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Thursday, June 5, 2014
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Woman in court over West St body BY ERIN TASKER
ERIN.T@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
A Wellington woman charged with assault with intent to rob an Ashburton man, who was later found dead, entered no plea during a court appearance yesterday. Police revealed yesterday they had arrested and charged the 26-year-old woman with assaulting 34-year-old AJ Gairns, who they also said had been the subject of an attempted robbery some time prior to his death. Mr Gairns’ body was found on Sunday afternoon in a drainage run-off on West Street and police are continuing to speak to a number of people of interest in relation to his death, Mid-South Canterbury Police Detective Senior Sergeant Marion Neill said. “We are still working to establish how many people may have been involved, and what their involvement with Mr Gairns has been.” The Wellington woman entered no plea, received interim name suppression and was bailed during yesterday’s appearance in the Timaru District Court, however police said she was likely to
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remain in police custody last night as a suitable bail address had not yet been identified, Ms Neill said. Police allege the assault took place the day before – on May 31, the day Mr Gairns went missing. Earlier in the investigation police had said a post-mortem report indicated that Mr Gairns had drowned and that there was no evidence of suspicious circumstances in his death. But Ms Neill said police were continuing to treat the investigation as an unexplained death. Yesterday the investigation continued to focus on the events leading up to Mr Gairns’ death, including locating other persons who may have been involved in those events. On Tuesday police located his cellphone and they hoped that may hold clues about his mystery death; a death which has shocked the community. Mr Gairns went missing at around 3am on Saturday after going to see a friend. He never arrived. His body has been released to his family and his funeral will be held at the Paterson’s Funeral Services chapel tomorrow.
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