{"id":623495,"date":"2026-10-07T17:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T17:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/623495\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T17:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T17:04:15","slug":"police-draw-a-blank-on-mystery-man-in-search-for-erika-coelho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/623495\/","title":{"rendered":"Police draw a blank on mystery man in search for Erika Coelho"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police investigating the disappearance of a woman missing near Queenstown’s Coronet Peak<\/a> for two and a half weeks have been unable to identify a man seen on a summit track the day she vanished.<\/p>\n

Erika Rodrigues Coelho, a Brazilian national living in Queenstown, was reported missing on September 20. No one had seen or heard from the 47-year-old since September 18.<\/p>\n

Her rental car was found at Skippers Saddle on September 21.<\/p>\n

Police yesterday evening announced the search for the woman would be paused<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sergeant Terry Wood today said while the physical search for Rodrigues Coelho had been paused, the search remained active. <\/p>\n

“This remains a missing person enquiry and we are keeping an open mind as to what occurred, so any information provided by members of the public will continue to be considered. It’s important that people get in touch if they think they may know something, no matter how small, as it could help build a clearer picture of what has happened,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Erika<\/p>\n

Erika Rodrigues Coelho was last seen on September 18. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

Wood also confirmed police were unable to identify the man previously sought as a potential witness<\/a> following a possible sighting of Rodrigues Coelho.<\/p>\n

The man, a possible tourist, was on the summit track in the Mount Dewar area, near Coronet Peak, about 12.30pm on September 18.<\/p>\n

He was described as having an Asian complexion, in his 30s, average to taller in height. He had a slim build with short, dark hair and was clean-shaven.<\/p>\n

“We believed he may have been able to assist our enquiries, however a considerable amount of time has now passed since he was seen,” Wood said.<\/p>\n

Wood said a search review was ongoing while police considered further tasks that may be carried out by the team.<\/p>\n

Anyone with information was asked to contact police on 105.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police investigating the disappearance of a woman missing near Queenstown’s Coronet Peak for two and a half weeks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[67,1080,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-623495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-dunedin-otago","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623495","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=623495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}