Police say murdered grandfather David Hanson was killed at a Woodridge workshop

POLICE are closing in on the killers of 71-year-old David Hanson, the grandfather who never made it home from breakfast at Sunnybank.

Copy picture of David Hanson with his daughter in Brazil. Police are talking to the media in relation to the case of 71-year-old David Hanson who disappeared from a Slacks Creek home in February this year. Pic Jono Searle.

FOR days they toiled under a hot sun, sifting through tonnes of garbage to find a grandfather who never made it home.

It had been a month since 71-year-old David Hanson was supposed to have boarded a plane back to Tanzania. He’d lived there on and off for about 10 years.

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His latest venture had involved setting up a gem mine with a business partner. The target: an extremely rare orange and red garnet called spessartite, sought after for its ability to change colour in different lights.

The last confirmed sighting was on February 22. Mr Hanson had had breakfast with one of his five children.

He and his daughter had chatted at Sunnybank Plaza’s Coffee Club before he’d waved her goodbye and headed off.

A month later, police and State Emergency Services volunteers were directed to an area of compacted rubbish at the Browns Plains Waste and Recycling Facility that had been collected on February 22.

Front end loaders were brought in and the garbage was spread out, divided and sifted by hand. A cadaver dog made its way through the pile. It gave no reaction. They were looking for a body, but after days, weeks, they were forced to abandon the search of the Browns Plains dump.

But they didn’t abandon the search altogether.

David Hanson had arrived back in Brisbane on February 18. He’d been in town to address a health complaint. He’d also used the opportunity to set up some financing for the spessartite mine.

By now, police had traced some of his movements during the quick trip home.

Mr Hanson had spent the first night in a hotel before going to stay with an associate of his business partner at a house in Slacks Creek.

The man ran a car detailing business in Woodridge but he and some others were looking at becoming involved in the mine.

On February 22, after having breakfast with his daughter, police believe Mr Hanson returned to the Slacks Creek house.

After that, his movements are unclear.

But Detective Superintendent David Hutchinson this week revealed a search of the car detailing business, which has since shut down, resulted in a grim discovery.

“We believe that Mr Hanson was actually killed at the Autowerks car detailing business … we believe he was killed at that location and then his body disposed of,” he said.

“There was an extensive forensic examination conducted of the business back in March and we’re quite satisfied that Mr Hanson was killed in that premises.

“We do believe that after this event there was an extensive amount of work there in cleaning the property and in even demolishing a part of the property.”

Det Supt Hutchinson said the investigation was now centred on four suspects – among them, one of the occupants of the Slacks Creek home.

He said Mr Hanson remarried in Tanzania to a woman who had since died.

He also has two South African stepchildren who have been assisting an Australian Federal Police officer with information on his movements overseas.

Mr Hanson spent his time in Tanzania assisting with community projects such as building schools and other infrastructure. He’d also financially assisted another family – including putting one of the children through university.

“As you would imagine, the family are obviously concerned about the disappearance,” Det Supt Hutchinson said. “They’re assisting police where they can and they’re looking for answers as well.

“We are firmly of the view that there are people in the community who know what occurred and we’re asking them to come forward.

“We do have a lot of information and as I say we do have some firm suspects but we would like to fill a number of gaps that we have and we believe there are people out there that can assist us with that.”

Police would like to speak to anyone who knew of Mr Hanson’s movements on February 22 or who saw anything unusual at the now defunct car detailing business on Timms Court in Woodridge.

Mr Hanson left the Sunnybank Plaza shopping centre at 9.23am in a red Hyundai.

PHONE Crime Stoppers 1800 333 000