Operation Dallington - Press Release 21

New Zealand Police National News Release
4:45pm 26 March 2009

http://www.police.govt.nz/news/release.html?id=4962

Saturday marks 100 days since the brutal killing of Mellory Manning. Despite a vast amount of work that has been undertaken by the homicide team and forensic partners, we have yet to establish what vehicle picked her up, where the attack took place or where she was placed in the water.

However from all the information gathered we have been able to establish a number of key factors.

We know Mellory arrived at the corner of Peterborough and Manchester Streets at about 9.30 pm the evening of 18 December 2008 and quickly had two clients, both of whom have been eliminated by the inquiry. She was dropped back at Peterborough/Manchester Streets by the second client at just after 10.15 pm. She told another street worker to move off her corner and she also went to the Salvation Army van and got some supplies. She was described as being in a happy, friendly mood.

We know she was definitely back on her corner at 10.35 pm and clearly wanted to pick up another client.

It appears likely that she was then picked up at about 10.40 pm because at 10.43.07 pm she replied to a text from one of her clients. Phone records show this was sent from somewhere on or just north of Bealey Avenue. We don't know why Mellory was picked as she could have been known to him or he may have spent sometime in the area watching the girls.

All appeared well when she sent that text but when the client sent her a text at 10.43.59 the phone was out of service and remained out of service until it was recovered in her bag in the river.

The most likely scenario is that either Mellory or the person she was with, turned it off. We think Mellory wouldn't have done this without some duress and it could be the catalyst for the attack.

There is a possibility that the attack started in the vehicle and it is likely that Mellory would have fought back.

Seed and pollen results indicate that during some portion of the attack Mellory was lying close to the ground when she died.

Mellory has sustained a very violent attack and has been killed. It appears likely that she has then been transported from the attack site and then placed in the river either close to the CBD or around the Dallington Terrace area where her body was located the next morning. This tends to indicate that the offender had local knowledge.

To date we have not identified four vehicles that we have released descriptions of - the XR6 or XR8 Falcon Mellory was seen sitting in around 10.30 p.m. at the corner of Peterborough and Manchester Street; the blue four-wheel drive where the driver spoke to a prostitute outside St Luke's Church around 10.30 p.m.; the black four-wheel drive with the male with tattoos on his forearms who approached a prostitute at some point that evening; or the older four-wheel drive with the noisy diesel engine seen driving away from the river along Avonside Drive just after a loud splash was heard around 11 p.m..

These are all vehicles of interest but I stress we do not know what vehicle Mellory got into.

To date we have spoken to about 2,500 people during the investigation and we have about 450 people of interest that we have spoken to or will get to. We have searched a number of addresses and locations and we have recovered a large amount of exhibits that are being examined by ESR.

We continue to receive calls from the public which is pleasing. From previous cases like this I am aware that sometimes people hold back information because they think the Police don't need it or because rumours abound about who might be responsible. It is important those people contact us. We now have a massive data base of information and the information you hold could be all we need.

We have continued to keep the family informed of the progress of the investigation and there is no doubt that last three months has been very hard on them.

ends