Why it took eight weeks to find Shirley Warrington's body

Monday, 6 September 2021

Warrington with her granddaughter, Harper Hofman.

For eight weeks Shirley Warrington’s body lay undiscovered in a scrubby area close to a busy road and a popular walking track in Christchurch.

The 85-year-old went missing on the night of July 10 and was found on Monday about 100 metres from the start of the Bridle Path walking track on the city side near Tunnel Rd.

Warrington's body was in scrub and trees down a steep bank below the Bridle Path track, not far from the Lyttelton Tunnel control building.

The terrain is rough, but not remote, and in the general area where she was last seen, leading to questions of why her body was not found earlier during extensive searches.

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Police at the Bridle Path track on the Heathcote side, organising the retrieval of a body thought to be Shirley Warrington.

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Tunnel Rd takes most of the traffic to Lyttelton Port and is a busy thoroughfare. Walkers and their dogs can be seen on the Bridle Path from 6am till late at night.

Up to 40 police and Land Search and Rescue volunteers were involved in the initial search for Warrington, which continued officially for three full days.

A body found near the Bridle Path in Christchurch is believed to be that of missing woman Shirley Warrington, 85.

Searchers concentrated on the Ferrymead end of Bridle Path Rd, about 3 kilometres from where her body was found and where her partner believed she had got out of their car.

Among those surprised by Monday’s discovery was Warrington's son-in-law, Wayne Colville, who, speaking soon after the family was alerted, said it was “strange she was found not far from where they were looking. It is just unbelievable.”

Carl McOnie, the chief executive of Land Search and Rescue, whose volunteers participated in the search, said he was not surprised Warrington was not found earlier.

An elderly person with Alzheimer's disease could walk 35km in a night, and it was often hard for searchers in such cases to get a likely direction of travel.

A Land Search and Rescue volunteer searches an area off Bridle Path Rd in July.

People like Warrington did not think like hunters and trampers, he said.

In a worst-case scenario, searchers would be looking for a small, hypothermic person who had curled up into a ball to occupy not much more space than half a metre.

“If they are tucked beneath a bush or under a house or away out of sight then that becomes quite hard for a person to be spotted.”

Searchers had to cover thousands of square metres and had to concentrate resources on the most likely areas, McOnie said.

“It’s not like television where you see people lined up a metre apart sweeping through. That’s unrealistic if you’re covering a gully or bush covered area.”

The search method had to be “purposeful wandering, where you have trained searchers who work as a team to cover that ground as best they can with observation”.

“If the subject is unresponsive we are talking about that needle in a haystack.”

Volunteers were trained to spot the minutest change in an area, he said.

“Then it really comes down to the type of terrain and maximising the resources.”

Some searchers had GPS tracking and the tracks would be overlaid to see if there were gaps in the search.

“They train for that needle in a haystack, and often it’s hard work if that person has curled up in a small area and for whatever reason is not responsive. It can make things very difficult.”

After the official search had ended, Rachael Butterworth helped to co-ordinate another group of volunteers to look for Warrington.

“There were a lot of places around that particular area [where Warrington was found] that were searched; however, not everyone checked in or posted to let us know if that exact area was searched. A lot gave a brief description of a generalised area, so I cannot say if it was or not.”

There are many ways Warrington could have ended up in the bush area. The most likely scenario appears to be that she walked from Bridle Path Rd to the entrance road to the Gondola. In about 100m she would have reached a small car park for Bridle Path walkers and the entrance to the track bounded by rocks. She could then have walked up the track in the dark and fallen down the bank.

However, another rough path leads from the car park alongside the pipeline. This would also have taken her to a place where she ended up in the scrub and bush.

Whatever the scenario, Colville and his family are happy it appears Warrington has been found.

“We have got some closure.”