{"id":253485,"date":"2026-01-27T03:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T03:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/253485\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T03:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T03:33:09","slug":"heavy-suppressions-over-case-of-man-who-handed-himself-over-to-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/253485\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavy suppressions over case of man who handed himself over to police"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\nThe man’s plea was made via his lawyer.
\nPhoto:\n<\/p>\n

A man, who turned himself into to police on Christmas Day in relation to an ongoing double homicide investigation in Ruatiti, has pleaded not guilty to two unrelated charges.<\/p>\n

The man, who’s identity is supressed for legal reasons, was not required to appear in the Whanganui District Court on Tuesday and made the plea via his lawyer.<\/p>\n

The nature of the charges he faced was also suppressed.<\/p>\n

It was the man’s second appearance in recent days.<\/p>\n

On Friday, he appeared before a bail hearing.<\/p>\n

All details of that hearing are also suppressed.<\/p>\n

The man was due to reappear for a case review hearing in March.<\/p>\n

The bodies of 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

No charges had been laid in relation to their deaths, and the homicide investigation is ongoing.<\/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":"The man’s plea was made via his lawyer. Photo: A man, who turned himself into to police on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253486,"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-253485","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\/253485","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=253485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}