4.30pm
The death of a four-year-old girl who was found in a car on Auckland's northwestern motorway yesterday is now being treated as a homicide but police are refusing to say how she was killed.
Storm Apera-Seve's body was found in the back of a car minutes after the driver, believed to
be her father, died when he stepped in front of a truck at 4pm as Auckland's traffic peak out of the city began.
Police said the incident became a homicide when the pathologist, who conducted the post mortem on the girl's body today, told them how she had died.
Police refused to comment on the suggestion the man murdered the girl before he killed himself by stepping in front of the truck.
She was believed to have been stabbed and had her throat cut, but Detective Sergeant Murray Free refused to comment.
Police identified the man as Lapana Seve, 45, from Grey Lynn.
The motorway was not fully re-opened until about 9pm last night and caused chaos as traffic continued to go on to the on-ramps which caused a gridlock in the city.
One motorist said he was on the motorway at 5pm but took four hours to get home.
- NZPA
