New police search in years-old unsolved homicide
Friday, 9 February 2024
Police investigating the suspicious disappearance of a Marlborough woman nearly five years ago are searching a rural property with a digger.
Jessica Boyce, 27, was last seen on March 19, 2019, near Renwick, west of Blenheim, in a red ute. The vehicle was located three days later in the Mount Richmond Forest Park, near Lake Chalice, but Boyce was nowhere to be found.
Several months later, police announced they’d launched a homicide investigation into her disappearance, saying they believed the red ute was left at the park deliberately to mislead them.
However, despite three years ago saying they “know who was involved” in Boyce’s suspected killing, detectives are yet to make any arrests.
On Friday, police involved in the homicide investigation began a new search for evidence at a property in Canvastown, a small rural settlement on State Highway 6 between Blenheim and Nelson.
A reporter at the scene said various officers could be seen walking among vehicle wrecks on the property, while a digger was also being used.
In a statement, Detective Senior Sergeant Ciaran Sloan, the officer in charge of the long-running investigation, said police had executed a search warrant at a Canvastown address on Friday.
“We can confirm the search relates to Operation Largo, the continuing investigation into the disappearance of Jessica Boyce from Renwick in March 2019,” Sloan said.
“The investigation has been active since Jessica disappeared and today’s search is the latest phase of our ongoing enquiries.
“To protect the investigation, we are unable to comment on the nature and outcome of the search.
“Police have kept Jessica’s family up to date with these latest developments, and investigators remained determined to bring justice for Jessica.”
Police searched the same Canvastown property in 2019 looking for Boyce’s body. A tractor was used to move wrecked vehicles at the site, but investigators walked away empty-handed.
In 2021, Sloan said detectives had visited places from Northland to Canterbury to interview witnesses and people of interest.
Most of them lived in Marlborough at the time of Boyce’s disappearance, but for various reasons had left the region, he said.
Boyce’s family previously spoke about the impact the case had had on them.
“Not only have the perpetrators of this harmed Jess, they have also harmed her family and her friends by their misdeeds,” her uncle Brent Boyce said in 2021.
“As a family, we gather regularly, and Jess is never far from our thoughts and hearts.”