Woman's body dumped in bush

The body of a young woman found part-way down a bush-clad bank close to Manukau Harbour may have been dumped there on Monday night.

Two men discovered the partially obscured body while walking a dog in Waikowhai Park about 8.30am yesterday.

A woman who works across the road from the scene said police had described the woman as being in her 20s and that her body had probably been dumped the previous night.

Detective Senior Sergeant Gerry Whitley said police had no idea who the woman was or how long she had been there. Nor could he specify her race or age - besides the fact that it was not a young girl.

He urged anyone with a missing loved one to contact police immediately.

Waikowhai Rd, about 15km from downtown Auckland, was yesterday cordoned off all day while 20 police officers and members of the fire brigade secured the scene and searched for evidence.

Large blue tarpaulins covered the section of the road in question, about 200m from the entrance of the park.

The body remained several metres down the bank for most of the day with police looking down on it from a cherrypicker.

Mr Whitley said the bank was steep and the body would be difficult to reach. Police did not want to destroy valuable evidence by going straight down to collect it.
Police were last night unsure of how the woman died but her death was being treated as a possible homicide.

He would not elaborate on what the position of the body was, what was partially obscuring the body, or whether it was buried.

Mr Whitley said a lot of those questions, including ethnicity, would be answered after the body was removed from the scene and a post-mortem completed.

That was expected to be some time last night.

Mr Whitley said it was unlikely the body was the same body two fishermen reported to police last week while fishing in the Manukau Harbour.

The men said they hooked a woman's body wrapped in cargo net while pulling in their anchor, but dropped it back into the water.

* Police want to hear from anyone with a missing friend, workmate or relative. That includes any female employees away from work where someone else had rung in sick for them. Ph: 0800 WAIKOWHAI / 0800 924-569.