Police have raided a North Auckland home and arrested a pair who had tried to leave the country nearly four months after an unidentified woman’s body was found floating close to shore wrapped in plastic bags. 

The man and woman, both aged 36, are accused of “offering an indignity” to the woman’s body four days before she was found. 

They are not charged with killing the woman and will keep their name secret for now after their lawyer indicated she would appeal a judge’s decision today to decline ongoing name suppression. 

Mystery still surrounds much of the case, including the identity of the small East Asian woman whose body was recovered by a fisherman on March 12 in Gulf Harbour. 

The saga took a strange twist on Monday, when police managed to gain a court order suppressing their own announcement of breakthroughs in the homicide investigation. 

That led Judge Ajit Swaran Singh to issue take-down orders forcing media outlets to scramble to kill already-published online stories about the developments in the inquiry, and leaving readers who had seen the story scratching their heads at their disappearance. 

Today, the sweeping secrecy order has ended after police abandoned their application for continuing a wide-ranging suppression order following what a prosecutor described in court as a “miscommunication” within the force. 

Early on Monday afternoon, they issued a release to all media saying they had arrested a man and a woman in connection with the Gulf Harbour case after they were flagged attempting to leave the country on Sunday evening. 

They were charged with interfering with human remains by offering an indignity to a body and appeared in the North Shore District Court on Monday, where they pleaded not guilty and elected trial by jury. 

Court documents say they interfered with the body on March 8 in Ōrewa, four days before the woman was found in Gulf Harbour, a 20-minute drive away. 

The charge they jointly face carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison. 

A pair with interim suppression appear in the North Shore District Court on July 1, 2024 charged with tampering with the body of an unidentified woman found in the water off Gulf Harbour on March 12. Photo / Dean Purcell 

Police say they are not ruling out further arrests or charges. No one has been charged with killing the woman as yet. 

The pair were granted interim name suppression and assisted by a Mandarin interpreter in court. 

Their lawyer Michael Kan said at least one of the pair still had parents in China they needed to inform. 

As they appeared in court on Monday, police and forensic staff were searching a home in Ōrewa’s Harvest Ave. 

Neighbours said the residents of the home in Ōrewa raided by police as part of the Gulf Harbour body homicide inquiry kept to themselves. Police have now charged two people with interfering with a body as part of Operation Parade but have not laid a murder charge. Photo / Dean Purcell 

A neighbour told the Herald on Monday they saw people matching the description of the pair who appeared in court led away in handcuffs from the home. 

Court documents list the address of the arrested pair as a home in Royal Oak, south of the CBD, not the property in Ōrewa towards the city’s northern border, owned by an Auckland real estate agent. 

Officers and forensic specialists have remained at the Ōrewa property throughout the week searching the home and grounds. 

Neighbours said the occupants of the home had very much kept to themselves but they had seen them in the garden and on the lawn wearing face masks. They appeared to be keen gardeners, one neighbour said. 

At court on Monday, prosecutor Henry Steele told Judge Swaran Singh he was under instructions to seek suppression of the details released by police. 

Detectives at the home in Ōrewa's Harvest Ave on Monday undertaking a scene examination. Police remained there for several days. Photo / Dean Purcell 

There had been a miscommunication within the police leading to the press release with details of the arrests being issued, the prosecutor said. 

On Wednesday, Steele filed a minute with the North Shore District Court saying police were not seeking to continue the sweeping suppression order extending far beyond the names of the pair, saying there was little use in continuing the order. 

It had covered the circumstances of the pair being flagged at the border trying to leave the country then interviewed and arrested, and the connection of their arrests to the investigation dubbed, Operation Parade, the case of the unidentified woman found in the harbour in March. 

Police have apologised to the court and the media for the confusion following the botched announcement and unusual suppression order that followed. 

