Area investigations manager, Detective Senior Sergeant Paul Wilson, said it had been a long and extensive investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to acknowledge the wh\u0101nau of Jason. This week is the four-year anniversary of his disappearance, and I know they are still feeling his loss deeply. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I know we haven\u2019t been able to bring Jason home, I hope this gives them some kind of closure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson acknowledged the hard work of all those involved in the investigation over the last four years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncluding those involved in the initial Search and Rescue operations. Efforts have not gone unnoticed.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has previously been reported that Butler was born in Rotorua and raised in the area until his wh\u0101nau moved to Australia when he was about 9.<\/p>\n
At the age of 24, he was deported back to New Zealand after serving a prison sentence.<\/p>\n
He made his way back to Rotorua, where he stayed for about 15 years. He drifted from place to place and at times slept rough. He fathered 10 children.<\/p>\n
With help from wh\u0101nau, he moved to \u014cm\u0101io, near \u014cp\u014dtiki, where he lived in a container home on wh\u0101nau land until his disappearance.<\/p>\n
On October 23, 2021, he was taken into the rugged Rauk\u016bmara ranges on an unapproved work experience by a Department of Conservation contractor.<\/p>\n
The 50-year-old has not been seen since.<\/p>\n
The contractor reported him missing four days later.<\/p>\n
The search and rescue effort was suspended in December 2021.<\/p>\n
The 57-year-old charged with manslaughter will appear in Whakat\u0101ne District Court today, police said. <\/p>\n
The Crown would be opposing bail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Area investigations manager, Detective Senior Sergeant Paul Wilson, said it had been a long and extensive investigation. \u201cI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13991,24752,11924,18783,13239,9770,3011,305,29116,5158,15035,111,43,139,69,1118,1523,675,1865,102,1530],"class_list":["post-83145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-13991","tag-ago","tag-arrested","tag-butler","tag-charged","tag-disappearance","tag-four","tag-have","tag-jason","tag-man","tag-manslaughter","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-over","tag-police","tag-today","tag-with","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83145","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=83145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}