Volunteer searchers and police teams are still combing the Alexandra area for missing man Christopher Bates, as his family and friends continue to pray for his return. Pam Jones looks at the search operation for one of Central Otago’s sons.
Christopher Bates was last seen buying a packet of cigarettes at a service station four weeks ago, casual in a white T-shirt and dark pants, hair flicked neatly to the side.
He told family he was heading to the river, but has not been seen since. Searchers have searched a wide area in minute detail since he was reported missing. His bank card and phone have not been used. There have been no sightings, no evidence, no clues since then.
Where is he?
It is a question that keeps Alexandra Detective Sergeant Derek Shaw awake at night, and one to which he is determined to find the answer.
"The search will continue until we find Chris and bring him home."
Det Sgt Shaw is one of the senior policemen heading the inquiry into Mr Bates’ disappearance (in New Zealand police always officially head missing persons’ investigations).
The physical search operation has been headed by Central Otago Land Search and Rescue (SAR) operations manager Adrian "Snow" Dance, of Roxburgh. Under their direction, teams of police and dozens of LandSAR volunteers have dedicated hundreds upon hundreds of hours to the search.
All have given their all, combining professional expertise with personal drive to literally look under every rock for 22-year-old Mr Bates.
"I regularly wake up at various times of the night and think, ‘have we considered this, could we look there’," Det Sgt Shaw said.
"You wake up as a parent, thinking, ‘what if it was my child disappearing like that, what would I do, where would I look?"’
From the outset, police said they had grave concerns for Mr Bates’ safety, and Det Sgt Shaw said as time went on, those fears were growing.
Searchers have looked in hill and riverbank areas, along the Clutha and Manuherikia Rivers, behind the Alexandra clock.
But the search has focused mainly on the area to the east of Alexandra, near the railroad bridge, not far from Mr Bates’ home.
This was because search science dictated a missing person was most likely to be found within a certain distance from their home, Det Sgt Shaw said.
The police intelligence and information-gathering operation was also being run alongside the physical search, one operation "feeding" the other.
"There’s a lot going on in the field and there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. They are parallel and complementary to each other."
Det Sgt Shaw said often the best predictor of a person’s behaviour was their past behaviour. So friends and family are interviewed, phone and bank records gone over, then that information is applied to the physical search.
Finding things or information which may provide clues and then excluding them — such as cigarette packets found in the hills that turned out to be a different brand to that a missing person smoked, or the CCTV image from Alexandra released by police that featured a possible sighting of Mr Bates but turned out not to be him — were both disappointing and were progress nonetheless, Det Sgt Shaw said. It was obviously crushing for the family to have the hope the objects may have presented taken away, but also good because being able to exclude things further refined the search.
The search evidence meant police were confident Mr Bates had not left the area, although "with the amount of publicity, we would have expected to find him," Det Sgt Shaw said.
Media coverage had extended nationwide, so police did not think Mr Bates had left the Alexandra region.
"It makes us think he’s still in the Alexandra area, and we are looking in the right place."
LandSAR had searched most of the area within a 3km radius of Mr Bates’ Alexandra home, in keeping with search science, Mr Dance, who founded the Central Otago Land SAR group in 1989 and received a QSO in 2015 for his services to land search and rescue, said. Greater circles radiating outwards were progressively searched. About 70% of missing people were found within a 3km radius of their home.
Mr Dance emphasised search science was a formal one, developed from international search data and following strict patterns and protocols.
Exhaustive debriefs and reviews follow each stage of the physical search and intelligence work is ongoing. The search is monitored and logged on SARTrack, a search and rescue software management system that grew from another system developed by Mr Dance to track SAR dogs, and that was then further developed by Ettrick man Bart Kindt, who has an IT background. Mr Kindt made the system available to LandSAR and other emergency services free of charge, and it is now used nationally.
Each stage of the search is meticulously planned, and some areas are searched more than once. In the search for Mr Bates, some areas have been gone over five times, by different people, search dogs, drone and helicopter. Some areas have also been searched more than once at different times of the day, and in different weather, the different conditions known sometimes to show something not detected previously. "Fresh eyes", from new or out-of-town searchers, also provide a valuable different perspective.
Searchers have dealt with storms and mud, and hot, humid conditions. Last weekend some were searching in water near the Manuherikia River a metre deep. Sometimes the mud has been so deep search dogs have been unable to go through it. Some thickets of blackberry are so thick they are impenetrable.
"People think of Central Otago as a benign landscape," Det Sgt Shaw said.
"But the reality is that only a few metres of the beaten track it is pretty dense going. It has thick areas of willow trees, and blackberries you can’t get through. It’s hard going for the searchers."
To put things further into perspective, a person could be contained in a very small area, well known LandSAR member, Alexandra LandSAR team leader Eric Schusser said. In the search for Mr Bates, searchers were aiming to check every square metre.
"For every square km, that’s a million square metres to check," Mr Schusser said.
Det Sgt Shaw, Mr Bates’ family and Mr Dance and Mr Schusser, themselves volunteers, have personally and publicly thanked the LandSAR searchers a number of times. They are all volunteers, and have been praised for their commitment, tenacity and dedication. Mr Dance has also thanked the employers of the searchers, who have supported them and allowed them time off work to join the search.
This weekend, teams will do more physical searching in a different area along the Manuherikia River.
About 60 LandSAR volunteers from areas around the South Island had so far been involved with the search, contributing more than an estimated 1000 hours so far, Mr Dance said.
People from out-of-town LandSAR teams were still offering their services and "dropping everything" to come and help, he said.
Searchers were coping well with the physical and emotional demands of the work, supported by police support systems and monitored for their wellbeing, Mr Dance said. They remained determined to find Mr Bates, he said.
Members of the public also had an important role to play, by checking their urban and rural properties, remaining vigilant and "keeping their eyes and ears open".
"Every member of the public is a searcher as well. They are effectively part of the larger operation, they are eyes and ears that we can’t resource," Mr Dance said.
"We want to make sure the search is still in people’s heads, by them being aware as they walk around" Mr Schusser added.
"That’s their contribution, if they see anything different to let police know. Don’t think ‘there’s probably no point in telling us’. There is a point, it might mean something to someone else, because they’ve got a bigger picture."
Throughout the search, Mr Bates’ family have issued deep thanks to all who have looked for him, and they support the ongoing publicity in the bid to try to find him.
Mr Bates’ mother, Trish Bates, father, John Bates, brother, Jonathan Bates, and Jonathan’s fiancee, Sidonee Gibson, said they were grateful to all who were helping bring Mr Bates home.
"We won’t stop looking until we find him," Det Sgt Shaw said.
"It’s about trying to get Chris back to his family."
