Police report progress in 12-year-old 'cold case'

Police say they are making another major effort to get a result in a 12-year-old homicide investigation.

Officers are taking DNA samples from possible suspects in their search for the killer of Kevin O'Loughlin, a 30-year-old carpenter who was stabbed and bashed in Nelson in May 1993.

Using advances in DNA technology, police now have a profile of the murderer and have revealed for the first time that the killer is a man.

They have also set up a toll-free hot-line for tip-offs and a website for information.

Mr O'Loughlin was found lying spread-eagled and face-down at the entrance to the busy Montgomery carpark off Hardy St in the early hours of May 2, 1993.

Despite interviewing hundreds of people, reconstructing the case on television and offering a $20,000 reward in the past, police have no witnesses to the stabbing, no evidence linking anyone to the crime, no murder weapon, and no motive.

However, Operation Kevin head Detective Inspector John Winter now feels confident that the DNA technology will give police the breakthrough they need to catch Mr O'Loughlin's killer.

"It gives us the confidence we will be able to solve this inquiry in due course, hopefully sooner than later," Mr Winter said.

In April 2003 police sent blood samples and exhibits from the crime scene to Environmental Science and Research in Christchurch to be analysed.

Because the O'Loughlin case was not a priority, police only received the results back late last year, giving them a DNA profile of the killer.

They have now started gathering bodily fluid samples from "people of interest" in the original inquiry, some of whom are still in Nelson, while others have moved away -- and at least one person has gone overseas.

One man is now dead, having committed suicide, but police have ruled him out on the basis of the DNA profile, Mr Winter said.

"We're out actively hunting people of interest to provide bodily samples, to eliminate them or otherwise."

He would not reveal the DNA profile, other than that it was a man, or say what exhibits had been tested, or how many people were providing samples.

On May 2, the 12th anniversary of Mr O'Loughlin's death, Mr Winter travelled to Te Anau to brief Mr O'Loughlin's parents, Terry and Elsie O'Loughlin, about the development.

An emotional Mrs O'Loughlin said today she hoped the development would lead to her son's killer being caught.

Mr O'Loughlin's former partner, Leanne McLeod, said from Australia today that she would love for someone to be brought to trial and that she and her three daughters with Mr O'Loughlin wanted closure.

The police hotline will be manned from 9am to 5pm with an answerphone service outside those times, while the website details the case and the area the killing happened, and allows people to leave information on it.

"There are those, for reasons better known to themselves, may have been economical with the truth back in 1993. We would ask them to examine their conscience now," Mr Winter said.

- nzpa