Man appears in court charged with Rotorua murder

A 59-year-old man has appeared in the Rotorua District Court this morning charged with murder.

The man has been granted interim name suppression.

The charge relates to a body of a man being found at a house on Te Ngae Rd yesterday afternoon.

Judge Tony Snell also granted interim suppression of the victim's name and details at the request of the police, who said formal identification was yet to be carried out.

The charged man was represented by Dafydd Malcolm, who said a legal aid application had been made on an urgent basis and the man would be assigned a lawyer.

Malcolm said he asked for interim name suppression on the grounds the man's assigned counsel might see something relevant that would warrant name suppression being granted.

The man was remanded in custody to reappear in the High Court at Rotorua on June 12 at 9am.

Emergency services were called to the property in Owhata about 4.45pm yesterday where a man was found dead.

At the time, a police spokeswoman told the Rotorua Daily Post police were speaking to another man present at the address.

A neighbour told the Rotorua Daily Post today they had heard yelling and police arriving before 4pm.

About an hour later, a man wearing a Hazmat suit was seen being escorted away from the house with police.

Another neighbour who lived with her two young children said they had not seen or heard anything until the police arrived.

"I'm just shocked."

She said she did not know the victim but he was always friendly.

A woman driving home from Tauranga said she saw three police cars drive past FreshChoice on Te Ngae Rd and initially thought it was a car accident.

The police car lights were flashing, but there were no sirens.

"We assumed that we might have just missed a car crash at the time."