Speaker 1: Kyota at Chelsea Daniels here, host of the Front Page.
Speaker 1: We're taking a week breakover summer, but to help fill
Speaker 1: the gap, we're reissuing some of our most significant episodes
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five on behalf of the Front Page team.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and we look forward to being back
Speaker 1: with you on January twelfth, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: Kyota.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 1: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. French exchange
Speaker 1: student Elois Roland was last seen five.
Speaker 2: Years ago today.
Speaker 1: The then eighteen year old's disappearance has baffled authorities ever since.
Speaker 2: Was it murder, a kidnapping, an accident?
Speaker 1: Did he get lost in the bush, commit suicide or
Speaker 1: plan an escape?
Speaker 2: Is he still alive? Does he want to be found?
Speaker 1: He searches Google Maps for directions to Peeh about five
Speaker 1: am that morning, walks for nearly two hours. He turns
Speaker 1: onto Piha Road about nine to sixteen am, and at
Speaker 1: nine forty eight am the battery on his phone goes
Speaker 1: dead and then nothing nothing For five years. Today, on
Speaker 1: the Front Page, Herald's senior journalist an Elise joins us
Speaker 1: as we take a look back at Eloi's disappearance, we'll
Speaker 1: also hear some clips from my conversations with Aloa's parents,
Speaker 1: Tieri and Catmine, and Bruno du Bois of A Cappella Productions,
Speaker 1: who directed a documentary series in France about Lawa's story
Speaker 1: and Elois disappeared five years ago.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a little bit about the investigation.
Speaker 3: Initially, police were able to ascertain that after he left
Speaker 3: his host family's home, which was on the north Shore,
Speaker 3: he came into town and got on a train who
Speaker 3: was sent at Britomart, the big transport center in Auckland,
Speaker 3: and then he was seen again on camera in West Auckland,
Speaker 3: and from there they know that he's probably walked ten
Speaker 3: kilometers to the area of Peiha Road. That's where his
Speaker 3: cell phone was tracked to and that's where it stopped.
Speaker 3: They checked that area extensively. They went through the bush,
Speaker 3: they went door knocking, they just did everything they could
Speaker 3: in that area to find traces of him, and there
Speaker 3: was just nothing. At some point later on they found
Speaker 3: a T shirt and that was sent off to be
Speaker 3: forensically tested, but wasn't his.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of interest about his disappearance here,
Speaker 1: but also actually in France. I've spoken with the director there,
Speaker 1: Bruno d'u pois of a Cappella Productions, about a documentary
Speaker 1: series he actually did, and he's told me it's gotten
Speaker 1: a lot of traction over there.
Speaker 4: In France. We heard a lot about this toy because
Speaker 4: at this time it was COVID. I discover by Facebook
Speaker 4: and I was very concerned because it was very strange.
Speaker 4: We don't heard about this do it? And I think
Speaker 4: it was a very very big injustice. And they start
Speaker 4: to work about this. Toya meets the family and promised
Speaker 4: to help them to try to understand what's happened to Eloids.
Speaker 4: And after we have to wait for two years before
Speaker 4: can come to New Zealand because you know use Alund
Speaker 4: closing border to her to wait is a long way,
Speaker 4: a long time. It was very difficult for parents and
Speaker 4: as this time we can only work with internet. With
Speaker 4: his family, we tried to find everything about his life
Speaker 4: in New Zealand by such a networks activity.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to note el One went missing
Speaker 1: in the early days of COVID. Hey the week after
Speaker 1: he went missing, the who actually officially declared a global pandemic.
Speaker 1: This gives us some insight into how it's disappearance kind
Speaker 1: of flew under the radar a bit.
Speaker 3: Hey, yeah, it absolutely did. And a lot of people
Speaker 3: go missing in New Zealand and turn up later on.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of stories that we do, a
Speaker 3: lot of press releases we get from policing. This person
Speaker 3: is missing and then a few hours later they've been found.
Speaker 3: We knew that Alwa hadn't been found, we knew that
Speaker 3: he was still missing, but also this huge, big pandemic
Speaker 3: was happening at the time, and a lot of things
Speaker 3: just became sort of secondary, I guess in the headlines,
Speaker 3: and that must have been so frustrating for his family
Speaker 3: being on the other side of the world. They can't
Speaker 3: get here to search themselves. But the police have assured
Speaker 3: that they've just done everything they can. They've chased every lead,
Speaker 3: any tip that's come in, they've looked at and if
Speaker 3: it's you know, if it's something they can work with,
Speaker 3: they have done that. But it was such an unprecedented
Speaker 3: and unknown time in the world, and I think that
Speaker 3: the events of COVID definitely took this over for sure.
Speaker 3: And again, I just cannot imagine someone in my family
Speaker 3: being missing on the other side of the world and
Speaker 3: not being able to physically go there and look for
Speaker 3: them myself and see the area and understand what might
Speaker 3: have been going on.
