A car at the centre of investigations into the disappearance of a Hamilton man and an assault at a City address was found overnight.
Inquiry head, Detective Sergeant Chris Page, said Hamilton Police made the difficult decision of going public on the case despite having very little information to report.
"In the end we identified a car as being crucial to our case in trying to find 38-year-old Piki KINGI and we circulated his photograph and images of a burgundy Mazda MS6 he was last seen in on Wednesday.
"As soon as his photo and an image of the car appeared on One News phones were ringing at the Police station and the car was recovered on Mansel Ave in Hillcrest."
"Because the car was recovered in the dark it proved too difficult to properly examine the vehicle overnight and ascertain just what, if anything, was in it," said Mr Page.
A forensic examination would be carried out today, this examination is expected to be quite time consuming and Mr KINGI is yet to be located.
"There are a number of evidential issues needed to be worked through and that will be time consuming. While the examination is going on we're hoping the extra sets of eyes that helped us find the car may come to the fore again," said Mr Page.
"We're appealing to Mansel Ave residents and anyone else who may have seen people coming or going from the car to contact the Hamilton Police Station."
Mr Page said the focus for the inquiry team was to find people who saw the vehicle being dropped off and to establish who it was that left it there.
Some reports received by Police suggest the car had been there since last Wednesday, the day Mr KINGI was last seen.
Meanwhile investigations continue today at the Cobham Dr address where Police believe a serious assault took place, possibly linked to Mr KINGI'S disappearance.
"Work will continues at that scene today, there's still a lot of work to be done identifying what took place and who was there at the time," said Mr Page.
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