A witness claims to have seen a gloved man dressed in black loading a body into the boot of a car as she drove down a Flaxmere street.

Police are investigating the “suspicious” death after a burnt-out car was found with a body inside on the rural outskirts of the Hawke’s Bay suburb.

Police investigators searching for evidence down a drain on Sunderland Dr. Photo / Paul Taylor

Detective Inspector Martin James, district crime services manager, said police made the grim discovery on Irongate Rd West, on the outskirts of the Hastings suburb of Flaxmere on Tuesday night.

“Tragically, police have located a person deceased in the vehicle,” James said.

A post-mortem examination of the body has been conducted and police are “following positive lines of enquiry” into the death which is being treated as suspicious.

Police on Sunderland Dr, Flaxmere, the scene where one person says they saw a body being loaded into a car. Photo / Paul Taylor

Police swarmed Sunderland Dr on Wednesday afternoon, cordoning off the street, laying down cones and searching inside drains.

“Residents on Irongate Road West and Sunderland Drive can expect to see a continued police presence in the coming days, and we thank them in advance for their support and cooperation,” James said.

“We would especially like to hear from anyone with CCTV or dashcam footage on Irongate Road West and Sunderland Drive, between 4.30pm and 8.30pm on Tuesday.”

A man, who did not want to be named, told Hawke’s Bay Today a family member drove down Sunderland Dr about 5pm on Tuesday.

The man said she had told him she’d seen a body on the footpath being picked up and loaded into the boot of a silver car, which looked like a Subaru.

“She saw a fellah all dressed in black. Black gloves, black everything.”

She told him there appeared to be at least two people, one waiting in the car and the man in black picking up the body.

The man said he went past the scene early on Wednesday morning and could see a large trail of dry blood at the same spot.

”There was just blood down there all along. It was really thick.”

He said he was “surprised” police had not turned up at the scene earlier on Sunderland Dr, as almost a day passed between the incident happening and police taping off the street.

The car fire, and subsequent find, bears some similarities to the unsolved homicide of Hawke’s Bay teenager Ariki Rigby in 2022.

Rigby’s body was found in a burnt-out car in at a riverside car park near Havelock North, sparking outrage across the region.

A burnt out car being removed from Irongate Rd West, Hastings, on Thursday night. Photo / Paul Taylor

A forklift was used to lift the car onto a tow truck. Photo / Paul Taylor