KEY POINTS:
Police hunting a murder suspect they believe killed his wife in a Christmas day of alcohol-fuelled violence have urged him to give himself up.
"This is not going to go away," Detective Senior Sergeant Richard Middleton from the Counties Manukau police in south Auckland said today.
He is leading a team hunting 43-year-old Keleti Seau who they believed stabbed his wife, Atonauga Seau, 42, to death in their Otara home on Christmas night. She had multiple stab wounds.
Police also revealed the dead woman had been granted a temporary protection order earlier this year by the Manukau District Court.
She still lived with her husband but the order allowed her to call police if she was threatened.
"If there are any breaches of that (the order) the person who breached it can be arrested and locked up for 24 hours to take the heat out of the situation."
Mrs Seau's body was found about 8am yesterday by one of her teenage sons. Mr Sea had disappeared, probably in a 1995 Toyota Rav 4, registered number BJP235.
Mr Middleton urged Mr Seau to surrender to police before it got worse.
"We are going to continue until Mr Seau is found. It is only going to get worse the longer he remains without coming in and facing up to what has happened.
"He is going to have to do it at some stage. It is not going to go away."
Mr Middleton said Mr Seau knew "full well what's gone on" and would be charged with murder when he was found. No one else was being hunted and no one else was likely to be charged.
However, Mr Middleton also warned anyone harbouring the fugitive they too could face serious charges. Mr Seau was not believed to be dangerous.
He was believed to be in the Otara area but may be getting support from other people who were not aware police believed he had killed his wife.
"It is pretty hard for people in my business and your business (the news media) to think that this could go unnoticed in Otara.
"But I promise you we go into houses in Otara all the time where the only thing to read is the back of a Weetbix pack and no one watches the news.
"So there will be people out there who have no idea of the events and it may well be the people he is with have no idea of the events.
"That said if I find out people have been actively harbouring him with the full knowledge of the events, then those people are likely to face charges as well."
The initial finding of a post mortem examination on Mrs Seau's body today was that she died of multiple stab wounds. A "big knife" had been recovered but Mr Middleton would not say what sort of knife it was or where it had come from.
He said the dead woman's children heard some commotion and knew something was happening but not the full extent of it until her body was found.
Trauma counsellors were helping the children, he said.
He said alcohol was a factor "as it is in many, many cases we have to deal with in Counties Manukau."
- NZPA
