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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Eva Corlett Photography by Fiona Goodall

What connects six disappearances in a picturesque New Zealand town? ‘Everyone has a theory’

The black sands of Piha
The black sands of Piha. The documentary Black Coast Vanishings wonders if several missing persons cases from the area could be linked. Photograph: Fiona Goodall/The Guardian

On a squally winter night 21 years ago, 25-year-old Iraena Asher vanished from an isolated beach community, one hour west of New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland.

“It was a terrible night like this,” Julia Woodhouse – one of the last to see Asher – tells the Guardian one afternoon in early July, as the rain lashes the windows of her Piha home.

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