{"id":316612,"date":"2026-03-06T21:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T21:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/316612\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T21:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T21:36:09","slug":"otorohanga-farmers-shock-after-human-skeleton-found-in-bush-near-sh3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/316612\/","title":{"rendered":"\u014ctorohanga farmer\u2019s shock after human skeleton found in bush near SH3"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe group was all huddled together, and I went over and said \u2018get back to work\u2019, and saw the body lying there … took me a couple of minutes to realise what it was and what we should do, and so yeah, I called the police,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t feel real to me, and even now it feels surreal, I\u2019ve been in shock all day,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Douglas said the skeleton was clothed and had work boots on.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least there\u2019ll be some closure hopefully for a family, finding their loved one, hopefully,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Douglas\u2019 husband\u2019s family had lived in the area for four generations, and she said her in-laws recalled that theprivet trees have only been trimmed down once by the transport agency in the past 30 years.<\/p>\n

She said the trees are now about 30 metres tall, and that prompted her to start doing some weed control in the area.<\/p>\n

Police said they are in the very early stages of the investigation, and are unable to share any further information.<\/p>\n

– RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe group was all huddled together, and I went over and said \u2018get back to work\u2019, and saw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2840,74,12635,16651,71088,12026,12967,1874,209,26755,16420,78,1304,3180,111,43,139,69,171603,171602,13744,27053,123060,13672,43876,86465,60050,1316,11587],"class_list":{"0":"post-316612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-across","9":"tag-after","10":"tag-area","11":"tag-bush","12":"tag-controllers","13":"tag-farmer","14":"tag-farmers","15":"tag-found","16":"tag-group","17":"tag-highway","18":"tag-human","19":"tag-in","20":"tag-morning","21":"tag-near","22":"tag-new-zealand","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-newzealand","25":"tag-nz","26":"tag-privet","27":"tag-sh3","28":"tag-shock","29":"tag-shocked","30":"tag-skeleton","31":"tag-state","32":"tag-stumbled","33":"tag-torohanga","34":"tag-weed","35":"tag-when","36":"tag-yesterday"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316612","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=316612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}