Gisborne man Joseph Ahuriri was last seen on the morning of February 14, 2023, as Cyclone Gabrielle lashed Hawke's Bay. Photo / Supplied
* A year has passed since Joseph Ahuriri was last seen, as Cyclone Gabrielle slammed Hawke’s Bay
* Police vow to keep searching for the missing dad
* Results of a special drone search are expected soon
* The missing Gisborne was a father of eight and had a loving partner
* Family’s ongoing search and use of a medium in a bid to find any clues
A year after Joseph Ahuriri went missing during Cyclone Gabrielle, police have vowed to do all they can to find him.
And they hope results of a search using a special drone in their bid to locate the missing dad will be available soon.
Ahuriri was last seen on a dark and wet morning in Napier on February 14, as Cyclone Gabrielle lashed the region with all its fury, claiming lives, destroying homes and causing widespread damage on the roading network in the region.
In late 2023 police conducted searches of the Eskdale area with the use of a magnometer drone system, operated by a GNS Scientist.
The drone search has been completed and GNS is reviewing the results, which are due to be released to police in the next month.
The magnometer drone system is able to define large submerged metallic objects and provide possible locations for further investigation.
“Police continue to stay in contact with Mr Ahuriri’s family, who are advised of any significant updates,” a police spokesperson said this morning in a statement.
“Police continue to work hard to locate Mr Ahuriri and appreciate the assistance from those who have come forward with information or CCTV footage.”
Anyone with information that may assist the investigation is urged to contact police by calling 105 or going online to 105.police.govt.nz using ‘Update Report’ and referencing file number 230225/2804.
The last known sighting of Ahuriri was of him at a near-deserted truck stop on the outskirts of Napier in the hours of darkness on the morning of February 14.
Grainy colour CCTV footage shows Ahuriri – the lone occupant in his white Toyota Hilux – get out of the vehicle and look backwards towards Napier.
During the clip – which was released by police investigating his disappearance early last year – a truck drives out from the back of the unattended fuel stop on to the main road.
It was filmed as Hawke’s Bay was being hammered by record rainfall brought by Cyclone Gabrielle.
At the time Ahuriri was attempting to return to Gisborne, with some roads just north of his position already impassable due to severe flooding and landslips.
He had driven from Gisborne to Napier the previous night as the severe rainfall lashed Poverty Bay and Hawke’s Bay.
The father-of-eight’s family fear his ute - registration DZH116 - was washed away by the raging floodwaters or swept off a road by one of the many slips that occurred on SH2 and or other back routes which might have allowed him to get from Napier to Gisborne.
Other theories that have been bandied around Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne include that something untoward – and not cyclone-related - happened to Ahuriri.
For months family members and friends have carried out their own independent searches for the missing man, including with the use of machinery loaned to them at no charge.
But those searches, the involvement of Navy divers, and the clearing of slips covering SH2 by roading contractors and going through huge mounds of rubble off the side of the still-damaged road have provided no clues over his disappearance.
Given how badly damaged the roading network, had he even driven out of Napier on the morning of February 14, Ahuriri probably could not have got very far.
As well as the private search, the family have also confided in a medium in a bid to try to locate where Ahuriri might be.
A video of the session is online, with the medium claiming he tried to turn back from a fateful drive and got stuck. She said the ute might then have been hit by a slip.
Some family members have been frustrated by police since very early on after his disappearance.
Eastern District Commander Superintendent Jeanette Park said in late February police believed Ahuriri’s disappearance was unlikely to be cyclone-related, “although this cannot be fully ruled out”.
In the days after Cyclone Gabrielle’s deadly destruction on Hawke’s Bay, Ahuriri was among the more than 4500 people listed as not being able to be contacted by friends, neighbours or family.
But by February 28, Park said that number had now been reduced to just five people.
Ahuriri had been categorised as a missing person.
“While Joseph has had no contact with family or police since the cyclone, inquiries to date suggest it is unlikely that his disappearance is cyclone-related, although this cannot be fully ruled out,” Park said.
“We urge Joseph, or anyone who has seen him since 13/14 February, to please get in touch with police so we can let his family know he is safe.”
His older brother Mike Ahuriri reacted angrily to the comment, saying: “The statement... it may not be Cyclone Gabrielle-related is bulls***”.
