It has been a mixture of relief and horror for a friend of former Dunedin resident Col Heath, whose remains were found in Waikato last week.<\/p>\n
Colin, known as Col, Heath went missing when living in Te Kuiti. Heath was 46 and last seen by a flatmate in the town on March 19 in 2022.<\/p>\n
Heath identified as non-binary and went by the pronouns they\/them.<\/p>\n
They had only moved to the North Island from Dunedin months before their disappearance.<\/p>\n
In 2022, police issued an appeal for information the following month on the Waikato police Facebook page, followed by media reports in August, a fresh police appeal in September and a televised plea for information by family on Police Ten 7 in December.<\/p>\n
A close friend, who wanted to remain anonymous, had contrasting feelings about the remains of them being found.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018It’s kind of a mixture of relief that we finally know where they are and just generally heartbroken that they’ve been in a ditch for four years.<\/p>\n
“I thought that I would feel more relief that when we finally found them, I kind of always went, well, at least we’ll know where they are.<\/p>\n
“But finding out where they are and where they have been, it’s like, oh my God, this is just horrendous.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
A group of about half a dozen people remained in touch over Heath’s fate and never gave up trying to find them.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018 I don’t think any of us really thought that they were coming home alive, especially after such a long time. But we always wanted to find them.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Col was described as a beautiful oddball by the friend.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Quiet but fierce. Very, very passionate about the things that they cared about. Loved a good protest.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Whatever protest there’d be, nine times out of ten you’d see Col, be able to sign with a made-up sharpie. Didn’t necessarily matter what the protest was for. Col would be there just having a good time.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
They were a loving individual.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Really gentle. And loving. Had so much love to give, but didn’t. The world didn’t always love Col the way that it should have.<\/p>\n
“Col had a harder life than most. And it had, you know, a fair amount of mental health struggles, troubles and things like that going on. And Col was an oddball. Col didn’t fit in with a lot of places.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018But Col was just a beautiful, beautiful human who deserved a lot better in life and a heck of a lot better in death.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The group of friends had issues with the police investigation for Heath and the resources put into it.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018The thing I would really like to say is that just because someone is an oddball, who might not fit neatly in a box or kind of more the fringes of society, doesn’t mean they’re not valued as a person and doesn’t mean that they aren’t loved and shouldn’t be looked for.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Some of the police were brilliant. Others, not so much.<\/p>\n
“And for me, it really kind of comes down to that just because Col, you know, had mental health struggles and was queer and was kind of anti-establishment and loved a good protest and … all the things that Col was doesn’t mean that they weren’t a loved human being – that didn’t deserve to be looked for.<\/p>\n
“Because it got to a point where kind of the resource thing fell away.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
If Col was not Col, there would have been a lot more media attention and more police resources allocated to try and find them, the friend said.<\/p>\n
It was hard to swallow that Col was found less than 20km from his home on a state highway, the friend said.<\/p>\n
Another close friend, Archie Bailey, said the fact their “dear friend” remained undiscovered for years beside a state highway was devastating to them.<\/p>\n
“It is particularly painful, given that this person struggled deeply with their own sense of worth in the world.<\/p>\n
“To those of us who knew and loved them – and to the many people whose lives they touched through care, advocacy and community activism – their life held immense value.<\/p>\n
“They represented the best in society and the best of us – a motivation and desire to build a world that was better for all of us. We miss them terribly”, Bailey said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been a mixture of relief and horror for a friend of former Dunedin resident Col Heath,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-318690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318690","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=318690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}