WHERE DID YOU PUT TUITANIA BARCLAY?
Tuitania Barclay who was 29, went missing from her Dunedin home on September 17,2002.
Tuitania went by a few names, Tui, Tania, Tans. But Tui was the name she usually used. Tui was the youngest of 6 siblings. At a young age Tui and one of her sisters were adopted out. She had a bit of a tough upbringing.
In her teens Tui started getting into trouble. She became involved in the drug scene in Dunedin, and she worked at times as a stripper and a prostitute.
Tui got into trouble with the police and ended up getting convicted of theft and fraud charges. She was given a short prison sentence. By this time Tui already had her first child and because of the situation, the child DJ, was taken off her.
During her time in prison Tui realised the path she was travelling on, wasn’t the one she wanted for her and her son. She made a decision that when she got out that she would clean up her life and get her son back.
After she was released from prison she returned to Dunedin. She worked hard to show social workers that she was committed and motivated to stay on the right path and that she could be a good mother to her son DJ, and in December 1998, DJ was returned to her care. Tui started to create a life for herself and DJ.
She rented a nice bungalow in Wakari. She set up the house beautifully and DJ had everything he needed.
About a year later in 1999 she met Bill Brown. Bill moved in soon after and they soon got engaged. over the next couple of years they added 2 more children to the family. It seemed that everything was going smoothly. Bill had a good job, provided well for his family. Tui looked after the kids and also worked off and on.
But things didn’t stay that way. Before she went missing, things had taken a bit of a downturn. Bill had stopped working and the lack of money in the house and financial pressure was taking a toll on the family.
Struggling to provide everything that the kids needed, Tui reached out to a good friend Natalie, and asked her if she would take DJ for a while, just until she could get back on her feet.
Her friend Natalie stated that in late sept Tui had told her that she wasn’t happy with Bill, Bill had been abusive and she wanted to kick him out. She told her friend that she would ring her back the next day, but Tui never called back. Her friend became worried, she kept trying to ring Tui back and every time it went to voicemail, until one day the voicemail had been changed to Bill’s name.
Natalie said she asked Bill many times where Tui was and his stories kept changing. Bill even said to her that family members had seen Tui, but when she checked with them it was untrue, they had not seen Tui.
Friends said that she had been planning to leave the relationship for about a month before her disappearance
The landlord visited the home on September 17, Bill and Tui were behind on their rent. The landlord said that there was a lot of tension between Bill and Tui during the meeting.
This was the last confirmed sighting of Tui.
Tui was breast -feeding her youngest child when she went missing. Her youngest child was only 5 ½ months, her second child was 18 months. Her oldest son DJ was up north with his dad when she went missing. Tui left her cell phone, wallet and car behind. She left everything in the house, her expensive clothes, personal possessions and even her favourite leather jacket, that friends said she was in love with and wore all the time. But the thing that no one could believe is that she left her children.
Tania’s fiancé Bill Brown did not report her missing for four months after she disappeared, not until January 2003, and even then it was only after pressure from Natalie and the father of her oldest boy DJ. He said that the reason he didn’t report her missing sooner was that he thought she had just walked out on him and the children to return to her former life in Dunedin’s underworld of drugs and prostitution.
Bill Brown assisted police with the investigation.
In 2010 Bill Brown moved to England with the two youngest children.
CLUES
In 2002, a clue revealed that Tui may have been alive for a short period of time after leaving her home. An envelope found was stamped with the date 26 September 2002, 9 days after. Tui had written “here the ring back who wants to Marry a mental bitch.” Inside the envelope was her engagement ring. Clearly this showed that Tui wanted out of the relationship.
On 15 October 2002, Tania’s eftpos card was used to withdraw $120 , that was the last transaction made from Tui’s card. Unfortunately, there was no CCTV at the machine, so it is unknown who made the transaction.
In 2003, police stated that strong leads suggested that Tania may have gone to Christchurch and linked in with a local gang. Forensic samples from a Christchurch gang headquarters were tested but lead nowhere. A gang prospect had said that Tui may have been killed by a Christchurch based gang, police investigated but nothing was found.
