From a luxury home to a Hill St bush

By day, Hill St in the Auckland suburb of Onehunga is a hive of activity, with trucks and workers coming and going from warehouses.

There is a constant stream of people, including truck drivers or staff taking a five-minute smoko.

But by night the street becomes gloomy, deserted and lonely.

It was here late on Monday that Qing Zhao was left bound, blindfolded and gagged.

Hill St is 14km away from the $2.2 million East Auckland home invaded by three men who kidnapped her at gunpoint.

Her luxury Howick home, with a view across Tamaki Strait to Waiheke, is a long way from the factories and warehouses of Hill St.

And Hill St has known violence before. It is where prominent Auckland lawyer John Timmins was found badly beaten beside cosmetics firm Shieling Laboratories in October 2000.

Ms Zhao was dumped outside a warehouse used by Shieling.

Shieling owner Geoff Taylor said he was "rather surprised" to learn Ms Zhao had been left there.

Other business owners were also shocked to hear the Chinese housewife was left not far from their premises.

They described the area as a typical industrial zone but said drivers would often turn down the dead-end street, thinking they could enter the Southwestern Motorway.

There is a motorway on-ramp at Gloucester Park, which is adjacent to Hill St, but the motorway off-ramp runs alongside the end of Hill St.

The blindfolded Qing Zhao would have been just metres from the traffic going past.

Business operators said they had left, as usual, at the end of the working day on Monday and had been unable to offer much help to police. There were no security cameras monitoring the area where Ms Zhao was found.