5-27-2012 Pennsylvania:
Waimate police were looking for Jason Frandi on the day before his body and that of a Czech hitchhiking tourist were found after an allegation believed to be of a sexual nature was made against him.
The bodies of Mr Frandi, 43, and Dagmar Pytlickova, a 31-year-old from the Czech Republic, were found in a rugged forest area near Waimate on Sunday.
Assistant police commissioner Malcolm Burgess said an off-duty police officer in Timaru was left a message by a person concerned about what Frandi was going to do.
The "parties" and police had agreed to keep the new allegation under wraps until an appropriate time, Mr Burgess told Campbell Live.
"Unfortunately Mr Frandi became aware of it on Saturday is our understanding and police were indeed alerted," he said.
The off-duty officer contacted Waimate police and they spoke to the informant, who knew Frandi, before going to Frandi's home.
"...He had left his address and never returned," Mr Burgess said.
"Waimate police acted as soon as they had the information given to them," he said.
Mr Burgess would not reveal details of the allegation but investigators had earlier said there was an accusation of sexual molestation.
A court report from 2000 states that Frandi, then a 31-year-old forestry contractor, was jailed for three and a half years for an abduction of a young woman in Oamaru on January 4, 2000.
Frandi detained the 19-year-old without her consent with the intention of having sexual intercourse with her, the court heard.
When arrested soon after the incident, Frandi said he had intended on taking the woman to a forestry block and raping her. He said he also intended to kill himself.
In the victim impact statement, the young woman said the struggle with Frandi in his vehicle was a ''fight for her life".
At the time of the court case, six weeks after the event, the woman still lived in fear and had flash-backs about the incident and felt her life would never be the same again.
In court, counsel John Farrow said Frandi had been suffering from a depressive illness and suicidal feelings when he dragged the young woman into the vehicle.
Frandi described his actions in the spur of the moment, ill-conceived plan, as like an out-of-body experience. Because of his deep depression, Frandi had decided to commit suicide and this was to be his last act. He was very remorseful.
Judge John McDonald said of concern was the random nature of the incident and the fact the victim was a stranger.
The judge accepted Frandi had been in a depressed state, the offending had been out of character and he had expressed his remorse.
He gave Frandi credit for his early guilty plea. He reduced by 19 months what would have been a five-year sentence.
Media reports at the time said the woman was pushing her bicycle when Frandi pushed her into his vehicle.
Police praised a bystander who heard her screams and tried to intervene, grabbing the door handle then taking the registration number of the car as it sped off.
HITCHIKER'S FATAL RIDE
The woman whose body was found alongside that of a convicted sex offender in a remote South Canterbury forestry plantation was a tourist from the Czech Republic.
Her body was found at Waihaorunga forestry plantation, west of Waimate, on Sunday alongside the body of Frandi.
"Formal identification has yet to be completed but we are confident it is Dasha," said Detective Inspector Greg Williams.
"Dasha has been in New Zealand since January and recently worked at a Cromwell vineyard. We don't know the name of this vineyard as yet.
"We believe Dasha left Cromwell on Saturday and was hitch-hiking to the Timaru area. It is likely that she was picked up by more than one person before she encountered Waimate man Jason Frandi, whose body was positively identified earlier today. We believe the encounter with Frandi could have been somewhere between Omarama and Kurow.
"We need to speak to any person who gave her a lift that day."
Williams said it was also likely that Dasha went to a cafe or takeaway shop during her journey between Cromwell and Kurow.
Police said she was carrying a 60 litre blue-grey backpack.
"Dasha's family in the Czech Republic have been informed and say they are shocked and devastated about what has happened," said Williams.
Williams said that Frandi's silver BMW was found among trees off the Kaiwarua Road, around 3km from where the bodies were found.
The area around the car has been cordoned off and would be examined by forensic specialists.
"While we have made positive progress today there is still much work to be done. We need to piece together the movements of Dasha and Jason Frandi on Saturday afternoon and establish how they came into contact.
"This is why we are continuing to appeal for sightings of both of them, as well as Mr Frandi's silver BMW, from Saturday morning."
Williams said it was unlikely anyone else was involved in the deaths.
"We will be in a better position to comment further about this tomorrow once the results of the post-mortem examinations are known and the search of the vehicle is completed."
Frandi was granted parole in October 2001 by the Prison Board, the predecessor to the New Zealand Parole Board. He had been sentenced to 3 years, six months in the Dunedin District Court in February 2000. Records show that he had no previous offending or any subsequent offending after his release from jail.
WAIMATE COMMUNITY GRAPPLES WITH VIOLENT DEATHS
Neighbour Margaret Iggo said she'd lived in her Smith Street home, across the street from Frandi's house, for 31 years. She said Frandi was a quiet neighbour and had kept to himself since he moved there about eight or nine years ago.
Another neighbour, who didn't want to be named, said Frandi worked long hours and spent weekends working on cars or mowing his lawn.
"People would sometimes come around. I think he used to help people with their cars," she said. "He was absolutely fine with us. We would wave and say hello, that was it."
Members of the small Waimate community south of Timaru have expressed shock and disbelief at the violent crime following the discovery, at the weekend, of two bodies in a forest behind the township.
Annette Dungey, out walking her dog before work, said she'd known Frandi as a longtime resident of Waimate but who was quiet and usually kept to himself.
He lived alone in his Smith Street house and did not have a partner or girlfriend as far as anyone knew, Dungey said. He did not have children, though he had once been in a relationship with a woman who did.
"I saw them together at the beach once," she said. "He was good with them."
But Frandi was known around the community as a man with a troubled past, she said.
"I know he could be violent when he was drinking," she said. "I know that because he told me himself."
Before police confirmed Mr Frandi was the male found at the plantation, Waimate residents expressed frustration at the lack of information they had received.
Donna Archbold and Alison Gillespie, both Waimate residents, bundled up against the morning chill and sipping coffee, were talking over the news this morning.
They were frustrated, they said, with the lack of information from police, leaving people feeling unsafe.
"It's a retirement town, full of old people, and a lot of them live alone," Gillespie said. "People are worried and want to know if there's still someone out there."
"They must know if they have (Mr Frandi) or not," Archbold said. "Why wouldn't they just come out and say?"
The two women said they didn't know Frandi well, but they used to see him lifting weights at a local gym.
Rainbow Dairy and Cafe staff said Frandi came in for food regularly. They described him as quiet and very polite.
Waimate District mayor John Coles said he was aware there were many unanswered questions the community was asking about the deaths, but only the police could answer those.
He said it was a shocking situation and no mayor liked to have to deal with such deaths in his community.
"In the main, I think we are a very caring community. I did not know the man but many others can identify who he was and what he was about."
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