Two people have appeared in the Manukau District Court in relation to a series of events in Bay of Plenty and Waikato that culminated in a body being found outside a hospital.
The police are still trying to piece together what happened in the lead-up to the death of the 18-year- old woman, who security staff at the small, private Pohlen Hospital in Matamata found dead about 4am on Wednesday.
Senior Sergeant Lew Warner says the police have established the body discovery is connected with an early morning car crash in the Kaimai Ranges and a vehicle that was stolen and recovered in South Auckland.
A man driving a car on State Highway 29 through the Kaimais at the time says he hit someone but when he stopped, he was assaulted and then abducted in his car.
He fled from his abductors a short time later and called police.
Two people from Tauranga, a 30-year-old man and 23-year-old woman, appeared in the Manukau District Court shortly before 5pm on Wednesday.
They are charged with aggravated robbery, kidnapping, injuring with intent to injure, and unlawfully taking a vehicle.
They were granted interim name suppression and remanded in custody to reappear in the Tauranga District Court on Friday.
The police are also speaking to the driver of the car that crashed.
Mr Warner says the woman who was found outside the hospital was with the two people who were arrested.
He says the police are talking with her family and they are obviously devastated and the man involved in the crash is upset.
Mr Warner says the investigation is continuing and it is not known if there will be be any further charges.
