Murder case police find stolen car

A stolen Toyota Hilux similar to the one police have been searching for in the hunt for the killer of a German hitchhiker has been found abandoned near Levin.

TV3 tonight showed pictures of the grey two-door Hilux being lifted by helicopter from the banks of the Ohau River near Levin, where locals had discovered it this morning.

The vehicle was stuck up to its axles in mud and police were at pains not to disturb any potential evidence inside.

Detective Sergeant Grant Coward said the vehicle had been stolen from the Horowhenua in August.The body of Birgit Brauer, 28, from Dresden, was found at remote Lucy's Gully, on the north-western side of Egmont National Park on Tuesday evening last week.

The search for Ms Brauer's killer has been focused on sightings of a two-door, mid to late-1980s, dark grey or black two-door, four-wheel-drive Toyota Hilux.

A police spokeswoman earlier today confirmed a Toyota Hilux had been found abandoned in a river area near Levin, in Horowhenua, about 250km south of New Plymouth.

She could not say if the vehicle was found in the river itself.

The officer in charge, Mr Coward, said several vehicles have been recovered as part of the inquiry.

"There has been a number of vehicles of a similar description found abandoned in different locations throughout New Zealand."

Meanwhile police have received further sightings of the dark grey or black Hilux in the Cardiff area of central Taranaki last Tuesday afternoon.

There has also been a report of the vehicle in Patea that morning, and the Newell Road/Wiremu Road intersection at about 2pm. 

Mr Coward told National Radio today that police had received an "outstanding" response, getting more than 30 calls, after an item on the murder screened on television last night.

"Some of those calls were probably not overly helpful, but there were one or two significant ones," Mr Coward said.

On television last night police revealed they had received a sighting of a vehicle like the one they were looking for at Cardiff, southeast of Mt Taranaki, the opposite side of Egmont National Park from where Ms Brauer's battered and stabbed body was found.

That sighting was at 5pm, about 30 minutes before Ms Brauer's body was found, and Mr Coward said the driver had been acting suspiciously.

Witnesses have also said such a vehicle was seen about 1pm that day arriving at Lucy's Gully, where the body was found.

Mr Coward said the sighting at Cardiff showed the vehicle was still in the Taranaki area three or four hours after the dumping of Ms Brauer's body at Lucy's Gully.
"Where's it gone from there?" he asked.

It was possible that with the publicity given to the vehicle, someone responsible for it might have decided "this vehicle's a bit hot, I better get rid of it".

"So if anyone knows of anyone that may have got rid of a similarly described vehicle in the past week or so let us hear about it," Mr Coward said.

"The key to this inquiry is that vehicle. The sooner we find it the better."

The list of similar vehicles being checked by police remained long.

"For everyone we go and eliminate we find another one. The staff are working long and hard to plough through these vehicles, but we're concentrating on those ones in Taranaki and Wanganui," he said.

"It could well be that the vehicle's gone further afield, or could be from further afield."

- NZPA and NEWSTALK ZB