The grassy shore in Gulf Harbour where the angler hooked the plastic bags containing the woman's remains. Photo / Michael Craig 

At a hearing on Thursday, barrister Daniel Nilsson, representing the Herald, Stuff and Newshub, opposed the continuation of the sweeping suppression order, including the suppression of the names of the pair. 

Judge Anna Fitzgibbon rescinded the order, and again allowed the media to report the details of the arrest and prosecution of the pair. 

Judge Fitzgibbon also declined their lawyer Angela Roebeck’s application for continuing name suppression for the pair. Roebeck said she had instructions to file an appeal, so they still cannot be named. 

The pair were remanded on bail until their next appearance in the same court on September 7, with conditions including a curfew and an order not to contact any witnesses in the case. 

Body still unclaimed 

Since she was found and recovered from the water, the woman’s remains have been held at the Auckland city mortuary in Grafton, in the care of the coroner. 

On the morning of March 12, fisherman Paul Middleton was angling at Gulf Harbour and snagged a large plastic bag floating just offshore. 

After ripping through several layers of plastic, he initially thought the bag contained meat before he saw a human hand sticking out and called police, he told media on the shore. 

Despite dozens of calls to a dedicated phone line set up by the investigation team, police say the woman is unclaimed and unidentified. 

Police are treating the case as a homicide. 

Acting Detective Inspector Tim Williams speaks to media at the North Shore Police Station in relation to the Gulf Harbour homicide investigation three days after the woman's body washed up. Photo / Michael Craig 

Acting Detective Inspector Tim Williams, of Waitematā CIB, earlier said police were liaising with overseas counterparts along with Interpol and his investigation team is continuing with extensive inquiries. 

Williams did not name the overseas counterparts but thanked everyone who had come forward with information so far. 

In April, the Herald revealed police have completed and issued an Interpol “black notice”, a special appeal seeking information on unidentified bodies, to their international partners. 

Following an autopsy, Williams said police had established the remains came from a woman who was small and of Asian descent, possibly Chinese. 

Police would not say whether the post-mortem results showed signs of foul play suggesting how she died. 

Police investigating the murder of an Asian woman whose body was found at Gulf Harbour released this photo of branding on a singlet found on the body. Photo / NZ Police 

Despite her stature, the autopsy results showed she was neither a child nor a teenager and was likely to have been middle-aged. 

Investigators have not given the woman a name and are understood to be referring to her as simply “the victim”. 

She was found wearing blue pyjama pants with a distinct love heart pattern and a singlet branded with a logo in Chinese lettering. 

Google translate image detection software said the lettering reads “80cm Juanyan Knitted Garment Factory”. 

A couple of weeks after the autopsy, police announced they had obtained a DNA profile of the victim. 

But the profile did not match anyone in police records. 

Police also released a photo of the pyjama pants she was found wearing, bearing a distinctive pattern. Photo / NZ Police 

Williams said his team had been in touch with Canterbury detectives and had ruled out the victim being missing Christchurch real estate agent Yanfei Bao. 

While the Gulf Harbour case is unusual, it is not the first time human remains discovered in Auckland have remained unidentified for an extended period. 

In February 2008, pig hunters found a badly decomposed body in the Waitakere Ranges. 

The remains spent more than a year in the same mortuary as the Gulf Harbour victim before they were identified as former Mt Roskill man Lino Leger, who went missing in 1987. 

Police do not believe his disappearance and death were suspicious. 

When the remains were identified in October 2009, Detective Sergeant Roger Small said the identification was the result of a facial reconstruction by Auckland cardiologist Dr Jonathan Christiansen, extensive media attention, the work of a forensic dentist and pathologist, DNA evidence and a “process of elimination and patience”. 

- Police have set up a dedicated line where people can speak directly to the investigation team via 0800 755 021. 

- Information can also be provided via the 105 phone service or online at https://www.police.govt.nz/use-105, using Update My Report, referencing file number 240312/9837.  

- Tips can be supplied anonymously via Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.