Senseless killing rocks Geraldine

By SCOTT MacLEOD and NZPA

It was the type of murder that sparked fear simply because it seemed so random, so inexplicable, and so open.

Des Payne placed his empty jug of beer on the table at the Crown Hotel, said goodbye to his mate Graham Dobbs and walked outside into the midday sun.

A few minutes later he surfaced at Geraldine Motors, where he made a purchase. He spoke to staff in what may have been his last conversation with anyone other than the person who killed him.

It was Friday, July 27, broad daylight.

The 65-year-old Orari man left the service station and walked to the car he had parked outside the pub. He was meant to pick up his friend Ron Henderson. But he never turned up.

Instead, at 1 pm, a pub patron found Mr Payne lying dead in his car, his clothes soaked in blood.

Small, picturesque, sleepy Geraldine, the Kerikeri of the south, was immediately swamped by police. More than 40 of them flocked in from Christchurch, Timaru, Temuka and Waimate.

They scoured the nearby riverbank. They cordoned off the car park for more than three days. They lifted Mr Payne's car into a container and trucked it to Christchurch.

They found no motive, and no weapon.

More than a week after the killing, Geraldine locals are going about their business as though they have blocked certain things out of their collective minds.

Pub patrons and staff at Geraldine Motors simply won't talk about the dozens of police who are trying to identify every person who was in central Geraldine that lunchtime. Nor do the police caravan or red-and-white emergency tape in the car park arouse much comment.

Across the river, at Geraldine High School, the guidance counsellor says, "there hasn't been any impact at all", although two or three of Mr Payne's young grandchildren have taken the week off.

But the effects are there.

Mr Payne and his mates Mr Henderson and Mr Dobbs had met at the pub every Friday lunchtime for years. But yesterday, none of them turned up.

Instead, Mr Henderson stayed home with friends and Mr Payne lay under two metres of dirt in the local cemetery.

Mr Dobbs stayed away too. He couldn't bear to go back.

"It was a standing thing on Friday," he said. "We would have a jug and toddle away home again. I don't think I could go there for a week or two - it would be too hard."

Mr Dobbs said his mate was a great worker who would never harm a soul.

And that is one of the problems for police: motive. They found signs of a struggle around the car, but no evidence that anything was stolen.

Detective Sergeant Dave Harvey said that everybody who was in town that day would be spoken to.

Mr Payne will never again sit down with his mates at the Crown Hotel.

But yesterday, as the townsfolk wandered in for their afternoon beers and tried to turn their minds away from the senseless killing that has rocked their town, they must have thought he was back.

He wasn't. It was just a police mannequin - dressed like Des Payne to jog their memories.