By TONY WALL
It was one of the most chilling murders Auckland has seen - restaurant manager Claire Hills abducted as she drove to work and then burned alive.
Her 1998 murder on Mangere Mountain has consumed and ultimately beaten the head investigator, Detective Senior Sergeant Dayle Candy, who transferred to another district last month.
The 26-year police veteran is now working on strategic planning for North Shore-Waitakere, but still thinks about the case that she describes as "ultimate" on her frustration scale.
In the week of the second anniversary of the murder she spoke openly about the investigation and, for the first time, outlined the police reconstruction of what happened to Claire Hills.
Police believe the McDonald's manager, aged 30, left her home in Herne Bay about 3 am on April 28, 1998, bound for the airport and a 3.30 am shift start.
Her Mazda Familia's central locking system was faulty and they surmise she did not lock the doors while she was inside it.
As she pulled up to a set of traffic lights on the Mangere motorway, a man who had been lurking at the intersection approached the car, opened a door and got in. Police later found several lone female motorists who said they, too, were approached by a man at intersections in South Auckland.
The killer, most likely armed, overpowered Claire Hills and forced her to drive around the streets of South Auckland. He took personal items from her and almost certainly raped her.
About 5.45 am he took her to the top of Mangere Mountain, a spot where a police patrol had driven past about an hour earlier.
The killer poured petrol over her body and the car and set it alight. Claire Hills was unconscious but still breathing. She died of smoke inhalation.
Several months later, Detective Senior Sergeant Candy wrote to Claire Hills' mother in Australia, Lois Green, saying she believed she had found the killer, but did not have enough evidence for an arrest.
"The restrictions faced by staff on this inquiry rate amongst the highest on any homicide experienced in New Zealand," she wrote.
The detective told the Herald that her team was "working against the elements" from the start.
A witness who saw the fire and saw a man running from the scene called police, but the constable who took the call failed to alert the Fire Service, causing a delay of more than 20 minutes.
Valuable forensic clues from Claire Hills' body and the car interior were lost in the blaze. She lived alone, making it difficult to establish her movements. There were no sightings of her or her car between the time she left home and when she died.
Detective Senior Sergeant Candy said the suspect was a man who was arrested about six weeks after the murder for a series of sex attacks in the Mangere Bridge area. He fitted almost every category on a modus operandi chart drawn up for the killer.
The Herald has learned that the man, aged 28, has no alibi. His female partner woke on the morning of the murder to find him gone.
When the suspect was 18, he committed a horrific rape at the Sportsman Hotel in Rotorua.
He went into the women's toilets, pushed open a cubicle door and repeatedly punched, sodomised and raped a woman unknown to him.
He served seven years in jail and then began living in Miller Rd next to Mangere Mountain.
In December 1997, he attacked a woman at a bus stop. Two months later he broke into the house of a woman in his street, and, armed with a knife, indecently assaulted her.
In June 1998, he broke into another home and raped a woman.
The man has been sentenced to preventive detention, meaning he can be released only when a parole board is satisfied he is no longer a danger.
The man's lawyer says it is one thing to fit a police profile, and another to be capable of murder.
Detective Senior Sergeant Candy believes Claire Hills was the victim of an opportunistic, random crime.
She said the killer got lucky, but he was no novice. "We're looking at someone who was determined not to be caught and is advanced and sophisticated as far as criminal offending goes."
Her hope is that over time witnesses may come forward. Perhaps someone in a long-term relationship with the killer might put aside fears and help police.
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