{"id":390253,"date":"2026-04-21T10:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/390253\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T10:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:24:09","slug":"homicide-investigation-after-rangataua-house-fire-and-fatal-sh49-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/390253\/","title":{"rendered":"Homicide investigation after Rangataua house fire and fatal SH49 crash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe can confirm that the fire appears to be deliberately lit and that Seymour\u2019s death is of a suspicious nature,\u201d said Detective Senior Sergeant Varnia Allan, Whanganui response officer in charge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">Shortly after emergency services were notified of the house fire, police were alerted to a fatal two-vehicle crash on State Highway 49.<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">Jason Savage, 35, from Rangataua, died in the crash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cPolice can confirm the vehicle, and the deceased are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/police-investigate-link-between-fatal-rangataua-fire-and-sh49-crash\/PDFPSGHJP5AF5NVDHVMTGM6KJY\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/police-investigate-link-between-fatal-rangataua-fire-and-sh49-crash\/PDFPSGHJP5AF5NVDHVMTGM6KJY\/\">connected to the Kaha Street address<\/a>the ,\u201d Allan said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWhile a homicide investigation is under way, police would like to reassure the community that we are working to identify those responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"npuzLaxKHxgCDhG\" style=\"display:none\">Anyone with information that may help police can report it through 105, referencing file number 260417\/7386.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe can confirm that the fire appears to be deliberately lit and that Seymour\u2019s death is of a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,95,3549,7557,11784,2079,305,8916,10053,12898,1743,111,43,139,69,675,199800,51972,199801],"class_list":{"0":"post-390253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-crash","11":"tag-district","12":"tag-fatal","13":"tag-fire","14":"tag-have","15":"tag-homicide","16":"tag-house","17":"tag-investigation","18":"tag-launched","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-newzealand","22":"tag-nz","23":"tag-police","24":"tag-rangataua","25":"tag-ruapehu","26":"tag-sh49"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390253","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=390253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}