C.I.B. Enters Search For Tramper

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31081, 9 June 1966, Page 1

C.I.B. Enters Search For Tramper

(Hew Zealand Press Association! AUCKLAND, June 8. Detectives have been called to investigate the disappearance of Mrs Christine Lucilla Corbett, who has not been seen since she entered Urewera bush country on Sunday afternoon.

A five-man team led by the head of the Rotorua Senior Sergeant A. P. Jesson, will assemble in Whakatane tomorrow.

Mrs Corbett, a 26-year-old Rotorua woman, entered the bush south of Ruatoki near the headwaters of the Whakatane river at 2.30 p.m. on Sun-

day to tramp to the Ohoro hut, seven miles upstream. She did not reach it.

Today, the police said they were anxious to interview the driver of a yellow Volkswagen car known to have been in the area until about 10 p.m. on Sunday. Chief Inspector J. G. B. Rossiter, head of the Tauranga police and second in charge of the Rotorua

police district, today visited the held search base near where Mrs Corbett was last seen.

Many hunters and trampers were in the area when Mrs Corbett went missing and the police hope to find someone who saw her.

Tomorrow at least 70 men will comb the area where Mrs Corbett entered the bush.

Today 70 men took part in the search. A second jet boat, a helicopter and the Rotorua police dog Ngata were brought into the search. Many of the men slept tonight in tents at the base or at the Ohoro hut, which has become an advance base. The river and streams which drain into it have begun to recede after torrential rain during the week-end. Mr E. Jones, an experienced hunter who had arranged to take a party including Mrs Corbett to the hut on Sunday, said Mrs Corbett stayed in Whakatane on Saturday night and therefore was not at her Rotorua home when called for on Sunday.

Sir Jones said the party met a number of delays and decided to call off the trip. Later it was learnt that Mrs Corbett had gone on alone. The group decided to look for her and set off about 8 p.m. It reached the hutt at 1.40 am. There was no sign of her, nor footprints which could have been hers.