The Police team on the homicide of Mellory Manning has been firming up on information.
Detective Inspector Greg Williams says that last Friday they did further river tests in an attempt to identify where Mellory's body might have been placed into the river.
"This time we constructed two floats that would replicate the actual movement of a body in water. One was placed in at Dallington Terrace close to where Mellory was located and the other was put in close to Barbadoes Street. They were put in at a time equivalent to 11 pm 18 February, and at the same identical tide flow of 2.4 metres.
After 7 hours and 20 minutes which was equivalent to when Mellory was first sighted, both floats had beached within 100 metres of each other and within 70 metres of where Mellory was found on 18 December. This means she could have been put in at either site or could have been put in later in the evening, which does not seem to be supported by the evidence that we have accumulated.
In the second week of the investigation we were contacted by two people who were standing on the side of the road talking opposite 560 Avonside Road at about 11 pm on the evening of 18 December. Both have reported that they were startled by a large splash that they heard coming from the area in which Mellory's body was found. It was described as sounding like someone doing a "Bomb into a pool", rather than ducks or geese landing on the water.
A very short time later a diesel engine was heard to start in or around the same location and then one of the witnesses saw a vehicle travelling east on Avonside Drive. As it approached Morris Street it appeared to turn its lights on. The vehicle then drove slowly past the two witnesses.
The vehicle is described as a four wheel drive vehicle with a noisy diesel engine. It was a long wheel based vehicle like a Nissan Safari or Mitsubishi Pajero. It was dark coloured and could be either dark green or blue. The witness had the impression that it might have had tinted windows and had shiny rims on the wheels and had a silver strip around the windows. It was not possible to tell how many people were in the vehicle. The vehicle was last seen driving towards Retreat Road.
This vehicle description does loosely fit four wheel drive vehicles that were described as being on and around Manchester Street that evening but they are fairly common. Of course the time of this incident and the splash confirmed by two people is of interest to us and we would like to identify that vehicle and its occupants. Please contact the base if that was you."
Greg Williams
Detective Inspector