relationship had ended badly only a week before
Speaker 1: police claimed stress could have cost her to relapse into
Speaker 1: this strange behavior. On October ten, Arena had gone to
Speaker 1: a house at peaht with her new boyfriend and another couple.
Speaker 1: They later testified that she went down to the beach
Speaker 1: alone at some point and returned soaked in cold. She
Speaker 1: refused to change the clothes, however, and chose to go
Speaker 1: naked beneath the duvet. Her boyfriend later left without her
Speaker 1: at her request. Several other people came and went from
Speaker 1: the house, and at around nine pm, Arena Asher called
Speaker 1: the police, claiming she had been drugged and was being
Speaker 1: pressured into having sex against her will. The police called
Speaker 1: her a taxi, which never turned up. She left the
Speaker 1: house alone wearing just her underwear, boots and sweatshirt. Juliet
Speaker 1: took Irena to the Black Sands Lodge on Beach Valley Road,
Speaker 1: which she ran with her partner, Bobby Carroll. Arena took
Speaker 1: a shower and they offered her a bed for the night,
Speaker 1: but she remained suspicious of the couple and declined. Now.
Speaker 1: They didn't call the police, but Carol thought she might
Speaker 1: be coming down off recreational drugs. At least one person
Speaker 1: in the house she'd left had already taken ecstasy the
Speaker 1: previous night. Asher called her ex boyfriend's mother instead of
Speaker 1: the police, then watched television with Henry and said she
Speaker 1: decides she would stay the night and would sleep in
Speaker 1: the lounge with French doors that opened onto the garden
Speaker 1: and the road leading to the Tasman Lookout. Just after
Speaker 1: one Bobby and Julia went to sleep, and then Irena
Speaker 1: left through the lodge through the French door. Carol gave
Speaker 1: chase but found only the dressing gown, which she had
Speaker 1: given to help keep her warm. Around one thirty am,
Speaker 1: Irena was seen naked beneath the street light near the
Speaker 1: pia Hoa store by a couple out walking their dog.
Speaker 1: It was bitterly cold, windy, and stormy, so the dog
Speaker 1: walkers were shocked but did nothing. They watched Irena as
Speaker 1: she bizarrely began to talk to a street light and
Speaker 1: kneeled and kissed the ground before it, and then she
Speaker 1: walked toward the beach arena, then disappeared into the darkness,
Speaker 1: never to be seen again. Bobby had returned to the
Speaker 1: lodge and called the police, but the search didn't even
Speaker 1: begin until four am. It was presumed that she had
Speaker 1: just simply walked out into the ocean, but the surf
Speaker 1: and sea conditions were huge. The waves were four to
Speaker 1: five meters high, and the water was bitterly cold. So
Speaker 1: what happened to Arena Asher? It would have to be
Speaker 1: very difficult by Arena to voluntarily enter the water, as
Speaker 1: the shore break was significant that night, should have been
Speaker 1: thrown back onto the beach by the crashing waves. The
Speaker 1: searches along the shoreline and a rescue helicopter found nothing
Speaker 1: on the beach nor in the headlands to the north,
Speaker 1: where bodies would drift in the current when the surf
Speaker 1: had dropped during the search, a body would be easy
Speaker 1: to spot in the water. Searchers climbed to a cathedral
Speaker 1: cave and explored the coves all the way to Bethel's
Speaker 1: The search was called off after five days with no
Speaker 1: sign of Arena. Veteran surf life saver Duncan Clark has
Speaker 1: patrolled the coast for more than thirty years and dragged
Speaker 1: many unfortunate bodies out of the water in the area,
Speaker 1: including those that have been partially decomposed. Scratched her Maine
Speaker 1: from the rocks partially divided by sharks or the marine life.
Speaker 1: Clark recalls the days and weeks that followed I Rena's
Speaker 1: disappearance as miserable and explains how the conditions that night
Speaker 1: simply did not lend themselves to her being swept away.
