Officers working on Operation Solitaire, the homicide investigation into the death on Thursday, January 7 of 41 year-old mother of two, Joanne Pert, are heartened by the public response to appeals for access to private CCTV footage of events on Shore Rd, Remuera.
Detective Inspector Kevin Hooper is leading the investigation and says that, since the dedicated 0800 number and email address - 0800 765 842/email solitaire@police.govt.nz - were published yesterday, there have been dozens of calls and messages, all of which will be followed up.
"We have a confirmed sighting of Joanne (known to many as Jo) at 9am on Thursday in the Viaduct area. Our information is that she would have run from there to where she was later found by residents of a property in Shore Rd at about 10.45am.
"Staff are trying to reconstruct her movements between 9am and 10.30am as we are aware that her alleged killer was at another location by 10.30.
"Jo could have taken any one of a number of routes to get to Shore Rd and, because we know there would have been many other women running in that area between the times of interest to us, we'd like to hear from them so that we can eliminate sightings of them as relevant to our investigation.
"Other runners may also be able to advise us of any suspicious behaviour or approaches they observed or were subjected to."
Mr Hooper says that, when the alleged offender handed himself into Police at Auckland Central Station, he arrived in a yellow Mazda Demio hatchback car [see attached pics].
"We want to hear from anyone who saw this vehicle anywhere between Wednesday January 6 and midday on Thursday, January 7."
ENDS
MEDIA NOTE: All media are reminded of their responsibilities to victims of crime under the provisions of the Victims' Rights Act, particularly in relation to the privacy of individuals.
Issued by Noreen Hegarty/Auckland City District communications manager
