An investigation into the motive behind a violent kidnapping continues after police found a badly burnt body of a woman inside a torched car after her eight-year-old son was severely assaulted.
The gruesome discovery came after five men broke into a 45-year-old woman’s Bankstown home, in Sydney’s southwest on Thursday night and severely assaulted both her and her son, police said.
The woman was dragged into an SUV that was later found burnt out in Beverly Hills, about 6km away.
A badly burnt body was discovered inside, which authorities believe is the kidnapped mother.
Police cannot rule out that she was burned alive and are still trying to to answer one major question: the motive behind the attack.
‘We don’t know if it’s organised crime, we don’t know if it’s gang related,’ Superintendent Rodney Hart, Commander of Bankstown Area Command, said on Friday.
The family was not known to police, they said, and they are trying to work out how the men knew the 45-year-old, or if the incident was gang or organised crime-related.
CCTV footage (pictured) showed the terrifying moment a group of five dragged a mother of two young boys from her home and abducted her
Investigations are continuing into the incident with police yet to determine how the woman died
The kidnappers, who had firearms, assaulted an eight-year-old boy with a baseball bat so severely he had to be placed into an induced coma after undergoing surgery for serious head injuries.
His 15-year-old brother, who gave police an account of the ordeal, was also taken to hospital for assessment.
The boys’ father is believed to have been interstate on a business trip and is returning to Sydney to support his children.
‘This crime is horrendous. The level of violence is unheard of but I want to reassure the community that we strongly believe that this is a targeted incident and that this is not been a random kidnapping,’ Superintendent Hart said.
‘The two children are our main focus. Their welfare and their security is paramount to us.’
Neighbours have told reporters they had heard a woman’s scream that night and described the woman as friendly.
A neighbour who lives with her family in a granny flat behind the dead woman’s house arrived about 4pm not knowing what had occurred.
Fire crews discovered the body inside a burnt out car in Sydney’s south-west on Thursday night
She had been home during the kidnapping but heard nothing unusual.
‘When I go out this morning there was police here,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I asked the police but they didn’t tell me anything,’ the neighbour said.
She said she had lived at her place for about two years and the dead woman and her family had been in their house when she moved in.
She last saw the woman a few days ago but had not seen her husband for about a month.
‘Sometimes I just say hi,’ she said.
‘They have two boys. Her kids are always inside. They do not play with my girls.
‘I’m a bit scared because I live in the backyard of her house. I feel sad for her and for her children.’
Police will undertake a large CCTV canvass between the two crime scenes and are appealing for the public to come forward with any relevant information or video.
