{"id":253366,"date":"2026-01-27T01:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T01:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/253366\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T01:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T01:45:10","slug":"really-lovely-road-neighbours-stunned-as-elderly-woman-found-dead-teen-in-court-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/253366\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Really lovely road&#8217;: Neighbours stunned as elderly woman found dead, teen in court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4JU5JPJ_Media_20_jfif.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"698\" alt=\"Police have launched a homicide investigation into the death of the woman in Burnham.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n<p>Photo: RNZ\/Nathan Mckinnon\n<\/p>\n<p>Police found the body of an elderly woman at a Burnham property after being called out to reports a teenager had allegedly assaulted another person inside the home.<\/p>\n<p>A 19-year-old man has been charged with murder and two charges of assault in a family relationship in relation to the incident. He will appear in the Christchurch District Court on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>Emergency services were called to an address on Burnham School Road about 3.05am after a report of disorder.<\/p>\n<p>RNZ understands a relative of the 19-year-old called police after she was allegedly assaulted and she barricaded herself in a room.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s understood that on arrival police tasered the 19-year-old.<\/p>\n<p>They then found an elderly woman&#8217;s body at the property.<\/p>\n<p>Detective Senior Sergeant Karen Simmons said in a statement that a 19-year-old had been charged with murder and two counts of assault in a family relationship.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4JU5JZR_Media_17_jfif.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"Police have launched a homicide investigation into the death of the woman in Burnham.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n<p>Photo: RNZ\/Nathan Mckinnon\n<\/p>\n<p>The property is on a long rural road surrounded by farmland.<\/p>\n<p>Neighbours told RNZ it was usually a quiet district and they did not hear anything overnight.<\/p>\n<p>One woman, who did not wish to be named, said the death was &#8220;incredibly sad&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s actually a really lovely road to live on, neighbours all wave out to each other and I never heard a thing so it&#8217;s a real shock,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are properties scattered around this road and a busy preschool down the road.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4JU5JZR_Media_18_jfif.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"699\" alt=\"Police have launched a homicide investigation into the death of the woman in Burnham.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n<p>Photo: RNZ\/Nathan Mckinnon\n<\/p>\n<p>Another neighbour said she woke up early to flashing police lights but did not hear anything unusual.<\/p>\n<p>One man believed a family lived at the property. He said he had met them a couple of times over the years and they were pleasant.<\/p>\n<p>He found out about the death after checking the news on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n<p>A blue police tent has been set up and the property has been cordoned off as forensic officers examine the scene.<\/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":"Photo: RNZ\/Nathan Mckinnon Police found the body of an elderly woman at a Burnham property after being called&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253286,"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-253366","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\/253366","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=253366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}