{"id":238188,"date":"2026-01-17T14:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T14:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/238188\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T14:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T14:39:11","slug":"latest-investigation-into-toddler-lachlan-jones-death-almost-complete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/238188\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest investigation into toddler Lachlan Jones’ death almost complete"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Three-year-old<\/p>\n

\nThree-year-old Lachlan Jones drowned in the Gore District Council’s wastewater ponds in January 2020.
\nPhoto: SUPPLIED\/ODT\n<\/p>\n

A third investigation into the death of preschooler Lachlan Jones is nearing completion.<\/p>\n

The three-year-old’s body was found in an oxidation pond in Gore seven years ago.<\/p>\n

Coroner Alex Ho instructed the Police to look into the case again<\/a> in June last year.<\/p>\n

Two police investigations concluded it was an accidental drowning, but Lachlan’s father Paul Jones maintains he was murdered.<\/p>\n

Coroner Ho found Lachlan most likely fled home and accessed the pond himself, but he could not rule out foul play.<\/p>\n

\"Coroner<\/p>\n

\nCoroner Alexander Ho
\nPhoto: Stuff \/ Kavinda Herath\n<\/p>\n

Detective Inspector Darrell Harpur from Waikato is leading the investigation, overseen by Detective Superintendent Ross McKay.<\/p>\n

They were in contact with the Coroner’s office on Thursday to provide an update.<\/p>\n

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":"Three-year-old Lachlan Jones drowned in the Gore District Council’s wastewater ponds in January 2020. Photo: SUPPLIED\/ODT A third…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-238188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238188","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=238188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}