Police say one of the pair accused of killing a man whose body was left in a garage behind a house in New Plymouth last week had links with the occupants of the premises.
Mikhail Pandey-Johnson, 23, and 18-year-old Karl Nuku were charged on Monday with murdering Dean Stuart Browne, of Auckland.
The accused are not from New Plymouth, and until now it seemed the 38-year-old's body had been dumped in a garage at the house at random.
However, Detective Senior Sergeant Grant Coward now says one of the accused had a loose link with someone at the house.
Mr Coward says it seems the accused were at the house on Friday morning but had left by the time the occupants discovered the body in the garage behind the house about 8pm.
Before the arrests, Mr Coward said the occupants were distraught to find themselves in the midst of a homicide investigation.