Police are set to launch a fresh appeal for information into the 35-year-old cold case of Auckland man Andrew Michael Maaka, who vanished without a trace.
Waitematā police are today announcing a renewed appeal into the 1991 mystery disappearance.
Detective Inspector Callum McNeill is due to speak to the media in Auckland today.
Maaka, who was 29 at the time, was last seen alive at a Head Hunters gang headquarters in West Auckland in November 1991 and has been presumed dead for the past three decades.
According to Herald newspaper story archives from 1992, Maaka was believed to be a “prospect” for the Head Hunters gang for about a year before his vanishing.
His friends at the time described him as a “wheeler dealer”.
Maaka had been reporting to the Henderson police daily while on bail after being charged with theft of a car in March earlier that year.
Fears for his safety mounted after he failed to call his five-year-old daughter ahead of her first day of school. Detective Senior Sergeant Steve Shortland at the time said it was an “unlikely” thing for him to do because Maaka was “very fond of his daughter”.
One of his sisters said she believed he was dead, while another suggested he dropped off the radar intentionally. Other family members considered seeking a clairvoyant.
Archives show that in 1995, his sister Atawhai Benefield told the Herald that despite him being a “crook” and “violent” man, the pair were close.
“We’re not trying to say he was a knight in shining armour. He was a bloody crook. He was a violent man.
“We were really, really close.”
She said she hoped he had disappeared to escape a “sticky situation”.
“There’s always hope for me. I feel he’s still out there. I sit down and think to myself that he was clever. Very clever...”
Around the same time in 1999, Aucklander Stephen Stone was imprisoned for the murder of Deane Fuller-Sandys and rape and murder of Leah Stephens.
The police case to charge Stone followed a 10-year investigation into a string of disappearances.
Maaka’s other sister, Kacey Maaka, at the time said her family had asked police if Stone could have been involved in her brother’s disappearance but was told that was not considered likely.
But she said the family had always suspected the Head Hunters had “done away” with her brother, as he was using their name to do drug deals.
The officer in charge at the time of the disappearance, Waitākere police CIB Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Franklin, said a large amount of information on Maaka and three other missing men was gathered during the Fuller-Sandys investigation.
Stone was acquitted of the murder of Fuller-Sandys in April last year after spending 25 years in prison.
Another person also charged with murder of Fuller-Sandys at the time, Gail Maney, was released from prison in October 2020 after spending 15 years behind bars.
It was said at the time that Maney allegedly ordered Stone to kill Fuller-Sandys over a drug deal gone wrong. Stone then allegedly raped and killed Stephens because she was a witness to the Fuller-Sandys murder.
In late 2024, both Stone and Maney were set to have retrials ordered; however, they were quashed by the Crown who claimed the evidence presented against them was no longer sufficient.
Two witnesses who were set to provide evidence against Stone and Maney had revoked their original statements, saying they were pressured by the police and were frightened of going to prison and losing their children. They also feared being prosecuted themselves if they didn’t go along with the police case.
Defence lawyers at the time suggested Maaka was the real victim of the first 1980s string of disappearances rather than Fuller-Sandys. It was also revealed in court that Maaka had been in a relationship with Maney.