Murder remains a mystery
SEVENTY years on, the headline remains as stark as the event itself: ‘‘Battered to death. Moa Creek Farmer’s Tragic End. No Apparent Motive.’’
The severity and temerity of the event could not be overstated.
‘‘Whatever weapon was used, and it is assumed to have been an axe, must have been wielded with maniacal fury, as there were terrible injuries to the head,’’ the Otago Daily Times of the day reported.
William McIntosh was found dead in the woolshed of his
Moa Creek farm on September 28, 1949, his head battered with an axelike weapon.
He was last seen alive about 2.30pm when he told his wife he was going to round up some sheep, but said he hoped to be back in time to listen to Otago play Auckland in a Ranfurly Shield match.
She became anxious when her husband had not returned and the sheep were still in the valley that evening and called her neighbour.
A search party was organised and his body was found in the woolshed barn lying face down.
Covering the ‘‘cruellybattered’’ head was an old overcoat, which was later identified as belonging to Mr McIntosh.
The 63yearold’s wife told police a strange man had come to the back door asking for directions to a neighbour’s home soon after her husband left.
The man never arrived at the neighbours and was never identified.
The Otago Daily Times reported that Mr McIntosh was described by locals as a man with an ‘‘outstanding reputation for probity and upright business dealings’’ and someone who could have ‘‘never made an enemy in his life’’.
The case is one of 66 unsolved homicides in New Zealand that date back to 1914.
Would modern technology such as the use of DNA evidence help crack the cold case? Is there any evidence from 70 years ago that could shed fresh light on the homicide?
A police spokesman was unable to say, but said police would ‘‘always assess new evidence that emerges in any case to determine its validity and usefulness, and whether new technologies not previously available could assist any potential investigation’’.
Moa Creek Cemetery Trust chairman Jeff Sawers, of Alexandra, said Mr McIntosh was not buried in the Moa Creek cemetery, but most likely in another Central Otago cemetery, possibly Omakau.
The Moa Creek case was well covered by media at the time, Mr Sawers said.
‘‘It was a bit of a sensation, especially with it happening in such a backwater.’’
He said police had been determined to crack the case.
But despite the ‘‘usual’’ speculation and theories about the murder, it remained unsolved.
The house where the McIntoshes lived is believed to still exist and to be owned by another Central Otago farming family.
A Central Otago oldtimer, who was 17 at the time of the murder, said he remembered the nervousness and uncertainty the murder created.
‘‘Everybody was halfpie scared, and had their doors all locked at nighttime,’’ the man, who preferred not to be named, said.
He remembered police from Central Otago and extra officers brought in from Dunedin visiting Moa Creek residents after the crime.
‘‘Everybody had to tell them where we were and where we had been and what we’d been doing, and everything like that.’’
But ‘‘nobody seemed to know a hell of a lot about it’’.
He said things ‘‘settled down’’ after about a year. People were not as nervous and resumed their normal lives, despite knowing there was still a murderer somewhere.
The man also wondered if any new evidence might emerge that would help solve the case.
‘‘You see those ones on the television; sometimes they solve things years later.’’
But there was one thing locals had wished all along, he said.
When Mr McIntosh was found, his old dog was said to be with him, in the woolshed, the man said.
‘‘If only that dog could talk.’’