Quinton Winders focus of police inquiry for two years

George Taiaroa was shot and killed near Kinleith whilst working on a road gang. Photo / Supplied

The man named as the accused killer of road worker George Taiaroa was the focus of police inquiries for almost two years - and was publicly named by officers as being of interest.

Quinton Winders, 45, was revealed yesterday as the man facing a charge of murder over the fatal shooting of Taiaroa, 67, in 2013. He had interim name suppression to allow him to inform family that he was arrested by police last week but made no fresh application to keep his identity secret.

Winders had previously publicly denied being involved in the incident after police revealed he was of interest to detectives investigating the death of Mr Taiaroa, killed while controlling traffic with a stop-go sign at a traffic diversion off State Highway 1 north of Taupo.

A notice was posted in a provincial deerstalkers' association newsletter asking members to contact police if they had heard rumours about Winders, information about any firearms he might own or any other information people might have held. It emerged inquiries by a local police officer had led to the notice being placed in the newsletter.

At the time of the fatal shooting, Winders was living in a remote 200ha block of land off State Highway 43 near the township of Whangamomona, about 65km northeast of Stratford. He had not long moved from nearby Benneydale, where he worked on local farms. Like his Taranaki property, he lived and worked in isolation.

Detectives investigating the case targeted the Whangamomona property, carrying out a number of searches. Fairfax reporter Tony Wall visited Winders and asked him if he was connected to the attack on Mr Taiaroa. "No, no. What they (police) are doing is this big fabrication."

He told Wall he had been questioned by detectives and said his approach was to say "either charge me or (I'll) walk out". He said his last encounter was to tell officers: "That's it, I've said my bit, I've got nothing further to say."

By mid-2014, he had sold the property to dairy farmer Michael Drought from Opunake, telling him officers had even been through his long drop.

The land - rugged and covered in bush - was barely developed so as to allow stock to be farmed. At the time, Mr Drought told the Herald on Sunday: "I brought it as a hunting block because there is a lot of native bush and there are wild pigs and deer on the land."

After selling the land, Winders moved to Stratford, taking up residence in a comfortable home distinctive only for the large Unimog-style truck parked in the driveway.

Winders was the son of a well-respected deer farming family with a large spread of land north of Rotorua. He attended Kings College in Auckland, then studied business at Massey University.

He worked on the family farm for a period - a property which has had its large wrought iron gates closed to public traffic since the case thrust the family into the public eye.