Police said at this time that she may be dead.
Dunedin police reopened the investigation in 2014, led by Detective Senior Sergeant Malcolm Inglis, saying they suspected foul play.
On 28 October 2014, Police offered a $50,000 reward for new information leading to the discovery of Tui’s body or, If homicide is proved, the conviction of the killer. The reward expired in January 2015, with no one coming forward with any information.
In 2014, Bill Brown, who had not returned to New Zealand since leaving the country after he reported Tania missing, spoke with Stuff.co.nz. He stated he was “perhaps a suspect” but denied any wrongdoing”. he believed Tui was the victim of foul play.
He goes on to say, “I struggle sometimes to accept the conclusion that Tania may be dead. It is painful and upsetting and still leaves me feeling like I’m in a bad nightmare” he said. “I will never give up hope”.
On 18 August 2018
Det Snr Sgt Inglis who has been the officer in charge of the case for more than four years, announced that he will front an episode of TVNZ programme ‘Cold Case” that was to air the next night. he hoped the programme would spur people to come forward.
He stated “It’s been a long time. We have tried numerous tactics in the past, with the reward, and we’ve re investigated and re looked at the whole file again, and the cold case programme will give a good outline on that. there will be some leads out there. it’s really that people are in different circumstances now, lives have changed, they may know more than they’ve told us in the past”
The programme would reveal several new pieces of info on the case, including that the police officers flew to England in February in 2017 and interviewed Mr brown, he said.
There was no evidence to indicate Tui was still alive, and it would not take much more info for police to solve the mystery, he said
“I’m quite confident she’s deceased
Family and friends would love to know what happened to her, and would like some closure
“we’re really just missing one or two pieces in the puzzle”.
Inglis fronted the programme, in which several police officers re investigated the case, and together with a friend of Tui’s cast doubt on information provided by her former partner Bill Brown, with whom she was living at a home in Wakari Rd when she disappeared.
Det Ins Tom Fitzgerald talked to Brown, now living in England with the couple’s two youngest children several times over the phone in 2016
In February 2017, Inglis and Fitzgerald interviewed Brown in England. Inglis said there were inconsistencies with his story, which raised more questions than answers, but stopped short of saying brown was a prime suspect.
“there are others we are interested in, but he is certainly a person of interest to us”
The TV programme revealed new facts about the case.
Bill Brown changed his benefit from a dual to a solo benefit around the time of Tui’s disappearance, it was also revealed Brown also wiped her old phone, later using it for himself. He changed the lease on the rental house.
Brown told investigators that after Tui had supposedly walked out on him and the children, she had come back once a week for 4 weeks to see the children.
A friend of Bills (Chris), said he was going around nearly every day after Tui’s disappearance but claimed that he never saw Tui.
Tui ha kept written diaries for most of her life, she would write down everything, her thoughts, fears, feelings. When police found the diaries at her house the last two years were missing.
Tui left her car behind when she disappeared. She had saved really hard to get the car and was really proud of it. The car was sold and crushed before Tui was reported missing, this meant it was never able to be forensically examined.
There had been several sightings of Tui. Police revealed that there was a lady that looked exactly like Tui, a ‘doppelganger’. Police visited the women and showed her a photo of Tui. She was amazed at the similarities and funnily enough her name was Tui.
The investigators discussed what may have happened to Tui.
Police looked into the possibility that her disappearance was linked to her past somehow. Police spoke with many girls involved in the sex industry, none of them remember seeing Tui, for a very long time, years. Police also checked the classifieds in the newspaper from time she went missing, but there was nothing. There was no evidence of any drug debts or Tui owing any money to anyone.
If Tui had committed suicide, they would have found a note or her body. Friends said that Tui wouldn’t have done this to her children. Police looked into her mental health at the time, looked through her doctor’s notes. There was nothing in them that led police to believe that she was suffering from any mental illness or that she could have been suicidal.
If Tui had just walked out, where would she go? She was on foot; Bill had said she only took a small bag of stuff with her. She had no phone, none of her friends had seen her and more importantly, she would not have done this to her children.
