Kirsa Jensen: DNA testing confirms blood samples taken by police at Awatoto 41 years ago were from missing girl

The DNA of Kirsa Jensen has been detected in a blood sample found more than four decades ago at the spot where she was last seen alive, confirming police suspicions it is hers.

Kirsa, 14, went missing while out riding her horse beside a stretch of beach in Hawke’s Bay 41 years ago tomorrow.

Her disappearance from beside Awatoto Beach near Napier on September 1, 1983, is regarded as one of New Zealand’s most enduring mysteries.

She is widely suspected to have been abducted and killed, but her body has never been found.

Napier schoolgirl Kirsa Jensen disappeared on September 1, 1983. She is still missing.

Despite a confession from a prime suspect, a man who later recanted and then committed suicide, no one has ever been charged over her death.

Police have long worked on the assumption that blood found at the time at what was then a World War II gun emplacement near the Tūtaekurī River mouth is Kirsa’s.

The horse she was riding, Commodore, was found next to the emplacement, and a witness came forward to police in the days after saying they had seen her there with an injury to her face.

The DNA results back up those witness accounts, and therefore do not present a significant breakthrough in the cold case.

But the officer now in charge of Kirsa’s file, Detective Sergeant Daryl Moore, said the test results have helped cast aside a nagging fear in his mind that the long-told narrative around her disappearance could have been inaccurate from the investigation’s beginning.

The gun emplacement on the foreshore near the Tūtaekurī River mouth where Kirsa Jensen's blood droplets were found. Photo / Paul Estcourt - NZH

In 2023, Moore sent a sample of the blood collected at the scene and preserved by police at the time, along with a sample of her mother Robyn’s DNA, to scientists to see if they could generate a match from it.

Moore said the results came back as a conclusive match.

“We’re able to say the blood found at the scene is almost certainly a child of Robyn.”

Moore said it had always been assumed it was Kirsa’s blood, and with good reason. Kirsa’s hospital records were used by police in the early stages of the investigation to ascertain her blood type.

“She had quite a unique blood type – one that a low percentage of New Zealanders have – and that matched the blood at the scene,” Moore said.

“The DNA obviously has just taken that evidence one step further.”

The gun emplacement site is now a memorial to Kirsa Jensen. Photo / Warren Buckland

Moore said the blood sample was a significant piece of evidence, although it didn’t necessarily indicate Kirsa was injured by her potential killer at the scene. Witness evidence also pointed to the possibility of her falling off the horse.

He said a large number of droplets were found in the area where Commodore the horse was tied up, spread over as much as a couple of metres.

“These were just tiny little droplets, more consistent with somebody having blood in their mouth and coughing, or maybe somebody having some blood on their hand and flicking their hand to create little flicks of blood,” Moore said.

“The blood didn’t suggest it was an injury that was dripping drops.

“I always had that little doubt in my mind, you know, was there a possibility someone else had been there and had bled?

“The fact that it was her blood helps corroborate the witnesses at the time talking about her holding her face and appearing to have a facial injury.”

Constable Ron Thorne (left) and civilian volunteer Murray Wellwood check the banks of the estuarys, near to where Kirsa Jensen was last seen.

The case remains an active investigation, and Kirsa is officially still a missing person.

The last known public sighting of her was from a witness who said they saw her leaving Awatoto in the passenger seat of a white ute with high wooden sides, driven by a middle-aged man.

After an exhaustive search by police, no vehicle that matched the description was found.

A Mazda ute, similar to the one police tried to trace in connection with the disappearance of Kirsa Jensen. Photo / NZ Police

Moore said the case still generated new leads to look at every year, with information sent in by the public periodically.

Having Kirsa’s DNA on record could be helpful in future for identifying her, if her remains were ever found, he said.

“I certainly accept that she is deceased and therefore likely murdered. It’s possibly wishful thinking, but I remain hopeful one day that she will be found.

“As of right now, we don’t have anywhere credible to look for her.”

Chris Hyde is the editor of Hawke’s Bay Today. He has a decade of experience telling regional stories, from regional newsrooms across NZ.