Speaker 1: So Elua came to New Zealand to study English, and
Speaker 1: as far as his family was aware, he didn't actually
Speaker 1: have any previous mental health concerns. But what kind of
Speaker 1: behavior did he exhibit while he was here, so there were.
Speaker 3: No red flags for his host family. He had planned
Speaker 3: to go home earlier. He changed his flights to go
Speaker 3: home earlier in the month. I think he was Judigo
Speaker 3: home in late May, and he changed his flight to
Speaker 3: the twenty first. He told friends that he was homesick.
Speaker 3: He felt very lonely here and he was missing friends
Speaker 3: and family. He wanted to just go back to France.
Speaker 3: And he was actually really excited because he had a
Speaker 3: test coming up to get into the Air Force and
Speaker 3: he wanted to go back and do that early and
Speaker 3: move on with that. So he was a young person
Speaker 3: with plans and he was excited about his future. But
Speaker 3: at the same time he was homesick. He was, you know,
Speaker 3: speaking about loneliness, and you know, there were some other
Speaker 3: things going on. You know, I think there had been
Speaker 3: a romantic situation that hadn't gone his way, and understandably
Speaker 3: he wasn't feeling great. But even so, his friends that
Speaker 3: he spoke to regularly didn't have any sort of huge
Speaker 3: concerns about him at the time.
Speaker 1: So Bruno, the director I spoke to, actually said from
Speaker 1: the videos that he had seen, they thought maybe it
Speaker 1: was schizophrenia, because you start developing those symptoms around that age.
Speaker 1: But he did say that he's not a psychologist and
Speaker 1: it could have been something else like depression. In the
Speaker 1: months leading up to his disappearance, he had apparently fallen
Speaker 1: in love with a French girl at his class. She
Speaker 1: had a boyfriend who arrived in December. His teacher said
Speaker 1: his mood changes, he started acting weird. He was sacked
Speaker 1: from two restaurant jobs. At one of them, security took
Speaker 1: a video of him ranting and raving after being thrown out,
Speaker 1: and he sends a video to his parents saying the
Speaker 1: owner of the hotel he worked at created the coronavirus
Speaker 1: and said that he wanted to quote kill him. One
Speaker 1: thing though, for certain, is that Elois felt alone.
Speaker 4: All those students start to judge him, has some strange
Speaker 4: guy and if you work very alone. At this time,
Speaker 4: he start to the publication on Facebook and Mastagram, strength
Speaker 4: very long, very politive about his bad feeling, his sad feeling.
Speaker 4: He was as sick, but he said a lot, he
Speaker 4: said a lot in the social network. Everybody around him,
Speaker 4: especially for those students in US school, rejected him and
Speaker 4: don't help him. And I think there is something with
Speaker 4: more kind of kindness. Maybe somebody can help him and say, Okay,
Speaker 4: you are sick. We can go in the hospitality or
Speaker 4: doctor and we will help you. That's what happened.
Speaker 1: You think basically he was acting strange. He may have
Speaker 1: developed some kind of mental health condition, like perhaps schizophrenia,
Speaker 1: and that kind of explains his rational behavior. What clues
Speaker 1: did you find by looking through his social media accounts.
Speaker 4: We found a lot of things and a lot of
Speaker 4: mysage message he was very alone. He feels very alone,
Speaker 4: and nobody else helps him. He sent a lot, a
Speaker 4: lot and a lot of message and story. And when
Speaker 4: somebody do that, obviously it's for to caull help.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: In one message, he's said by a voice message, everybody
Speaker 4: can see I need help, but they don't. He said
Speaker 4: it what is also very sad that he understanding himself.
Speaker 4: He has some trouble. He wondered himself about what's happened
Speaker 4: to him, and he said it. He said it a
Speaker 4: lot on story by voice message, but everybody wiljecting nobody had.
Speaker 1: And what have police said about the investigation into Elwa's disappearance.
Speaker 3: Look, they've said all along that it remains open, that
Speaker 3: they will follow up any line of inquiry in it.
Speaker 3: You know, in cases like this, they don't stay active
Speaker 3: on a daily basis. You know, police can only do
Speaker 3: so much and then they have to sort of move
Speaker 3: to the next phase of an investigation. So while this
Speaker 3: is never closed, there's not a whole team working on
Speaker 3: it every day. They have promised though that if there
Speaker 3: is new information, they'll act on it. And you know,
Speaker 3: it's a hard part of New Zealand when someone goes
Speaker 3: missing out on that west coast. And I don't think
Speaker 3: a lot of people understand that the area our bush
Speaker 3: is intense. It's not just a little forest, it's not
Speaker 3: just some trees. It's really heavy forestation and it's a
Speaker 3: really precarious sort of you know ground and terrain, and
Speaker 3: police can only do so much they employ search and
Speaker 3: rescue professionals, they use dogs, they drones now and heat
Speaker 3: seeking drones, and they've got so many ways to look
Speaker 3: for people and they employ all of those in a
Speaker 3: case like this. They've always said they won't close this
Speaker 3: case until or unless they, you know, have really good
Speaker 3: reason to. There have been other cases of people that
Speaker 3: have gone missing in that area, and after a while,
Speaker 3: the only sort of logical conclusion is that they have
Speaker 3: passed away, and those cases have been referred to the coroner.
