Murder Mystery: Tracey Ann Patient

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Reply # 575288 31-Jan-2012 13:12

Debiarbi:
I've been given the following info from the police:

"On 22 November 1977 a male caller phoned the Henderson Police Station. He said at the time, "Listen, I am not going to give you my name or anything like that. I'll give you information about the PATIENT murder once and once only". He then described the ring being outside in the rubbish bin of the Urgent Dispensary wrapped in purple tissue paper. He further said, "Take this number down : 126040. I will ring back on the 30th""

It doesn't make sense that he would say he was giving the info once only and then that he would call back on 30th. I've emailed the police to ask if he did call back.

It is possible the number may have been given by the caller so the police could use it to confirm they were talking to the same person in any subsequent call.

The delivery of the ring indicates the caller wanted to start by establishing his credibility with the police.

This could mean several things:

(a) The caller had inside information and wanted to protect their identity out of fear of being unjustly accused of being a party to the crime.
(b) The caller was in fact a party or significantly lesser party to the crime and wished to establish credibility with a view to making a deal for immunity in return for putting away the perpetrator.
(c) The caller was a minor criminal associate of the guilty party and wanted to see the guilty brought to justice without affecting the callers own status in the criminal community and without personal attention from the police.
(d) The caller was unrelated to the crime but wanted to trade the information to the police in return for a reduction in sentence for an unrelated offence or in relation to something before the court.
(e) The caller was simply using the situation for leverage on the guilty party in relation to something entirely unrelated.

Debiarbi

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Reply # 575613 1-Feb-2012 03:45

These are all good points. Not so sure about the rasta though- there were not many of them in NZ in the 70s :)

The police have confirmed that the bloke didn't call back.

A couple of years ago I was contacted by a woman who told me that she was convinced that her ex neighbour had killed Tracey. She wasn't sure if it was the dad or the son, but she said that the wife / mum found the ring in a box under the son's bed. She said that this woman showed her the ring and used to cry over it.

She thought that one of the dad's son in laws might have been the person that called the police (according to my 'contact', the bloke used to abuse his daughters when they were young, and she thought that this might be their way of getting back at him). My 'contact' said that he had a tattoo on his arm, that she thinks was 6 numbers long the 'dutch done'?). She had already been to the police before they contacted me, and I also told them about what she had said. They said they looked into her story but concluded that she had an overactive imagination- even though she said she was prepared to swear in court that what she saw and heard was true.

riahon

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Reply # 575616 1-Feb-2012 06:30

...
- How did the informant quote them? (i.e. were the numbers spelt out (one-two-six...), broken down (twelve, sixty, forty) or quoted as a whole (one hundred and twenty six thousand...)...

I was thinking along the same lines and wondered whether it was actually "twelve, sixteen, forty" or a variations of 16=60 or 40=14. I was told that sounds like "S" and "TH" are not audible over the phone, it's just that our brains are able to interpret it in relation to the context so it could have been incorrectly written down.

I do hope that the ultimate answer to this mystery is found.

Good Luck

KirstyH

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Reply # 576185 2-Feb-2012 09:04

My 'contact' said that he had a tattoo on his arm, that she thinks was 6 numbers long the 'dutch done'?).

Not sure what 'Dutch Done' refers to, but has anyone considered the six digits might refer to a Nazi Concentration Camp number?

The one shown in this wikipedia entry is a similar format: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identification_in_Nazi_camps

kiwitrc

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Reply # 576186 2-Feb-2012 09:08

KirstyH:
My 'contact' said that he had a tattoo on his arm, that she thinks was 6 numbers long the 'dutch done'?).

Not sure what 'Dutch Done' refers to, but has anyone considered the six digits might refer to a Nazi Concentration Camp number?

The one shown in this wikipedia entry is a similar format: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identification_in_Nazi_camps

Already mentioned in the 6th post

KirstyH

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Reply # 576189 2-Feb-2012 09:15

Erk, sorry, should have read through more carefully.

It does seem a possibility though, when you consider the info from she of the 'overactive imagination'. I can't find any reference of a register of any sort for the concentration camp numbers, but someone with better search skills may have more luck.

Skolink

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Reply # 576203 2-Feb-2012 09:57

Debiarbi

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Reply # 576222 2-Feb-2012 10:35

She did tell me, but I can't remember off hand; I'd have to look it up. (I saved all our emails into a word document, which I sent to the police). It wasn't very far from Henderson and, according to her, the bloke had a small property in the Waitakeres too.

A lot of what she said really rang true. Also, the police told me the contact's dad had actually contacted the police in 1976, soon after Tracey was murdered, to report the neighbour (the dad) as a possible suspect- but that the contact did not know that when she first went to them.

Skolink

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Reply # 578264 7-Feb-2012 15:44

It seems service records for living people are only available with their written permission, and for deceased people on a per-person application. No searchable database or list, so that tattoo lead will have to left to the police.

