By KRISTIN MACFARLANE in Rotorua
Rotorua police hope new information flooding in about the Olive Walker murder case will bring closure for her family.
The historic murder investigation was highlighted on TV2's Sensing Murder on Tuesday night, featuring a description of the man who killed the 18-year-old in
1970 given by an Australian medium.
Since the programme, police have answered up to 50 phone calls from people wanting to help solve the crime.
The show, which reiterated several times that police do not hire mediums to help solve murders, featured psychics Bev and Deb who claimed to have spoken with Olive about her death.
Deb provided an identikit picture of the man she believed killed Olive.
Detective George Staunton of the Rotorua police said he had talked to between 30 and 50 people who want to help solve the murder including officers who worked on the investigation at the time offering their services.
"There's been quite a lot of calls coming through, the response has been excellent actually."
People had called with new names of men that could be the man in the identikit but Mr Staunton said some had been wiped from their investigations because they would have been children when the murder happened."We've had more new names than anything. We're just working through them all."
Mr Staunton said they had not had any strong leads yet.
Even though the murder happened 35 years ago, Olive's sister Mary Dillon said their mother would never get over it.
"She didn't want to watch [Sensing Murder], we won't push her," Mary said.
Judie Roberts has worked as a professional clairvoyant internationally for more than 22 years.
She sees about four people from Rotorua every week at her Tauranga store Crystal Dreams. She also makes regular trips to Rotorua for different spiritual shows or to give readings.
She is a big fan of Sensing Murder, saying the psychics are very genuine and answer questions families of murder victims want to know.
"I think the most important thing is to give a parent closure."
Judie said the show generated interest in psychics and even though there were con artists, it proved there were psychics who knew what they're doing.
