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The case of the human remains found under an old Auckland villa could be one step closer to solving.
Police remained at the scene yesterday at 3 Marlborough Street.
Photo: RNZ / Dan Cook
Police were called to the home on Marlborough Street in January when contractors renovating an old boarding house discovered bones underneath the property.
Today, it was announced that they had identified those remains as David Stanley Hart, who is listed as one of the former owners of the home.
Neighbors on the street were not surprised by the revelation or that his death was treated as suspicious.
“The obvious, I guess, David Stanley Hart, was probably the obvious call, and I guess it just puts the neighborhood at ease a bit,” said the neighbor, Malcolm.
“It’s not more complicated than we all suspected. It’s very sad for David and I’d be surprised if they got to the bottom, but who knows.”
Police remained at the scene yesterday at 3 Marlborough Street.
Photo: RNZ / Dan Cook
When Hart owned it, he ran it like a boarding house, with a host of interesting characters passing by.
And when news of the discovery of the bone first made headlines, neighbors RNZ spoke with said that Hart had been missing nearly 15 years ago.
Murray Golding, who had grown up on Marlborough Street, said inmates had always seemed strange to him, and he wondered if they had anything to do with it.
“I think maybe something happened with one of his interns who was there.”
“He could have said the wrong thing and done something to him and buried him under his own house.”
Hart also owned a second property in Blackball near Greymouth, where he enjoyed mining for gold.
An old neighbor, Neville Sheehan, said Hart was a bit eccentric, but the couple liked to chat when he came to town.
Sheehan also kept watch on the property when Hart was away, running sheep there to keep the grass low.
The house on Marlborough Street in Mount Eden is now owned by Peter Marsden, who was renovating the dilapidated hull when the bones were found.
He said everyone had been a little suspicious about the piece of concrete, but hadn’t thought much about it until the discovery.
“Pretty horrible, I hadn’t seen human bones before, so yeah, so my builder … they called me on the phone and told me they found human remains under this kind of big pile of concrete.”
Marsden said police told him a while ago they knew who the remains belonged to, but things had calmed down.
He found out today that they were from Hart, but said he wasn’t surprised.
“I was 99 percent sure it was him, but that was without confirmation, but yeah, no, it was nice to know it was him.”
Acting Detective Sergeant Major Mark Franich said the identification process had been long and thorough.
The cause of death and how Hart ended up buried under his own home is still unclear.
He said the family had been notified and the police were now asking anyone who interacted with Hart for help in March 2004.
They wanted to speak to anyone who interacted with the tenants of the house until 2016, when it was no longer used as a pension.