Speaker 1: He says, the conditions that night were atrocious on shore,
Speaker 1: twenty nine winds, possibly some of the worst conditions you
Speaker 1: could have out here, at least three to four meter
Speaker 1: swells all breaking right on the shore, southwest winds, and
Speaker 1: it was cold, bitterly cold in my experience. Immediately, I
Speaker 1: felt it was more likely that if someone had gone
Speaker 1: in the water and drowned, they would have been swept
Speaker 1: back up onto the shore. I was expecting her to
Speaker 1: be found coastal in the wider Pia High area. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's not uncommon for a body to go under for
Speaker 1: three to seven days until the gases start to build
Speaker 1: up through decomposition, and then they'll float up again. Closer
Speaker 1: to Bethel's speech, I personally don't know what happened to her,
Speaker 1: but I can only hope that we did our job
Speaker 1: to the best of our ability with the search and
Speaker 1: rescue that night, and that ultimately she didn't go on
Speaker 1: the water that day. If she had gone in the water,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we would have found her. Corner. Peter Ryan
Speaker 1: ruled that while I ran unquote, had a lot to
Speaker 1: live for quote, there was a strong probability that she
Speaker 1: went into the sea in the early hours of October eleventh,
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, and subsequently drowned. Senior and Sergeant
Speaker 1: Mark Fergus, who led the five day search for the
Speaker 1: young lady, agreed with the findings of the corner, arguing
Speaker 1: her body would probably have been found if it was
Speaker 1: in the bush and that foul play was unlikely. Next
Speaker 1: up the disappearance of Sherry Wousden, Forty two year old.
Speaker 1: Sherry was a mother to a young daughter, and she
Speaker 1: often walked around the Mercer Bay Loop and knew it
Speaker 1: well now. The loop takes about twenty minutes to complete,
Speaker 1: and her brother, Darren Roberts says she loved the sunsets
Speaker 1: out there. She would come back home with daisies she'd
Speaker 1: picked from log Grace Road. Her sister in law, Rachel Fausten,
Speaker 1: said it was Sheeri's thinking spot. She went there regularly,
Speaker 1: but on the evening of Saturday, December twentieth, twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: Sherry drove down log Grace Road and parked her car
Speaker 1: near to where the loop track begins. A couple said
Speaker 1: that they saw her around seven to fifteen PM as
Speaker 1: she walked south down the track with a bottle of
Speaker 1: wine in hand, perhaps to watch the sunset. Her car
Speaker 1: was found unlocked, with the windows down and empty a
Speaker 1: few hours later. The police made an intensive search for
Speaker 1: Sherry by land, sea and air in good weather over
Speaker 1: the falling days. They believed she had fallen from the
Speaker 1: cliffs and into the water. Inflatable rescue boats or IRBs
Speaker 1: from the local surf clubs were used to search the
Speaker 1: coast from North Piha to kyri Kari. The Westpac Rescue
Speaker 1: helicopter joined them later, but the search found absolutely nothing
Speaker 1: and wound down after a few days. Friends and family
Speaker 1: then continued the search, but they also came up empty handed.
Speaker 1: It was as if Sherry had just vanished one odd thing.
Speaker 1: The passenger seat visor in her car was left down,
Speaker 1: and the vanity mirror had swipe marks on it, indicating
Speaker 1: it had been recently cleaned. The corner came to the
Speaker 1: conclusion that Bouston and the presumed semi intoxicated state hopped
Speaker 1: the barricade, walked to the cliff's edge and accidentally fell
Speaker 1: off the Mercer cliffs to her death in the sea below.
Speaker 1: No evidence was found to indicate foul play or the
Speaker 1: involvement of any other person. A broken bottle of wine
Speaker 1: was the only of interest found in the search, but
Speaker 1: it couldnot be definitively linked to Sherry or the bottle
Speaker 1: she was carrying earlier. The corner said, all the circumstances
Speaker 1: unfortunately pointed to her falling and being swept away from
Speaker 1: the sea, but that's a conclusion rejected by the families.
Speaker 1: Rachel Faustan said, once as a tragic accident, but when
Speaker 1: you have this many missing people who not only all
Speaker 1: look about the same but have all disappeared in the
Speaker 1: same area without a trace, no way. Next the disappearance
Speaker 1: of Kim Bambas. Kim Bambas was a twenty one year
Speaker 1: old nurse at Middlemore Hospital. Originally from the Bay of Islands,
Speaker 1: she had lived in Auckland for four years. Her sister
Speaker 1: Storm Bambas said Kim was a tiny little thing in
Speaker 1: the life of the party, as well as very independent.
Speaker 1: Like Sherry, Kim Bambas regularly ran the Mercer Bay Loop. However,
Speaker 1: on the morning of Friday, March the t twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, Kim left her upon Sumby flat and went
Speaker 1: shopping at a countdown on Williamson Avenue, buying some snacks Supermarket.
