Police launch homicide investigation after man found dead in Napier

With police beyond about to start a scene investigation, a tourist in Napier photographs the artwork on the Theatre Lane wall of a central-city building where a residential tenant was found dead in a room upstairs on Sunday. Photo / Doug Laing

Police who’ve opened a homicide inquiry into the death of a Napier man in an inner-city flat at the weekend are awaiting a Tuesday post mortem examination to determine the cause of death and the future of the investigation.

The man, aged in the late 60s and understood to have at least one daughter, was found early on Sunday afternoon in his room upstairs in a two-storey Art Deco-style feature overlooking Emerson St, with two retail shops on the ground floor.

He was a tenant and handyman-caretaker in the building and was found deceased after two friends from the nearby Bay City Club became concerned for his wellbeing, having not seen him in the previous couple of days.

He remained in the building as police established an inquiry team, and he was being removed on Monday to be taken to Palmerston North for the post-mortem, said Detective Inspector Martin James, of Hawke’s Bay CIB.

“At this stage, Police are not in a position to provide further details about the man’s identity, however, will look to do so in due course,” he said. “Police are working to establish what has occurred and are following positive lines of inquiry into the circumstances of the incident.”

The scene from Tennyson St, with a detective in Theatre Lane near where a man's body was found in his room in a building on Sunday. Photo / Doug Laing.

But Bay City Club president Blu Corlett confirmed the man was a well-liked long-time member, and former vice-president, who “would do anything for anyone, all voluntary, and never expect anything in return”.

With a career in building and construction behind him, he had continued to use his skills, and volunteered his skills in a way that left his mark on “90 per cent of the way the club looks today”, about 40 years after what is officially known as the Hawke’s Bay Commercial Travellers Club moved into their former lodge premises off lower Milton Rd.

“He was a good mate to everyone here that knew him, with a good heart and a good soul,” Corlett said. “He would do anything for anyone, he never held a grudge, would just laugh it off. And he had a good humour – he’d even laugh at himself.”

As police began a scene investigation on Monday, tourists, many from cruise liners berthed at Napier Port, were photographing scenes outside, most notably the surrealist artwork on its outer wall entering the lane from the Emerson St end.