Police had conducted numerous searches for Tui.
They received information that a dog had been paying particular attention to a part of the back lawn at the Wakari rd. address. Police went back to the address and searched the whole property with ground penetrating radar, however this turned up nothing.
Police had found a photo of Tui at Ross Creek. This was one of her favourite spots. Police divers searched the area but found nothing.
The investigators described the property at Wakari rd as being on the outskirts of the city and surrounded by a lot of native bush and farmland. There was a dog park and a sub station across the road, there was a lot of vacant ground.
The investigators said that they believed Tui was dead and her body was hidden not far away.
The interview with Bill Brown England in 2010 was described as unusual. Bill provided no answers when he was asked questions about his inconsistencies and untruths. They discovered through UK authorities that the two children with Bill were starting to ask questions about their mother.
Police hoped that the programme would encourage someone to come forward. They believe there are people that they have already talked to that didn’t tell them the truth at the time and they were hoping those people might come forward with the truth.
Investigators were hoping that Bills friends that knew Tui well, and had come to see him after she went missing will speak up about what they know, what they saw,. He says, it’s not about protecting someone now, it’s about getting something we can take to those children, She has three children aged 20,27 and 15, and they need to know what happened to their mum.
It’s tragic that she has never been found, tragic for her boys, we owe it to Tui. We want to give her boys some answers, bring them some closure. Her oldest son DJ believes his mother just walked out on them.
The TVNZ show revealed that some forensic evidence, including hairs found in an indented wall, had since been destroyed.
Det Snr Sgt Inglis revealed a crucial piece of evidence from the Wakari Rd home had been destroyed, which could have provided proof Mr Brown had been violent towards Tui, whose body has never been found.
Police visited the house with scientists from Environmental Science and Research (ESR) to perform forensic testing and found cracks and a dent in the wall behind a calendar.
Inglis said “In the wall we found some black hairs were caught in those cracks … the height of that was about 155cm off the ground, similar to head height.”
“We spoke to Bill about that and he gave us a couple of explanations, the first was that he was drunk and fell against the wall, then later on he said … he’d actually been drunk and punched the wall, but he couldn’t tell us how the hairs got to be in the wall.
“Mistakes were made back in those times and unfortunately, they got destroyed, those hairs.
“It is frustrating … when you pick the file up some 10 to 12 years later … to find out a forensic lead had been destroyed.” It was unclear whether police, ESR or someone else had destroyed the evidence, and police would not comment yesterday when asked about its destruction.
After the programme, police said they had gotten numerous calls.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a woman who lived next door to Tui’s former Wakari Rd home at the time of her disappearance, said she was still unsure as to what happened to her former neighbour.
The last time she had seen Tui she appeared to be under the influence of drugs.
“The last day I saw her she was not on this planet.”
However, she had seen no evidence of domestic violence between Tui and Brown.
No one else mentioned that Tui was taking any drugs.
Inglis talked to reporters from Stuff, “We only need a few more pieces to really solve this,” he said.
With that reward now off the table, police had turned to a Cold Case, to help solve her disappearance,
Inglis told Stuff that finding her body would be helpful, but not crucial to the police case. “We’ve had successful convictions before without bodies.”
He believed Tui’s body was somewhere in the Dunedin area. Police had previously searched several Dunedin properties, including Ross Creek and a Mongrel Mob property in Wilsons Rd, Christchurch.
“We want to find her for her family and her friend so they can put her to rest properly.”
Inglis did not believe her disappearance was linked to suicide, with police strongly suspecting foul play.
It is time for some answers for Tui and her boys.
Tui is described as a petite Caucasian woman around 1.57m tall, and was last seen with dyed brown hair.
If you have any information about this case, please contact your local police station. You can call Crimestoppers anonymously 0800 555 111,
or visit them online crimestoppers-nz.org
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SOURCES:
TVNZ Cold Case programme: https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/cold-case/episodes/s1-e4
https://www.police.govt.nz/stolenwanted/coldcase/2019/tuitania-barclay-2002
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/crime/revealed-barclay-evidence-was-destroyed
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12110528
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