Speaker 3: Aloa's case hasn't yet, and police have assured his family
Speaker 3: and us, you know, multiple times that in any new
Speaker 3: information they will act on and it remains open and
Speaker 3: anyone with information is encouraged to come forward.
Speaker 1: So documentary filmmaker Dupois and the Rolands, they think that
Speaker 1: there are endless scenarios about what could have happened to Elois.
Speaker 4: We already can't know what's happened to you. We already
Speaker 4: can not because we have no information, no clues. So
Speaker 4: I'm not sure. I think maybe my conviction is Issues
Speaker 4: is shoes to live. But probably it went bad, I
Speaker 4: think in first issues, but probably it went bad. But
Speaker 4: I'm sure you know suicide and maybe what he's missing.
Speaker 4: Now it's a criminal investigation, but we have no fact
Speaker 4: that investigation, but we have no fact for missing, for suicidal,
Speaker 4: and the fact as a believer as a bush.
Speaker 1: So the detective in charge of the investigation told The
Speaker 1: Herald in twenty twenty two he thought it was unlikely
Speaker 1: that Aloa made it to the Black Sands of Piha Beach.
Speaker 1: He said, my thoughts are still the bush. He's potentially
Speaker 1: tried to take a shortcut to the beach and didn't
Speaker 1: realize how far that would be and overestimated his abilities.
Speaker 1: He said, it's pretty gnarly in there. It is possible
Speaker 1: he's just thought, well, it's like a straight line down there,
Speaker 1: so it shouldn't be a problem, and maybe he's gotten
Speaker 1: into some grief in the bush somewhere.
Speaker 3: The police have always told me that they're keeping an
Speaker 3: open mind. Obviously the area Aloi has gone missing in
Speaker 3: or was last seen, and is that really intense bush
Speaker 3: sort of area. There's lots of places out there where
Speaker 3: people can slip and fall and have accidents and may
Speaker 3: not necessarily be found quickly. Now there's people out there
Speaker 3: that have never been found, unfortunately, but police are open
Speaker 3: to any any theory or any you know, they've not
Speaker 3: shut down anything. There's no signs of foul play, there's
Speaker 3: no signs of any sort of kidnap or you know,
Speaker 3: suspicious circumstance. But equally, if someone came forward with information,
Speaker 3: you know, the police have said that they will investigate that.
Speaker 3: I just can't imagine what it's like for Aloi's family to,
Speaker 3: as I said, not be able to come here and
Speaker 3: to know and have that closure. There's just so many
Speaker 3: unknowns for them, and you know, unsurprisingly, they must constantly
Speaker 3: think about different ways and means that he's gone missing,
Speaker 3: and that must be absolutely torturing for them.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Anna, Thank you.
Speaker 1: I spoke with Aniwa's parents, Tieri and Katerine, and they
Speaker 1: came to New Zealand in twenty twenty two. They appealed
Speaker 1: to the public for any information about their son, and
Speaker 1: they told me the five years since Elawa's disappearance just
Speaker 1: feels like five days.
Speaker 5: We are we are very we feel very heartbreaking, very worry.
Speaker 5: On the It's very difficult since it's disciplined every day,
Speaker 5: every night, really think to a war. It's very difficult
Speaker 5: because we have not news of the war because of
Speaker 5: the investigation. Police are very difficult for home, it's not
Speaker 5: easy to communicate and every every day, the week, every month,
Speaker 5: we try to keep the contact with New Zealand the authority.
Speaker 2: What do you think happens?
Speaker 5: In fact we always it is safe and in good health,
Speaker 5: but it's very difficult. We have done everything to keep
Speaker 5: open police investigations.
Speaker 6: The police did a lot of such in the area
Speaker 6: where i Wa disappeared, but she didn't find anything and
Speaker 6: we we still don't know what what happened.
Speaker 1: I have spoken with police and they say the file
Speaker 1: remains open and to the disappearance of al Wir el
Speaker 1: Wa is still a missing person and police continue to
Speaker 1: follow up any news.
Speaker 2: We are very greatful.
Speaker 6: We are very grateful because for us, it's very important
Speaker 6: that I war stay in the in the main and
Speaker 6: the main of of the people on the world, on
Speaker 6: the earth. The most important is that the people remember
Speaker 6: ill war because perhaps y yeah, do you have a testimony?
Speaker 2: We don't know.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 1: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 1: at enzidherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 1: produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 1: a sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the front
Speaker 1: page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.