Speaker 1: CCTV footage confirms this last known sighting over She had
Speaker 1: told her flatmates that she was going for a run
Speaker 1: at Pia. When she didn't return that evening, they drove
Speaker 1: the route from the city to the beach to try
Speaker 1: and find her. They reported her missing around eight pm
Speaker 1: that evening. Her bright yellow Highundai gets was found five
Speaker 1: hours later in the log Grace Road car park, close
Speaker 1: to the start of the loop track, just where Sherry's
Speaker 1: car had been found. Kim's mobile phone was still inside
Speaker 1: the car. Police immediately started a search in the area
Speaker 1: around log Grace Road and down the Ahuahu Track with
Speaker 1: ground teams and helicopters. Over forty police and land search
Speaker 1: and rescue personnel were soon committed to the operation, which
Speaker 1: was hampered by low clouds and rain. Several climbers even
Speaker 1: searched the cliff face. The coast was thoroughly searched using
Speaker 1: police helicopter, and lifeguards did the same on inflatable boats
Speaker 1: on the sea. By Sunday, March twenty sixth, there were
Speaker 1: drones deployed in the area, but nothing still to be found.
Speaker 1: Short line searches with it organized with the locals at Karrie,
Speaker 1: Cary and Piha, but there was no sign of the
Speaker 1: runner Kim, and just like Sherry, she seems to have
Speaker 1: simply vanished into thin air. Rachel Boustan, Sherry's sister in law,
Speaker 1: said after Kim's disappearance, I've been out there every year
Speaker 1: and it's the same as it always was. You follow
Speaker 1: the track, it's very hard to go off the track.
Speaker 1: It's very dense bush she reckoned. Something didn't add up
Speaker 1: about the disappearance. If they're falling into the ocean, she said,
Speaker 1: the two missing women, Why is nothing floating up? Why
Speaker 1: does nothing ever show up next? The disappearance of Lawrence
Speaker 1: woe Wu twenty two, also known as Lawrence, was last
Speaker 1: seen at about one forty pm on March tenth at
Speaker 1: Saint Luke's Liquor Center in Auckland before his car was
Speaker 1: found in the Pihi area. His phone was also last
Speaker 1: pained there. He was reported missing on March twelfth, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: But almost a year later police called off the search.
Speaker 1: Auckland City Police Sergeant Tanya and Kingi said despite the
Speaker 1: extensive efforts, no information led to Lawrence being found and
Speaker 1: all lines of inquiry had been exhausted. She says the
Speaker 1: police staff involved in this investigation wanted nothing more than
Speaker 1: to be able to provide the answers that the family
Speaker 1: so desperately seeks at a time like this, and it
Speaker 1: is unfortunate that we have not been able to achieve
Speaker 1: this despite our best efforts. Kingki said multiple searches were
Speaker 1: carried out across Pihi in the water Carry area. Police
Speaker 1: also examined the contents of his vehicle which was found
Speaker 1: at Pihaw Beach, which included his laptop. The matter was
Speaker 1: not being treated as suspicious and there was no evidence
Speaker 1: of foul play. Yet no trace of Lawrence has ever
Speaker 1: been found. Next up the disappearance of Iloi Roland. On
Speaker 1: March seventh, twenty twenty, French teenager Eloi Roland went missing
Speaker 1: near Piha Beach. Cell Phone data placed him in the
Speaker 1: vicinity of pi Road and Scenic Drive at nine eighteen
Speaker 1: am on the morning of his disappearance March seventh, After
Speaker 1: an exhaustive land search spanning more than sixteen hundred hours.
Speaker 1: Police suspended the physical search for Eloi in May pending
Speaker 1: new information. A teenager's T shirt was found in the
Speaker 1: Kari Karrie Bush, but it was not clear if it
Speaker 1: belonged to Eloi or not. Detective Senior Sergeant Callum McNeil
Speaker 1: said there'd been no significant updates, but police continue to
Speaker 1: be in regular contact with Eloi family in France. His parents,
Speaker 1: Terry and Catherine, said they have not given up hope.
Speaker 1: It will be very difficult this year as we are
Speaker 1: a very close family and not being able to say
Speaker 1: our son physically is going to be hard on all
Speaker 1: of us, they said in a statement. So what happened
Speaker 1: near pm each The Mercer Bay Track doesn't run along
Speaker 1: the very cliff edge. It's well graded and not technically
Speaker 1: difficult hiking, with a few places where someone might actually fall.
Speaker 1: A few dangerous points are fenced off to prevent such accidents.
