Another violent death has taken place in New Zealand. The body of a  47 year old man was found in a two bedroom flat in Lansdowne in the Wairarapa. Police discovered him during a call-out at 3am today and attempts to resuscitate him failed.

Reports say that police are talking to a man in connection with the incident.Our thoughts go out to the deceased man’s family and friends.

His death is thought to be the 15th violent death so far in 2010.

According to figures held by the independent New Zealand Institute murder and manslaughter account for around 100 deaths every year, it places New Zealand 5th out of 30 OECD countries for violent deaths.

Don’t be taken in by the ‘offical’ murder statistics.  Murder charges are reduced to manslaughter if intent can’t be proved, the defence of provocation is still available to killers in New Zealand and the figures don’t show that advances in medicine mean that many serious injuries are more survivable now then they were, say,  thirty years ago.

There also are the scores of people who simply ‘disappear’ in New Zealand every year, people like Korean mother Jessica Chun who went missing on a Northland holiday or Srikanth Rayadurgam who vanished on his way to college in Auckland.

Missing women

Police are stepping up their search for missing Christchurch woman Emma Campbell who disappeared last weekend. They would like to speak to a man seen in the car park of the Sign of the Kiwi cafe around 5.30am when it was believed she was in the area.

Ms Campbell’s car,  a 1994 Toyota Corona, was found abandoned, slightly damaged, on the Port Hills a short distance away about 7.30am.

Christchurch was recently given the title of Murder Capital of New Zealand not so much for the number of murders there but for the shockingly brutal and depraved way in which the killers slaughtered their victims.

Wanganui woman Marice McGregor has yet to be found and police haven’t ruled out her being the victim of foul play. Members of her family handed out pamphlets in Upokongaro, a hamlet about 15km inland from Wanganui on State Highway 4 near to where she was last seen, two weeks ago, on April 19. Her red Suzuki Escudo was later found parked near the Lismore Forest, 20km north of Wanganui.

Vampire Attack

Two men and a woman have been charged with wounding with intent to render unconscious after they attacked a man on Wellington’s Mount Victoria on 20 February. All three of the attackers bit their victim in what’s been called an act of vampirism. The bizarre case is still before the courts and the victim’s name has been suppressed so details are sketchy at present.

James Phillip Brooks, 22, and Xenia Gregoriana Borichevsky, 19, appared in court on Wednesday. A warrant was issued for arrest of the third accused, James Eric Orr, 19 on unrelated charges and he was detained yesterday. Orr was charged with possession of a knife, possession of prescription drugs, and failing to appear in court.

The Dom Post published details of the Facebook page for Orr  who left Wellington High School in 2008:

“he refers to himself as “the.vampire.marius” – after a character in Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles novels. His lawyer said he denied any involvement in the attack…

A source with ties to the victim’s family told The Dominion Post that he suffered serious bites on his body during the “disgraceful physical assault”.

Some of the bites were on his neck and chest, and one of them soon became infected, leaving the feverish teen in hospital for a week.

“It is a disgrace the [alleged] perpetrators are making this out to be something minor that has been exaggerated,” the source said.

Both Wellington Hospital and police had photos of the “deep bites”, he said…”

Possibly related story Teen’s attacker pleads guilty