Police find new evidence in Baby Ru case after search

Friday, 25 October 2024

Ruthless-Empire was also known as Baby Ru.

Police investigating the murder of Baby Ru a year ago have found key evidence in a search of a semi-rural area north of Wellington as a result of new information.

The child born Ruthless Empire Ahipene-Wall, or Baby Ru as he became known, was just three days away from his second birthday when he arrived at Hutt Hospital with a broken skull, having suffered blunt-force trauma. At some point during the morning of October 22, 2023, Ru sustained the violent injuries that would eventually kill him.

To date, no arrests have been made.

Items of property highly relevant to the homicide investigation were found during the search and were undergoing forensic examination, Detective Inspector Nick Pritchard said late on Friday afternoon.

Police searched an area along Moonshine Road, off State Highway 58, which was a 20-minute drive from the Taitā home where Ru lived and received the injuries that caused his death.

“This was information that wasn’t available when Ru died,” Pritchard said.

Exactly one year after toddler Ruthless Empire Ahipene-Wall’s death, lead investigator Nick Pritchard spoke to The Post.

“Part of that work included searching for items that have been deliberately concealed.”

The information did not come from the public, Pritchard said. Police were not in a position to say exactly what the new information was.

Pritchard said police hoped the latest development would jog people’s memory, particularly people living on Moonshine Road.

Police were also appealing for sightings of the vehicle that shuttled items from the crime scene. That car was a grey-green 1994 Nissan Sentra, registration TE6972.

“Our message to them is please contact us if you saw something out of place on 22 October last year,” he said.

Police repeatedly appealed for sightings of the 1994 Nissan Sentra in the weeks and months following Ru’s death, from the morning of Sunday, October 22 through to the afternoon of Tuesday, October 24.

At some point during the morning of October 22, 2023, Ru sustained the violent injuries that would eventually kill him.

They believed the Nissan travelled to and from the Poole St address three times in the hours after Ru was taken to hospital and was used to dispose of “items of interest”.

Police have since appealed for sightings of a swatch of duvet cover, a power back-up unit and a hard drive, which investigators believe contains CCTV footage from the time Ru suffered the fatal injuries to his head.

The Post has revealed that CCTV footage captured by a neighbour apparently documented what police allege was a calculated effort by the trio to “clean and alter the crime scene”.

Police maintain there were only three people in the house in suburban Taitā when Ru sustained his fatal injuries. They are understood to be Rosie Morunga, her partner Dylan Ross, and Ru’s mother, Storm Wall.

Wall had only been living with Morunga and Ross at the Poole St address for a couple of weeks before Ru’s death.

The actions of Wall, Morunga and Ross in the hours after Ru’s injuries were supposedly captured on a home security camera that a neighbour had set up because of their alleged anti-social behaviour.

Anyone with information that may help the investigation was asked to contact police on 105, quoting file number 231022/1708.