An aunty of the missing man, Shivaun Nepia-Te Aturangi, was also critical of police handling of the case in a previous interview with the Herald.
Ahuriri was much loved by his family.
He had eight children and a loving partner in Clarissa Poi.
A week after he went missing, Poi told the Herald: “It’s been seven days since I last spoke with him and my heart breaks every minute that passes.
“I have to return home to our kids who are just as worried and I can’t bear to look at them and say ‘I didn’t find Daddy’.”
One of his children, Jah Cameron, also made repeated calls on social media shortly after his disappearance.
That includes the March 12 creation of the Missing: Joseph Ahuriri Facebook page, a page which still posts occasional updates.
Just four days after the page went live, Cameron told the Herald she believed her missing father was still alive.
“We just want our dad home,” she said.
“We know our dad is still alive, we don’t feel that he is gone. He is still here with us, he is just somewhere else and needs to be found.
“I feel numb, it’s like a real empty feeling for all my siblings as well.
“All we do every day when we are outside is call out to him, ‘Dad...Dad’ and we get no reply. All we hear is the echo.”
She said at the time the family would do all they could to find any answers.
“We are willing to spend every last dollar to find our father, just like he would have, he would have gone to any length if it was any of us missing.
“We just want our dad home.”
The 40-year-old had links to the gang world.
He was a former member of the Gisborne-based chapter of Black Power NZ.
Police have repeatedly refused to comment to the Herald if one line of inquiry they were following was his former gang links.
In an interview with the Herald in July, Nepia-Te Aturangi said the family had expected to get a “negative reaction” from the police.
“We just want to rise above that because we know what Joe was like,” she said.
“He would never stay away from his mother, let alone his children. And he always called if he was going to be late for something.”
She said he hadn’t been a member of Black Power since the tragic and sudden health-related death of his then-partner several years earlier.
“Hence why he pulled away and it all became about his children,” she said. “Then he partnered with Clarissa who had also had a bit of tragedy.
“They were just starting to get happy and then this happened.”
So why did Ahuriri rush to Napier the night Cyclone Gabrielle started to unleash its fury?
And why was he in such a hurry to get home on the morning when deadly flooding consumed Esk Valley and Whirinaki - the two places he would have had to go through had he attempted to drive out of Napier?
Ahuriri got into his ute at about 4pm on the afternoon of February 13 and drove south from Gisborne.
At the time heavy rain was falling in Poverty Bay and Hawke’s Bay, with motorists being warned about avoiding non-urgent travel.
He told his family that he expected to be back in Gisborne by 2am, a timeline which would have meant he was planning to leave Napier by 11pm the previous night.
But given the severe weather in Napier, Ahuriri made a late-night booking into a hotel on the outskirts of Napier before attempting to return to Gisborne.
He checked out of the hotel at 4.28am.
The first CCTV sighting of Ahuriri on the morning of February 14 was of him heading south in Havelock North at 5.15am.
His cellphone later pinged off a tower at Whakatu – north of Havelock North heading back towards Napier – at 5.30am.
Sixteen minutes later he featured in the CCTV footage from the truck stop.
Police have said it was hard to source further footage due to the major power outage in Napier.
Talking in July, Nepia-Te Aturangi said her nephew undertook the planned rapid return Gisborne-Napier trip so he could take a set of expensive Pirelli tyres.
“My daughter was selling some Pirellis for me and he asked me where they were. So, I know when we find the truck, my Pirellis are going to be on there.
“Afterwards I said, ‘Where are my tyres by the way’. That is when it came out ... [my daughter said], ‘Joe grabbed those and put them on his truck’. I was like, ‘What the hell’.”
His aunty said that knowing Ahuriri as she did, she was not surprised had he decided to drive back to Gisborne in the midst of Cyclone Gabrielle’s destruction.
“Even my granddaughter who travelled a lot with him ... she says, ‘It would have been the most epic drive nan’. And I am thinking ‘My God’.
“He would have thought, ‘I can do this. I know the roads. I can make it’. My daughter did everything to beg him to stay but he was like, ‘I will be alright Cuz, I just need to get home’.”
Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 30 years of newsroom experience. He was on the frontline of NZME’s coverage of Cyclone Gabrielle when it hit Hawke’s Bay and has covered the clean-up operation that followed.
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