A police dog team trained to look for bodies will join the search for 77-year-old Fiona Wills, who has been missing on her family's Te Pohue farm for almost a week.
Son and former Federated Farmers national president Bruce Wills said last night, after a sixth day without any clues on the whereabouts of his mother, a team of four dogs and handlers is expected from Auckland and is available to search Wednesday and Thursday.
"They are a team specialised in tracking down deceased," he said. "We battle on and the family is being realistic, although still while nothing's found, as a family you live in hope."
The search will start at the chook house where Mrs Wills had headed to feed the chickens a short distance from the homestead at Trelinnoe, on Old Taupo Coach Rd off State Highway 5, when she was last seen about 6pm last Tuesday.
A search began almost immediately, but nothing has been found in the 12ha of the Trelinnoe garden or its ponds, nor across hundreds of hectares of farmland, forest, surrounding roads, and places with which Mrs Wills was familiar from her younger days. Mr Wills yesterday again appealed for road users, particularly truck drivers, to keep an eye out for anything to help end the mystery.
