The Star: September 30, 2021

The Star Thursday September 30 2021
8
NEWS
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
Brother of alleged murder victim still
When Michael McGrath
vanished four years
ago, his family knew
something was
seriously wrong. An
old schoolmate was
later charged with
murder and is awaiting
trial. McGrath’s body
has not been found
but his brother Simon
has never stopped
searching. Kurt Bayer
reports
UNRESOLVED: Simon McGrath says his brother’s disappearance haunts him every day.
PHOTO: GEORGE HEARD/NZ HERALD ​
SIMON MCGRATH lies awake,
wondering. It’s just a hunch and
highly unlikely, he knows this, but
he gets up anyway. If he didn’t, it
would only eat away at him.
He slips on a jacket, hiking
boots, and heads out again.
While driving out west,
through the spidery streets they
grew up on, with early sun hitting
the snow-capped Southern
Alps, he mentally goes over the
other possible dumping spots
which have been covered off during
the past four years.
In those distressing early days
and weeks after his brother
Michael McGrath disappeared,
specialist police search teams,
including dive squads, scoured
gravel pits, paddocks, pine forests,
ponds, lakes, and rivers.
The quiet, thoughtful, unassuming
carpenter’s movements
around his local neighbourhood
– where he grew up, went to
school, played sports, socialised,
and never left, or wanted to leave
– were tracked through security
cameras, neighbours, and witnesses.
Nothing.
Simon and his mates used to go
out at weekends too. They would
target an as-yet unexplored
location and comb over it.
Amateur efforts, but the best they
could do.
Large swathes of Canterbury
were ticked off. Nothing.
Both the official and private
searches were eventually called
off. And Simon was left to his
own devices.
His most recent search was
just a few months ago. Alone,
he picked over a section of the
Halswell River, in the flat backblocks
between Halswell and
Motukarara.
“I know he’s still lying out there
somewhere,” Simon says.
While traipsing along a riverbank,
poking in the weeds and
beneath macrocarpa hedges, it
will suddenly, vividly, dawn on
him exactly what he is doing:
looking for his brother’s decomposed
body or bones.
In the past few years, he’s
circumnavigated most of the
200sq km, shallow, brackish
coastal Lake Ellesmere and its
accessways. He’s picked over
the windswept Birdlings Flat
and fingers of Banks Peninsula,
around Lincoln, up and beyond
the Hilltop Tavern on the road to
Akaroa, which Michael used to
cycle.
Nothing.
When he gets home, fatigued
and aching, just a few minutes
around the corner from Michael’s
house, a depression sweeps
over him.
Smile with confidence
BEFORE
Full or Partial Dentures
Immediate Dentures
Winz Approved
aFtER
Insurance Claims
Urgent Denture Repair & Reline
Payment Options Available
914 Colombo St | Ph: 03 365 2859 | www.cosmeticdentureclinic.co.nz
Stay comfortable all year round with
Fujitsu’s sleek, stylish Lifestyle Range.
HEAT PUMPS FROM $1999 inc GST INSTALLED!
2020
Heat Pumps
Fujitsu’s Catechin Filters are approved by
the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation
NZ’s Sensitive Choice ® programme.
03 381 6950
info@powersmart.co.nz
powersmart.co.nz
FREE
consultation from
your local Accredited
Heat Pump Expert