Get other Elmore Leonard here A former Franciscan monk with the “healing touch” finds himself in Michigan surrounded by a slew of cash-hungry hucksters and a beautiful baton-twirler who wants him to lay his hands on her. (August)
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The tearful parents of two Matamata women killed in Samoa’s tsunami are preparing to bring their bodies home.
“We’ve got our girls and we’re taking them home,” Lynne Martin said of her daughters Petria, 22, and Rebecca, 24, at a press conference in Samoa earlier today. They were the middle two of four sisters.
Rebecca taught at Rototuna Primary School, and Petria was a team leader at Matamata’s sports centre.
The devastation is utterly amazing, Mr Martin said.
Mrs Martin and her husband Kerry said they had just visited the scene where the daughters died.
He said the girls had ran, but the waters got them. The couple had met some survivors who had been with their daughters at the time the tsunami hit, and they had been”just unlucky”.
“From what we heard, they had a marvelous time,” she said.
Mrs Martin said her daughters, with two friends Jodi McGlashan and Olivia Loeffen, had gone to Samoa for their first ever trip. .
Mrs Martin said the very close family had celebrated Petria’s 22nd birthday just before the Samoa trip and they had a marvelous time.”
Mr Martin said that he and his wife had not viewed the remains as they had been told the girls had been badly injured. We were proud of them and they knew we loved them.”
The couple will fly home with the remains on Monday night, Samoa time, arriving in Auckland on Wednesday and they plan a large funeral in Matamata on Saturday.
“We will keep beautiful memories of them.
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Tisha Lowry’s family say they are pleased to finally have closure after police confirmed she was the second body removed from the ‘house of horrors’.
At a press conference outside the Wainoni housethis afternoon, Detective Inspector Tom Fitzgerald said the confirmation was a ”tragic conclusion” for her family, nearly a year after she disappeared.
He did not reveal the cause of her death but said a second murder charge would be laid on Friday against the 32 year-old man already accused of murdering his wife.
“More importantly thanks for all the love and support received from our families and friends. . Manning’s body was found dumped in the Avon River on December 19 last year.”
There has been reports in the media that there were connections with the unsolved murder of prostitute Mellory Manning.
Fitzgerald said today: “There’s nothing that gives us any links with any other cases.
Ms Lowry, 28, was last seen by her grandfather when she waved goodbye to him at the Bower Tavern in suburban New Brighton on September 25 last year.”
Members of Ms Lowry’s family and her friends were present at the conference today.
PROPOSAL TO BUY HOUSE
Meanwhile, aChristchurch City Council proposal to buy the house has been welcomed by the owner of the adjoining house, who says the offer has “lifted a huge weight” off him.
Police spoke with more than 3000 people in their search for Ms Lowry, including the accused, but had no reason to suspect him at that time, Mr Fitzgerald said.
In an announcement that surprised some councillors, Parker said that after watching the removal of one of the bodies on TV on Monday night, he believed the “only resolution” was for the council to buy the Aranui house and the adjoining home on the property.
The Christchurch house may be bought by the city council because no-one would want to live there, Mayor Bob Parker says.
“Nobody can go back and live there or, in the short term, would even want to consider being in that place,” he said.
“Nobody can go back and live there or, in the short term, would even want to consider being in that place,” he said.
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Maori Party MP Hone Harawira has proposed a novel way to cut his travel costs – he will hitch-hike around his electorate.
Te Tai Tokerau MP Mr Harawira, who with travel expenses totaling $67,000 in the first six months of the year was one of Parliament’s more prolific travelers, said hitch-hiking was one way to cut costs but it carried a number of other benefits.
He said that by travelling this way he would run into people that he would not otherwise meet and it allowed him to relax and “enjoy the day”.
“It’s not a big deal, I’ve been doing it for the last three years,” he told Radio New Zealand.”
He said it was the best way to talk to people about what was important.
“You get into a car and sooner or later they’ll start talking to you about the issues that are important to them.
“It doesn’t matter who picks you up, you get to enjoy talking to everyone,” he told the broadcaster.
Mr Harawira said it wasn’t difficult to know who was potentially one of his voters and who was not, but it wasn’t necessarily important. .
The MP for the northern-most Maori electorate defended his high expense bill, saying his home was remote and it took him two planes and a taxi ride to get to work.
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The total number of swine flu cases in New Zealand has jumped more than 50 overnight to 507, the Ministry of Health says – and the largest region with infected patients is Wellington.
Wellington reported 173 cases, followed by Auckland, 140, then Canterbury which has 128 people with the virus.
Hawke’s Bay, Wanganui, Palmerston North, Nelson and Marlborough are tied with six cases each.
The Waikato comes in at a distant forth with 21, followed closely by Bay of Plenty/Lakes, with 20.
Otago and Southland have so far escaped anyone contracting the virus.
Northland has five people with the illness, and Gisborne and Taranaki have just one case each.
The assessment reflects the fact that most people recover from infection without the need for hospitalisation or medical care, Ministry of Health’s deputy director of public health Darren Hunt said.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has reported 59,814 cases of influenza A(H1N1) in 105 countries, with 263 deaths so far.
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The ACT Party is pushing the Government to immediately review bail laws following yesterday’s sentencing of Haiden Davis for the murder of Augustine Borrell.
Davis was found guilty of murder by a jury and sentenced to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years.
He also had a list of previous convictions, many of them for violence.
The jury was not told during the trial that when he murdered the Auckland Grammar School student he was on bail for other violent offending and had twice breached his bail conditions.
“This case highlights the myriad serious failures that exist with our bail laws,” he said.
ACT’s law and order spokesman, David Garrett, said today bail laws were a disgrace.
“This has denied the Borrell family the right to make victim impact statements before sentencing. .”
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