Candida Beveridge remembers the night Iraena Asher went missing at Piha. She had been up that night too, sleepless in her own Piha home as she grieved for her father, who had died that same evening.
On October 10, 2004, Asher, a 25-year-old part-time model and student teacher, disappeared from the black-sand wild-surf town, and Beveridge witnessed the shock and impact of the woman’s disappearance on the 1000-strong community.
Years later, the Auckland director of shows like The Bachelor and Down for Love has co-directed a true-crime series, Black Coast Vanishings, about the six people who have gone missing from Piha since 1992.
Co-director Megan Jones also lived in Piha for a time. Her involvement in the show comes after directing and producing the acclaimed Six Angry Women and No Māori Allowed. Jones was aware of how Asher’s disappearance haunted the community – and that few people were satisfied by the police investigation or the coroner’s findings.
When two further women went missing from the Mercer Bay Loop Track in 2012 and 2017 respectively, Sir Bob Harvey, the former mayor of Waitākere, went public about his conviction that the disappearances were connected – raising questions about whether more of them might be as well. Harvey’s 2018 Metro magazine article about the three missing women sparked interest in a screen production. Since then, he tells the Listener, he has felt like a local Sherlock Holmes as he tried to find answers, especially for the grieving families. “I still live at [neighbouring] Karekare. I’m still a lifeguard and I still feel that everyone who comes to Piha beach should go home. I can’t believe that people vanish without trace. Not one or two, but six … We’re talking a lot of people.’’
In the first episode, Harvey declares: “I don’t believe it’s anything but a horrendous crime scene.” He speculates that a serial killer is on the loose, but other locals are more sceptical. “Bob loves a good story,’’ says one.
“Something bloody terrible has happened here and I’m the guy who is calling it out,’’ he responds.
When a French tourist disappeared on a planned trip to Piha in 2020, many more people started sharing stories online about predatory behaviour by men there, and speculation about the disappearances and individuals who might have been involved.
Says Beveridge: “It felt time to take a deeper look into the disappearances and see if there was any truth to be found, but also why the stories around Piha and theories around the disappearances have gained so much traction with some people.’’
Commissioned by Warner Bros Discovery for Three, Black Coast Vanishings is as much about the missing people as it is about the characters who make up the small town, who are divided over what has happened to those who have vanished. A local artist, pro-surfer, long-term lifeguard, and campground manager are among those interviewed.
Talking about the power of the Piha landscape and the surroundings, campground manager Fiona Anderson declares in the first episode, “Some nights it’s like a supernatural super-highway. Often things happen out here that just can’t be explained … Is it possible that someone out here is killing people? Possibly.’’
Many locals have been involved in the searches over the years. They’re conflicted over speculation there is danger in their midst; in one episode, an anonymous woman talks about “lady hunts’' and a group of women meet to share the names of locals they believe are dangerous and to create a support network. In the documentary, women claim to have been drug-raped, chased and stalked – claims the series directors want police to investigate.
Jones tells the Listener: “There are at least two men they have identified as serial predators who are still in the community. Piha is changing and people are mobile. Some of these disappearances are now many years old, and if they are the result of foul play, it’s possible that the offender or offenders have also now moved out of the community.
“But we are concerned that there are current residents – some long term – who continue to make Piha unsafe and the community and police need to do more to address this.”
Black Coast Vanishings features interviews with Iraena Asher’s three sisters and her former boyfriend. The night Asher disappeared, she had been socialising at a house with friends. She later called 111, worried for her safety.
The documentary airs distressing police call centre recordings. “I’m quite scared here,’’ Iraena cries out, as she pleaded for help from the police at 9 that night.
There is criticism that the police failed to act – they sent a taxi rather than a patrol car, and they sent it to the wrong address, 35km away.
In 2012, a coroner’s inquest ruled she was swept out to sea, presumed drowned, and that her death was accidental.
“No. Impossible,” Harvey tells the Listener. “There isn’t a lifeguard at Piha who believed she went into the water. The shore break was just too huge to get through. You’re not going to get out. You’ll get pushed back. When those waves double, treble up, there’s such a force of water.
“These people have vanished without a trace. Not a shoe, not a bag. It’s unbelievable. The persons who have taken them have taken them whole and complete. There hasn’t even been a drink bottle found.’’
One local, who did not wish to be named, told the Listener she hopes that the series doesn’t polarise the community any more than the disappearances already have. “Piha is an isolated place where loners often come.’’
It’s painful for the families resurrecting the stories of the missing, but Harvey speaks for many when he says he hopes the series might propel someone to come forward.
Calling for a special investigation into the Piha vanishings, the co-directors say: “We hope [the series] will have the outcome that some of the families and others who contributed to the series share – that it will ‘shake the tree’ and more information about the disappearances and the ongoing issues for women will come to light. Piha has been keeping secrets – and there is some toxic and criminal behaviour that needs to be flushed out.’’
The missing six
Sir Bob Harvey was the Waitākere City mayor when Iraena Asher – a 25-year-old model and teacher trainee – vanished in 2004. He has been obsessively tracking her and four other mystery disappearances since. In 2012, 42-year-old single mother Cherie Vousden went missing after heading from her North Shore home for an early-evening walk on Piha’s notorious Mercer Bay Loop Track.
Five years later, 21-year-old nurse Kim Bambus vanished. She had planned to run the same trail.
In 2019, Chinese student Laurence Wu was last seen walking through the local campground. (The death was later ruled as self-inflicted.)
The most recent disappearance was in March 2020, when 18-year-old French student Éloi Rolland walked to Piha to collect some black volcanic sand. He disappeared just before the country went into its first Covid lockdown and his parents, Thierry and Catherine, were unable to join the search and had to rely on media and social media.
Police devoted some 2300 hours to the case but it remains unsolved.
There are theories that some disappearances could be suicides. But Harvey rejects the idea of anyone jumping from the 240m cliffs. “They’re massive and they come out and out and out. No one is going to jump. There is no jumping platform. This is not Acapulco or the Red Bull diving contest.
“Piha has wicked cliffs with sharp rocks and caves all the way down. Throw a watermelon from the top and you’ll get what will happen to a body.’’
But suicidal thoughts figure in at least one of the disappearances. In 1992, Quentin Godwin left a note at home revealing he was going to the surf beach to end his life. But he returned home, saying to the driver who ferried him from the beach that he had had second thoughts. Five days later, he vanished, never to be seen again.
Black Coast Vanishings premieres on Three on Sunday, January 28, at 8.05pm and continues nightly. ThreeNow premieres all four episodes on Sunday, January 28.
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