Speaker 1: In addition, the cliffs may seem steep and vertical when
Speaker 1: you're standing on top of them, but they mostly arc
Speaker 1: out seaward, usually many meters, and they are studied with
Speaker 1: ledges and sharp outcrops of rock. This point is made
Speaker 1: by the death of Fiona Hamilton on Sunday, September third,
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. Fiona Hamilton, a forty three year
Speaker 1: old Australian woman, lost their footing above Mercer Bay and
Speaker 1: fell down the cliff face. Jill had to ask her
Speaker 1: husband to take a photo over she walked off the
Speaker 1: trail and unfortunately stepped back too far. She fell over
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty meters down the cliff face and
Speaker 1: onto a ledge fifty meters from the sea. She died instantly,
Speaker 1: but her body was held with the cliffs and was
Speaker 1: quickly found, where the Auckland Line rescue team made the
Speaker 1: difficult recovery of her body. The climbers had to frequently
Speaker 1: stop to place protection on their ropes where they rubbed
Speaker 1: against the sharp rocks. Now experts say it takes six
Speaker 1: or seven seconds for human body to fall two hundred meters,
Speaker 1: by which time it's traveling at more than one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty five miles an hour or two hundred kilometers
Speaker 1: per hour, and so a person falling off the cliff
Speaker 1: would almost certainly leave traces of blood, body parts or
Speaker 1: clothing on the cliff face. On the way down. So
Speaker 1: even if sherry Vousmen and kim Bambas fell cleared the
Speaker 1: cliffs somehow at a certain spot into the water, it's
Speaker 1: likely their bodies would be found as they began to
Speaker 1: float after decomposition set in. Victims of drownings at pr
Speaker 1: are usually found within a few days up the coast
Speaker 1: at Moriwai. If the bodies are not found in the sea,
Speaker 1: they generally turn up in the bush. The bush also
Speaker 1: often gives up its dead eventually. An archaeologist once picked
Speaker 1: up an unusual looking rock as he walked down the
Speaker 1: Ahuahu Track part of the Mercer Bay Loop, and then
Speaker 1: realized it was a human skull, discolored and covered with moss.
Speaker 1: A quick search above the grizzly find revealed the remains
Speaker 1: of an amateur botanist who had vanished seven years earlier
Speaker 1: on a fern gathering expedition. Sir Bob Harvey, himself a
Speaker 1: surf lifesaver for more than sixty four years along the
Speaker 1: West Coast, said he believes there's no way these people
Speaker 1: could make it to the bottom of the cliffs without
Speaker 1: leaving a single trace on the cliff face. Harvey has
Speaker 1: pulled many bodies from the sea in the area. He says,
Speaker 1: it never made sense to me the notion that she
Speaker 1: would or even could wade out into the surf. So
Speaker 1: then whereas Irena Asher. It's a mystery. But I don't
Speaker 1: believe in people vanishing without a trace. It's never pleasant,
Speaker 1: especially after a few days or weeks, but bodies do
Speaker 1: turn up. We find something always, except for these cases.
Speaker 1: I've researched this, and I've thought hard on this, and
Speaker 1: I believe these women, these young men, and indeed Asher
Speaker 1: were abducted. I believe Asher to be separate, possibly struck
Speaker 1: by a vehicle, even accidentally, and then disposed of. Just
Speaker 1: not at Piha, but in our other cases they're linked.
Speaker 1: I absolutely believe that if someone goes into the water
Speaker 1: at Piha or Mercer Bay and drowns, the overwhelming odds
Speaker 1: point to them being found at one of three locations,
Speaker 1: the northernmost end of pih Bethel's Beach or the Kaipar
Speaker 1: Harbor within three to ten days. He concludes. Now, as
Speaker 1: with all small communities, at Piha, there is a dark
Speaker 1: sighte It has had notorious drug problems, for example, but
Speaker 1: the women and men in the cases highlighted all had
Speaker 1: a lot to live for, including having children. Sherry and
Speaker 1: Kim knew the Mercer Bay Loop well and were unlikely
Speaker 1: to slip and followed by carelessness. They were surrounded by
Speaker 1: family and friends, and these people all considered their disappearances
Speaker 1: and every single one of these disappearances didn't seem to
Speaker 1: make sense. Well, there you have it, folks, what do
Speaker 1: you think of these mysterious disappearances in Auckland, New Zealand.
Speaker 1: I look forward to reading your comments. If you like
Speaker 1: more information, please check the sources in the notes below.
Speaker 1: If you live in the area or otherwise have any
Speaker 1: information regarding any of these disappearances, please contact the local authority.
Speaker 1: Each one of these people had family and loved ones
Speaker 1: who would love to have some closure, and in the meanwhile,
Speaker 1: take care of yourselves and each other. I'm Steve Stockton
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you next time.