Dispatch, Piha, New Zealand— A young lady escapes into the night from a bad situation and vanishes without a trace. More people disappear, and the mystery of the Black Coast Vanishings puts a community on edge.
Half a world away, a woman flees from a Gilgo Beach home. The search for her leads to the discovery of a dozen bodies. Like Piha, Long Islanders worry about a murderer in their midst.
At Piha, a picturesque beachside community along the Tasman Sea, 26-year-old Iraena Asher was at a party and started feeling sick. She was afraid someone spiked her drink. She called the police, who, in a response that will be criticized for years, dispatched a taxi to take her home. The cab goes to the wrong address, and the young lady, fearing for her life, flees into the night.
At the Black Sands Cottages, l am introduced to a lady who was intimately involved in the case. A four-part documentary titled “Black Coast Vanishings,” had come out and she felt the true story wasn’t told. She invited me in and offered me a cup of tea as she told the tale.
The Piha native and her son were driving home on a rainy night when they encountered Iraena walking alone. She was scared and wet, so they brought her to their home to warm up. She wanted a ride back to her place, but it was far off and would have been quite a ride on a stormy night along the area’s winding mountain road. They agreed they would go in the morning. The lady’s friend gave her a silky nightgown to wear as her clothes were drying. A short time later, they heard footsteps on the driveway—the young lady had taken off. The lady and the friend drove after her while the son stayed back and called the police. Up ahead, they spotted the nightgown, wet on the road. Their young charge, naked, had vanished.
This time, the police responded in force. A massive search ensued on land and at sea along the infamously treacherous beaches of Piha. Lion Rock, a huge volcanic formation, framed the black sands on one side, and another massive outcropping stood on the other. The missing person could not have left Piha by road, else she would have been seen by the pursuing couple. The only other way out was the crashing surf and out to sea. Despite days of scouring every square inch of Piha and the surrounding waters, Iraena was never to be seen again.
Following her disappearance, Eloi Rollard took a holiday from an English language school in Auckland. Promising his mother back in France that he would bring her back some of the black volcanic sand for which Piha is known, the boy made the trek to the ocean beach. He was never seen again. Next was Cherie Vousden, a local woman who vanished from a mountain trail overlooking the beach. Then there was another, and another, six in all, vanished without a trace.
The community went on high alert for a deranged killer. A former mayor appeared before the cameras and discounted every possibility that wasn’t nefarious. The victims were all young, with everything to live for, leaving their families to wonder endlessly about their horrible fate. My host in Piha held fast to her belief that they were either suicides or drownings suffered by unwary victims swept into the sea by the area’s vicious rip currents. Or maybe they fell from the towering cliffs, an idea discounted by the former mayor, who argued that their plunge down the rocks would have left evidence of a fall. In either scenario, a body entering the water at Piha could have quickly been dispatched by sharks.
I sat riveted, watching the series on the lady’s couch. There she was, describing the night Iraena disappeared. She was annoyed that the documentary glossed over her belief that the deaths were accidents or suicides. She truly doubted her small beach community held a murderous secret.
In her mind, the police made a series of blunders, starting with failing to respond to Iraena’s initial call and not searching the beach for footsteps before the tide returned. They didn’t close off the road leading from the party the young lady attended, all venues of investigation that could have led to a different result.
I told her of the Gilgo murders and how law enforcement failed for years to crack the case until a new district attorney came on the scene and made an arrest. Perhaps a big break in the Black Sands Vanishings will come and provide some closure, maybe a sense of relief. Listening to the eyewitness account and watching the mysteries unfold on the TV, it dawned on me—and the lady confirmed—that l was sitting in the exact place Iraena was the night she disappeared.