Rose2

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Reply # 617463 30-Apr-2012 14:51

I am whom your talking about above. Yes and you know - with out a delt i know what i saw in 1976. There are still two living people that know also. The boy that picked tracey up that night and his father.
The police say they have no DNA to convict. The boy then, now in his 50's lives since that time, in austrailia and is unemployed and sick, his father still sends him money to keep him away from nz. The only person that the father has ever cared about is himself. One day i beleive the son will talk. I beleive that the day will come oneday. Now that the father is nearly 80 and if there is a hell'' this man will be heading straight their.
It was really nevery when i first went to the police, because i know this family well and i didnt want to wasteto much time on the past, i just wanted to tell them what i know and saw and hopefully they would question and arest. It took a whole year later plus more. it didnt happen like that, the police turned my statement into a circus saying to me how could a 12 year old girl remember anything before that age....
Yes that shocked me too !!
They questioned the man in question and at the same time turned my name into him ( which was totaly unexcepable) anyway i was really let down with the detective on traceys case and the police have let tracey down. they could of done more at the time. they still have the stocking.

I lived in the area and i know how small it was then. There wasnt a lot of shops or people.
We all new our neighbours and involved ourselfs in our neighbours lifes.
We all went to local schools. The only big shops in the area was henderson square.
The questions i still have is this
1/ the man that rang in about the ring left in the bin ( WHAT ACCENT did he have ??)

Debiarbi

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Reply # 618638 2-May-2012 22:42

Hi Rose,

I hope you and your family are well.

The police didn't say anything about the person's accent. I could ask them, but I doubt if it was something they would know now. Did the daughter's husband have an accent?

My family and I appreciate what you tried to do for Tracey. I feel bad about the way you were treated. The police should never have told him that you had given them the information.

The police are saying that although a few new leads (about 7, I believe) came in after the Herald article in January, it will be months before they can look into them because they are dealing with the homicide of the security guard in Henderson. I can understand that current crimes should be prioritised, but it seems to me that, apart from a couple of officers in Henderson, nobody is interested in solving such an old case. Yet, in the States, Europe, etc, old cases are being solved all the time.

Take care of yourself, and thanks again for trying to help.

Does anyone out there know of any ways I can publicise this more? I'd like to set up a website /blog to try to bring attention to the fact that Tracey's case has never been solved, despite the fact that there are several leads (I was informed a couple of years ago that at least one of the leads was 'quite promising'- I was told last year that a meeting was going to take place with some senior members of the NZ police force to dicuss it, but it got put off for various reasons, and now it is back on the back burner again). It all seems to come down to lack of resources. I'm not very tech minded though, and wouldn't know how or where to start. I did contact John Key a couple of years ago, to ask if some of the '650 extra police officers' he was planning to recruit could be put on to Tracey's case, and other cold cases. He just passed me on to Judith Collins though, who sent me a polite but dismissive reply.

Any suggestions will be gratefully received.

Debiarbi

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Reply # 618643 2-May-2012 23:00

Debiarbi, do you know where the woman who contacted you lived? I'd have thought it would be easy to see who her neighbors were, and look into their past to see if they had served in the military (and what their service number was). I imagine the Police have already investigated that lead thoroughly though.

Skolink, it was Hobsonville. Rose told the police that there was another neighbour; a woman who lived on the other side of the family's house, who might be able to tell them something. I don't know if they ever went to see her though. They were very dismissive of Rose's claims. As she says above, they asked how she could remember this from when she was that age. Yet I have heard from several people that have said they were young children when Tracey was murdered and they remembered it clearly. One person told me that their life changed completely when Tracey died; she said she went from having a carefree childhood, being allowed to play out with her friends, to being kept in by her parents, and always being afraid that she too would be killed.

When I was younger I lived in Israel for a while- I met a bloke there who was from a town about 10 miles away from Henderson. He asked me why my family left NZ. I told him my sister was murdered there. He looked shocked and said 'Are you Tracey Ann Patient's sister?'. He was only 10 in 1976, but remembered it clearly.

mattRSK

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Reply # 618799 3-May-2012 11:52

Debiarbi: Debiarbi, do you know where the woman who contacted you lived?

?

Debiarbi

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Reply # 619144 4-May-2012 00:35

I was replying to an earlier query, but don't know how to get the original query in a box like you did. I'm pretty rubbish at this posting lark.... :)

LesF

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Reply # 619661 4-May-2012 16:47

My west akl PO Box number is the same size and starts with 12. (sometimes written with a hyphen, so try searching for 12-6040).
I believe this numbering system has been around for a long time now, but would there be records of who owned the box number back then?
But then, I am sure a good investigator would have checked that anyway.

Also, xxx-12-6040 gets many hits on US social security numbers, but not much use without the prefix number. Did immigration collect such information from immigrants and visitors?

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