Police believe "critical evidence" has been taken from the home of baby Ruthless-Empire Ahipene-Wall as the homicide investigation continues.
Ruthless-Empire, also known as baby Ru, was killed at a Taita property on October 22. What was initially described as an unexplained death was upgraded to a homicide on October 26, when police revealed the post-mortem results showed the infant died due to blunt-force trauma.
There are currently three persons of interest that police continue to speak to, all of whom officers believe were present at the time the fatal injuries were inflicted.
In an update on Tuesday afternoon, Detective Inspector Nick Pritchard said police are making "good progress" with the investigation and are following up on information received from the public regarding sightings of a Nissan Sentra.
"Police believe this vehicle (registration TE6972) was used to remove critical evidence from the Taita address where Ru lived," Det Insp Pritchard said.
Police are now trying to find a hard drive, which was used to record CCTV footage from the property.
"The hard drive Police are seeking is a Provision-ISR NVR5-8200PX+ DVR," Det Insp Pritchard said.
He urges anyone with any information about the hard drive, or sightings of the vehicle to contact police.
"If you have any information regarding the Nissan Sentra from the morning of Sunday 22 October, through to the afternoon of Tuesday 24 October, please get in contact," he said.
"Anyone with information can contact police on 105 quoting file number 231022/1708. Information can also be provided anonymously to Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111."
It comes after Det Insp Pritchard revealed more details last week about how Baby Ru was killed.
Ru had sustained "severe" and fatal injuries to his head, Det Insp Pritchard said, either inflicted by a weapon or from "physical force" - such as "slamming [his] head on a hard floor, or a table".
"This poor child suffered a violent death," he said.
"It's really tough - a lot of us are fathers, we have families. To see this level of violence against a young child, it's really hard to fathom. We are supporting our team."
Officers believe the "multiple injuries" were "intentionally caused" and were sustained on the morning of October 22, despite it previously being understood that Ru was injured up to 12 hours before he was found in an unresponsive state.
Information obtained after the scene examination led the police back to the Taita address to conduct further testing, he added.
