Pukekawa
Pukekawa is a town in the Lower Waikato River area of New Zealand's North Island, 66 km south of central Auckland.Most of the services, supermarkets, banks, chemist and shops are located at Tuakau some 8 kilometres away and a further 10 km there is Pukekohe which is a thriving New Zealand rural town.In the 1920s James Cowan described Pukekawa as a "beautiful round green hill on the west side of Waikato".From the beginning of the Waikato military campaigns, Ngati Maniapoto made Pukekawa their entrenched headquarters.A British detachment sent to attack the about one hundred men Maori raiding war party was scattered by gun fire and through the night the soldiers were hunted down in the bush.From Pukekawa King Tawhiao and his Court made every year regular regal tours through the North Island.King Tawhiao later complained to the New Zealand Government that they had broken the 1880s peace agreement when the Kingites had surrendered all their guns.By 1970 Pukekawa was an affluent rural community and service centre of several hundred people but nationally notorious for the Crewe murders.Farms are being advertised, sold and rented out to urban New Zealanders and foreigners to enjoy the kiwi rural life.At its front gate there used to stand a cross that listed "Justice" , "free Thomas " supporters and a helpful New Zealand policeman.On the night of 24 August 1920 a farmer, Sydney Eyre, was shot in his bedroom in the presence of his wife on his Pukekawa farm.Police found hoof marks and cartridges that led to a former employee on the Eyre farm, Samuel Thorn.[7] The murders of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe in their living room on their farm on about 17 June 1970 thrust Pukekawa into the national headlines again.Local farmer Arthur Allan Thomas was twice convicted in the Auckland Supreme Court and jailed for the murders.Pukekawa water supply contractor, Des Thomas, brother of Arthur, continues to investigate for the murders a local man, "farmer X".