KEY POINTS:
Fugitive Nai Yin Xue fled his Los Angeles hotel during the night - sneaking past a sleeping attendant - suggesting he gained an even bigger headstart on authorities hunting him.
Xue booked into the 1 1/2-star Royal Pagoda Hotel after arriving on September 15 (LA time), and was given Room 15, virtually next to the glass-front office.
Officer worker James Tu yesterday told the Herald Xue did not bother to stay the night. He had paid in advance, but checked out without returning his electronic key card - which, with the office so close, would have required sneaking past a sleeping attendant.
Mr Tu said police had taken all the motel records and security footage, but he did not believe these would help them much.
The early departure widens Xue's headstart on authorities by a few more hours and again shows how desperate he was to get moving after allegedly killing wife An An Liu and stuffing her body in a car boot, dumping his 3-year-old-daughter Qian Xun Xue at a Melbourne train station on the way.
His swift movements were in stark contrast to those of New Zealand's police liaison officer in the US, Superintendent Neville Matthews, who arrived in Los Angeles yesterday (Sunday LA time).
Mr Matthews flew in from his base at the NZ Embassy in Washington DC but has still to set up meetings with the US authorities hunting Xue.
He was surrounded by media on arrival and questioned about whether the decision to send him - made the night before - was because New Zealand police did not believe the American authorities were doing enough.
Mr Matthews denied this, and that he had come to Los Angeles because of pressure on police in New Zealand to solve the case, having taken a long time to find the body.
When he confirmed that the Regional Fugitive Task Force led by US marshals was leading the hunt for Xue, an Australian reporter told him that the marshals had "shut them out", saying media interest in the case was unhelpful.
No wanted posters have been issued publicly, nor have any security footage or photos taken of Xue arriving been circulated to the media.
Mr Matthews said his role was to make the relationship between New Zealand and the US authorities "as efficient as possible".
"Doing that face-to-face is much better than over the phone."
Asked if that would have been better done last week, when there was diplomatic confusion over whether alerts had been activated, warrants issued, "blue-on-blue" issues over which authority was hunting Xue and whether the US had the appropriate rights to arrest him, Mr Matthews said he had been in Rome on holiday "and unfortunately I am a one-man band".
He hoped to meet the US marshals, Interpol and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency today (Monday LA time).
After a "long discussion" with the FBI, he had declined its offer of help, saying it was better that the hunt was handled by one lead agency, and the US marshals were specialists in seeking fugitives.
The two Los Angeles police detectives who originally led the hunt for Xue are set to fly out to Bogota, Colombia, this week, and a department spokesman, Officer Jason Lee, has spoken publicly of how the cityhas 400 of its own murders a year to solve.
Mr Matthews was asked if it was a case of "big case in New Zealand, big case in Australia, no big deal in the United States".
He said it was his understanding the hunt for Xue was a "high priority", with some US marshals taking it personally: "They want to get this guy."
He also said the diplomatic process required to get a US "provisional warrant" for Xue took only four days - the quickest he had ever seen.
He did not believe a quicker provisional warrant system between New Zealand and the United States could be looked at in the future, especially in a hypothetical scenario where a fugitive had not committed a minor immigration offence he or she could be held for.