Expedition may hunt for Rockefeller skull

Press, 16 April 1979, Page 9

Expedition may hunt for Rockefeller skull

NZPA Sydney! The skull of Michael: Rockefeller may be in the hands of head-hunters in! Irian Java, well-cared for by{ people who have little to eat! but other people, a Sydney private investigator says. j Mr Frank Monte believes' there is an 85 per cent! chance of finding the relic of! the son of the late million- 1 Eire. Nelson Rockefeller. Michael Rockefeller disappeared on an expedition in) the area nearly 16 years! ago. Mr Monte said a firm of American lawyers had] briefed him to assess the) chances and cost of finding’

(Michael Rockefeller or his ’remains. He would not confirm that! his client was Mrs Mary 1 Clarke Rockefeller, Michael’s {mother and Nelson’s first! {wife. But he said that il his! (client agreed, he pronosed a 1 ' 12-man expedition including lone missionary, to Irian (Java by sea from Thursday) Island of Australia’s north! Icoast. "The territory was and j still is head-hunter country,” 1 i he said, and anthropologists' had told him that the skull' of any person eaten by local people was kept and cared I for. I Mr Monte said that so far he had spoken to 40 persons!

who had responded to his advertisements offering a re|ward of $lO,OOO or part ot it, for information that might lead to the discovery of I Michael Rockefeller’s' remains. He is convinced that the ‘original search was not extensive. Photographs of the area i showed it was swamp. Iquicksand, and rotted vegetation for about 3000 km in from the sea. i The people lived in elementary tree huts and had ’little to eat but people. There was a suggestion that Michael may have angered them by taking something ■that did not belong to him.