Child met ‘terrible’ end
SA BODY FIND
A POST-MORTEM has confirmed a child whose body was found dumped in a suitcase beside a remote South Australian highway “met a violent death under terrible circumstances”.
SA police have set up Task Force Mallee to investigate the death of the child, whose body was dumped inside a suitcase near Wynarka, in the Murray Mallee, sometime during the past two months.
Forensic testing has yet to determine the gender of the child, but police believe he or she was aged three to five years and is very unlikely to be missing NSW toddler William Tyrrell.
Major crime detectives yesterday released images of girls’ clothing found near the remains, as well as a suitcase believed to have been used to transport the body to a remote site in scrub next to the Karoonda Highway.
The remains were found there by a passing motorist on Tuesday.
Officer in charge Detective Superintendent Des Bray said while preliminary postmortem results had given police some useful information, the gender of the child was unlikely to be known until early next week.
“We have a victim of, we now believe, three to five years of age, we don’t know the sex of the child and the fact we have female clothes doesn’t mean the child was necessarily a female,” he said.
“It is terribly clear that the child died a violent death under terrible circumstances ... everything about this case is tragic.
“We still have a lot of forensic testing to do and forensic testing is a very long and drawn-out process.
“Forensic Science SA is doing everything they can, as quick as they can, to try and deliver the best results.
“The gender of the child will not be known until next week if everything goes well and to establish a DNA profile will take a little longer than that.”
Task Force Mallee will comprise 15 detectives and local police officers from the Mallee region, along with forensic science response teams.
Det-Supt Bray repeated an appeal for anyone who saw a neatly dressed, clean-cut caucasian man in his 60s carry- ing a dark suitcase in the Wynarka area about four to six weeks ago to contact them urgently.
“We’ve had a couple of witnesses come forward who have seen the 60-year-old man at Wynarka with the suitcase,” Det-Supt Bray said.
“They also saw him on possibly the same day but later in the day around lunch- time west of Wynarka. He was walking along the side of the road carrying a suitcase. We still don’t know who that man is and if he has anything to do with this case.”
A preliminary review of missing persons lists found no details of missing children of a similar age in South Australia, raising the possibility the victim may be from interstate.