The sister of a man missing for 35 years hopes his children can have closure.
By Finn Blackwell of RNZ
Head Hunters gang prospect Andrew Maaka, 29, was last seen at a Guy Fawkes party at the gang's West Auckland pad in 1991.
Police on Thursday announced they had reopened the investigation into his disappearance after new information came to light.
Authorities believed he was the victim of foul play.
Maaka's sister, KC, told RNZ she was 25 when her brother went missing. She wanted closure for his children.
"In terms of how long he's been gone now, for us as a family, that final sort of, bit of closure for us would be great for him and his family, our brother's children that are left here."
She said the family had put up a plaque at their urupā, to mark his life.
Maaka spoke about the impact her brother's disappearance had on their mother, and how they had searched for answers to satisfy her.
"What she was thinking about, her son and where he is, and if he's still alive, is he gonna walk back in the door?"
After her mother's death, Maaka said the family pulled back from searching.
"I think we sort of came to the conclusion where we weren't going to go out and try and look anymore, and we weren't going to the police to say, 'What are you doing?' We were just kind of happy to sort of just let it go."
Maaka said she looked into his disappearance herself back in the 1990s.
"At the time, my surviving brother, him and I went out to Piha because we were told that this is where they disposed of our brother's body," she said.
"I think it was more around just trying to get closure, that if maybe we had found him or seen [him].
"I was sort of trying to get closure to him and his whereabouts, maybe finding his remains or something like that, and, you know, nothing came of that."
'Our arms were always open wide'
She spoke about the family relationship when Maaka was alive. She said he had been abused as a child.
"He was a victim of you know, domestic violence, and so we understood that and never, ever did we ever judge him for it, for going into the gang.
"Our arms were always open wide, our doors were open to him, so long as he didn't bring the undesirables with him, you know? Because there was always a hard line that we had to say to him, 'don't bring anyone that you believe might be unsafe for us'."
She described her brother as a man with a code, and recounted a story where he had stood over someone for threatening a child, while doing repossession work as a gang prospect.
"That was my brother that I know and grew up with, because he had a conscience about who he would do things to and who he wouldn't do things to you know? I respected him for that."
Maaka hoped sharing her story would be help others in a similar situation.
"The worst case scenario is what's happened with us, with our brother," she said.
"There's some people out there that are actually in and out of jail and always in the justice system, Corrections, and it's about really breaking that cycle.
"If what I can say or anyone else can say can encourage them to just be that unconditional love and always be supportive of that loved one, especially if you know the trauma they've experienced, there's always hope for anyone to turn their life around."
'Thirty-five years of questions'
Speaking to media outside the West Chapter of the Head Hunters in Auckland on Thursday, Detective Inspector Callum McNeill told reporters they wanted to hear from the public.
"Someone knows what happened to him, someone knows where he is, and with the passage of time, and with allegiances changing and people moving out of gangs, it's time for that person to come forward."
McNeill said the gang had not been cooperative with authorities, and while it made their investigation extremely difficult, it was not impossible.
"We have shown and proven in the past that we can resolve these cases, we can find people and we can hold those to account that have killed them."
McNeill said police were not ruling out arrests.
Investigators wanted to return Maaka to his family, he said.
"They haven't had a chance to grieve, it's been 35 years of questions, they just want answers, they want to know," McNeill said.
"If we can return Andrew to his whanau to have a proper send off then hey, that's what our job's all about."
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