Police 'closing in' on teacher's killer

Lois Dear's son Kevin McNeil. Picture / Jess Husband

Police say they are closing in on the person who killed Tokoroa school-teacher Lois Dear and it is only a matter of time before he is caught.

"Every time there is a knock on the door this person will be thinking, 'My God, the police are on the way, the police are here'," said Detective Inspector Garth Bryan, the officer in charge of the homicide inquiry. "That paranoia will be right up there because it won't be long before we are doing that."

It has been just over a week since the 66-year-old Strathmore School teacher was murdered in her classroom.

She was found by a colleague with multiple head, face and upper body injuries and covered in some undisclosed items, which are being forensically tested.

During the weekend, while more than 600 people were farewelling Ms Dear in Thames, police set up road blocks in Tokoroa and questioned hundreds of people about her murder.

Mr Bryan said the homicide team would hopefully be boosted to nearly 30 staff today in an attempt to sift through all the information gained during the weekend.

He said police have a good description of the killer but will not release it publicly as they want the public to come forward without preconceived ideas of what they saw.

The killer is believed to be a lone male who was seen driving Ms Dear's car in Mossop Rd, where it was found dumped behind a church.

This week police will start receiving the results of samples that were taken away for forensic testing from the car and classroom.

Mr Bryan said police still believed the killer was a local person and it was likely he was lying low or had left town recently.

"If somebody has noticed someone has left town or appears to be laying very, very low at the moment, we want to hear about it because that's the sort of behaviour we would expect from this person."

Mr Bryan was confident police would catch the killer, it was only a matter of time. He urged the person to hand himself in before then.

Police have warned that anyone hiding the killer could be charged. They are also appealing for sightings of Ms Dear's handbag, cellphone and wallet, which were stolen from her classroom and may have been dumped by the killer.

At Saturday's funeral, Methodist minister Harvey Dalton told friends and family it was time to put aside their feelings of anger and resentment at the murderer's violence and remember Ms Dear as a loving person who had much to give.

He told mourners that to allow feelings of anger, resentment and bitterness overwhelm them would take away from the wholesomeness of Ms Dear's memory.

* Police information hotline 0800-525-368