Police are monitoring gang members travelling from Auckland to the Bay of Plenty today ahead of the body of the Ponsonby Rd gunman being released from Rotorua Hospital.
Hone Kay-Selwyn, 31, shot dead Robert Horne just after 10.15pm on Sunday after being denied entry to a bar.
On Tuesday evening, the Killer Beez gang member was found dead at a rural property outside of Taupō.
Around 20 Killer Beez members were waiting outside the Rotorua Hospital mortuary. A woman carrying a photo of the shooter was earlier seen walking into the building.
Details of the background of the shooter have continued to filter out, from his criminal past to a famous forebear.
Police confirmed on Wednesday he was a member of the Killer Beez gang.
Gang members have taken to social media to pay tribute Kay-Selwyn.
An account associated with patched Head Hunter Mikaere Puata-Chaney, who is currently serving a life sentence for killing his ex-partner and her father, posted a photo of the pair wearing their gang patches. Kay-Selwyn was a patched Killer Beez member.
“Love you my brother,” the account posted, alongside an image of the two killers together.
While Puata-Chaney is in prison and is not meant to have access to a phone, the account has intermittently posted photos of the double murderer inside, taken with a smuggled cellphone. He has spent time in segregation after being caught with contraband including a phone.
On Wednesday, a group of men clad in black and white arrived in a convoy of vehicles, including several matching late-model Ford Ranger utes, at the property in Broadlands near Taupō where Kay-Selwyn’s body was found.
Their attire, particularly the fact many wore black balaclavas, was the same as that often worn by Killer Beez members, though most, if not all, did not appear to be wearing patches.
They performed a haka as the body was removed on Wednesday afternoon.
A neighbour said they heard police sirens at the address about 5am yesterday.
The victim of the shooting on Ponsonby Rd has been named as 33-year-old Robert Sidney Horne, who was described as a “hard-working drainlayer with a big heart” by a colleague.
Horne had been with a group of people at the time of the shooting outside a bar in Ponsonby.
There was no relationship between Kay-Selwyn, who was a member of the Killer Beez gang, and the victim and his associates.