Blades find a prank: police

The etching of the name of missing woman Mona Blades on the concrete floor of a Huntly home is a prank police have investigated before.

The tenants of the house discovered the inscription, with a cross, when pulling up carpet.

They were worried it might be a grave and are understood to have been so disturbed that they moved out.

Mona Blades disappeared, aged 18, in 1975, while hitchhiking from Hamilton to Hastings. Her body has never been found.

But Detective Senior Sergeant Garth Bryan of the Rotorua CIB yesterday confirmed that one of the previous owners of the house had written "Mona Blades" in wet concrete as a joke when he had the garage floor filled in.

The man had a pit in the garage so he could work underneath vehicles, but filled it before selling the house in late 1996, Mr Bryan said.

"When they covered it with concrete it looked just like a burial site because of the shape of it so they inscribed a crucifix on it."

The man responsible had apologised in 1998 because of the police time that had been wasted.