{"id":217282,"date":"2026-01-05T04:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T04:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/217282\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T04:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T04:12:14","slug":"ruatiti-homicide-no-charges-laid-following-deaths-of-brendon-and-trina-cole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/217282\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruatiti homicide: No charges laid following deaths of Brendon and Trina Cole"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4JV9YTU_Trina_and_Brendon_Cole_jpg.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"1400\" alt=\"Brendon and Trina Cole were found dead at a rural property in Ruatiti.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nBrendon and Trina Cole were found dead at a rural property in Ruatiti.<br \/>\nPhoto: SUPPLIED\n<\/p>\n<p>No charges have been laid in relation to a homicide investigation in the central North Island where <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/582691\/man-wanted-for-questioning-in-ruatiti-homicide-turns-himself-in\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a couple were found dead<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It has been more than three weeks since since 56-year-old Brendon Leigh Cole and 54-year-old Trina Michelle Cole were found at a rural property in Ruatiti, west of Ruapehu, on 13 December.<\/p>\n<p>A person of interest handed himself into police on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n<p>The 29-year-old man was arrested on an active warrant, and appeared in Whanganui District Court on Boxing Day.<\/p>\n<p>Police said no charges have been laid in relation to the deaths, and the homicide investigation was ongoing.<\/p>\n<p>They said there were no significant updates.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/radionz.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=211a938dcf3e634ba2427dde9&amp;id=b3d362e693\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brendon and Trina Cole were found dead at a rural property in Ruatiti. Photo: SUPPLIED No charges have&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-217282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}