Friends said Bob Wolff was devastated that something so tragic had happened to Liberty Rose Templeman, who he had got to know after months of rehearsals.
It is the first homicide in the close-knit Northland tourist town in at least two decades.
Liberty, known as Libby, was last seen about 7pm on Saturday when a friend left her outside Kerikeri High School.
She is believed to have planned to walk across the school grounds and the Kerikeri Domain to meet her boyfriend at the nearby supermarket where he worked.
But she failed to turn up.
Police found her body on Sunday evening lying face down in Wairoa Stream next to an overgrown citrus orchard off Cobham Rd.
Police would not say if they believed she was killed there or if her body had been taken there. They also refused to say if she had been sexually attacked.
Liberty, a keen drama student, played the lead female role of Princess Jasmine in Sinbad the Sailor last month. Mr Wolff played her father, the Sultan.
Kerikeri Players president Averley Whiston said the whole cast was devastated.
"She was a really nice person.
''She was our star . . . she sang beautifully on the stage."
"We all feel quite sick about the whole thing to be honest, it's just absolutely ghastly.
"I just hope they find the person who did it . . .
We're not used to murders in Kerikeri, especially someone you know makes it even worse."
The promising former year 10 student at Kerikeri High School was meant to start at Rangitoto College on Auckland's North Shore yesterday.
Her parents, Andrew and Rebecca, and her younger brother, Billy, had moved to Kerikei from England about two years ago.
They relocated to Browns Bay a few months ago because Mr Templeman's work as a property valuer had not been as busy as ex-pected.
Liberty had stayed in Kerikeri for the pantomime before joining her parents last month.
She had returned to the town at the weekend to stay with friends.
The scene where her body was found is just a few hundred metres from her high school, and near the town's main street.
Liberty's body was found clothed, but officers were not saying yesterday how she might had died.
A postmortem will be performed in Auckland today.