Police find gun shells

A couple of gun cartridges discovered by a specialist police search team in Hawkes Bay may hold the key to a 20-month-old murder mystery.

Farmer Jack Nicholas, 71, was shot outside his isolated Puketitiri homestead, 56km northwest of Napier, in August 2004 but his killer has yet to be found.

Detective Senior Sergeant Bill Gregory, who heads Napier CIB, said the special Wellington-based unit was brought in on Thursday to search a property in the beachside community of Haumoana near Hastings.

He declined to divulge where the items were found, except to say they "would not have been immediately apparent to the eye".

The cartridges had been sent to the Institute of Environmental Science and Research for forensic examination, but it was not known how long the testing procedures would take.

The property had already been searched earlier in the inquiry, but police decided to return to the scene following "a review" of the case file, Mr Gregory said. The investigation team would carry out a number of interviews over Easter weekend to "consolidate" information.

He stressed there was "still a long way to go" in the investigation.

- NZPA