The mystery of Mona Blades

Rotorua police have several unsolved crimes on the books. KELLY BLANCHARD looks at the most famous case of them all, the Mona Blades disappearance.

Nearly every day the elderly mother of murder victim Mona Blades cries.

She has spent more than 30 years not knowing where her daughter's body is, who killed her and why they wanted her dead.

Miss Blades' father died a few years ago not knowing the answers to his questions.

A team of Rotorua police detectives keep that in mind as they try to get to the bottom of what happened to the 18-year-old.

Miss Blades went missing on May 31, 1975, as she was hitchhiking from Hamilton to Hastings.

She got into an orange Datsun 120Y stationwagon on the Napier-Taupo road and disappeared without a trace.

Thirty years later, her body and belongings have never been found.

There is no particular reason the Mona Blades case is being looked at again, except for the obvious - her killer is still out there. While the detectives pore through boxes of information, handwritten statements and letters that are sometimes hard to read, and piles of folders of people and photos, they wait for the phone to ring.

"We are just waiting for that one phone call from that one person who might lead us to where she is and who her killer is," said Detective Tania Blackbourn, one of three detectives working on the case.

Police have taken hundreds of calls. Some are interesting and others are just weird.

One letter nominating a suspect has been typed and posted to police. But it is the way the suspect is nominated that is rather strange. The sender has gone to the trouble of cutting out the letters of the man's name from magazines and newspapers and attached it to the bottom of the letter.

Clairvoyants and psychics are also regular providers of information. One even sent a map with directions of where to go to find where they believed Miss Blades' body was buried.

Miss Blackbourn said such letters could not always be discounted as wacky by police and were followed up, just on the off-chance it was the killer writing the letter to send a message to police.

Some of the information comes freely from scorned former wives or employees who legitimately believe the identikit pictures look like someone they know.

But despite the oddness of some of the calls and information, Miss Blackbourn said all information, no matter how strange, was welcomed.

A truck driver saw Miss Blades getting into the Datsun and witnesses reported seeing a matching vehicle veering off the highway and stopping on rural Matea Rd, on the way to Napier.

One of at least five suspects investigated at the time has died. An elderly New Zealand man and another now living in Australia, Charlie Hughes, have remained "persons of interest" for police.

Mr Hughes has gone public in newspapers and on television about his frustrations about being on the suspects list and has denied he had anything to do with the murder.

Detective Inspector Garth Bryan, who is leading the investigation, said information was always trickling into the special 0800 MONABLADES (0800 666225) hotline. Mr Bryan said forensic advances could help solve the mystery but there was no crime scene and no body to work from.

There was a glimmer of hope last year when police came across a shallow grave bearing Miss Blades' name in a Huntly garage. The name had been inscribed on concrete as a joke six years earlier and the former owner of the property apologised to her family.

Miss Blades' brother, Tony Blades, told the Daily Post his family had not talked to the media over the past 30 years about their feelings because it was too hard on them, especially their mother, who is now in her 80s. While the case has baffled everyone for three decades, the officers tasked with getting to know the case better are determined to find new leads.

And when they need inspiration, they just need to think of Miss Blades' tormented family.

"Her mum thinks about her every day," Ms Blackbourn said.

"She often breaks down and cries. They didn't even get to have a burial for her or anything.

"It's just the great unknown."