Guts to lead relentless pursuit in Scott Guy investigation

The head of the Scott Guy investigation Sue Schwalger. Photo / Gary Rodgers

Sue Schwalger is tanned and trim, and a tattooed grandmother of two.

She likes to get away from the the grind of solving murder whodunnits by taking motorbike trips around the South Island.

She hates the TV show CSI and detective novels - but not nearly as much as she hates talking about herself.

Question: "How old are you?"

Answer: "What is the big deal about my age? It's really bizarre. The relevance of that is nothing. What does it mean? I am who I am, I'm not a public person." (She's 47.)

Schwalger has reluctantly agreed to be thrust centre-stage for her first full interview this week, as she knows it will breathe the oxygen of publicity into the Guy murder investigation.

"The difficulty is I have got a team out there doing it every day. This isn't my show."

She has led a relentless pursuit ever since Guy was shot several times in the neck in his driveway in Aorangi Rd, just outside of Feilding, on July 8 last year.

Despite the lack of a suspect more than eight months later, Schwalger speaks with certainty about catching the killer or killers.

"For me it's unpalatable [to consider giving up]. I'm not trying to be a Pollyanna about it. I'm hugely confident."

That unwavering belief is shared by her 14-strong team. "They are looking forward to the day that we can say, we've got him."

Schwalger is part Samoan and was the first woman of an ethnic background to be appointed to the role of crime manager. She is in charge of investigating the most serious crimes in the central police district.

She sports a traditional tattoo around her wrist that trails up her inner forearm.

"It's a Samoan tattoo ... I got it done for cultural reasons."

Growing up in the Hawke's Bay, she started out "working the land" as a horticultural cadet before joining the force at 20. She said she quickly learned how much she enjoyed effecting change in people's lives.

As a Detective Senior Sergeant in Counties-Manukau, she got her first whodunnit case - the "barbaric" rape and stabbing of a 14-year-old girl in her home on New Year's Eve 2004.

The teenager was tossed over a fence behind her home by her attacker, David Mamea, and only survived after her parents heard her whimpers. Mamea, 16 at the time, was locked up for 16 years.

Schwalger says that a detective's first big case stays with them, but the Guy case comes close.

"When you're working on a case like this, it never leaves you."

She proudly shows a picture of her team standing in front of a table piled with more than $200,000 cash taken from a recent gang bust. Elsewhere in her office sits what appears to be a training DVD: NZ Detective - In Pursuit of the Truth. For this career cop that seems more appropriate viewing than the latest episode of Castle.

"In TV programmes you shoot the bad guy, everyone wins, nobody does any paper work, and it's a great big handshake at the end. That's not real life."