Police are now treating the death of a young man, found in an abandoned car on the side of a dirt road, as a homicide.
Emergency services were alerted to the death after a passerby discovered the 21-year-old in the back seat of a silver 2003 Subaru Forester on Webb Rd at Woodstock, south of Townsville, about 8.45am on Saturday.
Detective Inspector Jason Shepherd said the death was being treated as a homicide, and a search for a murder weapon was underway.
‘It’s very sad that we have a family now who will be spending Christmas without their son, we want to try and get closure for that family,’ he told reporters.
‘This young person hasn’t really had any involvement with police before,’ Shepherd said.
‘We are looking for a weapon that could have been used as well as any other evidence discarded by the offender.’
He was last seen with a 26-year-old friend who was arrested that same morning on unrelated charges.
Police have released an image of the vehicle and urged anyone who saw it or the man on the night of December 13 or early the next day to come forward.
Police have launched a homicide investigation after a 21-year-old man was found dead in the back seat of a car abandoned on a dirt road south of Townsville (pictured)
SES crews armed with metal detectors have continued to comb the area near where the car was found for a weapon.
Police said the car was spotted ‘driving erratically’ on Friday night, before the deceased’s friend was given a lift by a truck driver the following morning.
He was dropped off in nearby Calcium, where he is alleged to have entered a B-double truck and drove it about 10 metres before being removed from the cab.
‘He’s obviously a person of interest, but we can’t rule out the fact that there could have been a third person involved,’ Det Insp Shepherd said.
‘Anyone who had interactions with him that morning have indicated that he appeared to be under the influence of some sort of substance.’
However, police are not expecting the same substance in the 21-year-old’s toxicology report, which is yet to be released.
Search efforts for more evidence are going to be extended to Dingo Park Road, where the friend was picked up from.
Investigators and SES crews armed with metal detectors have been combing through the area to uncover any evidence left behind by the killed (pictured)
Anyone with a dashcam who was driving around Webb or Dingo Park Roads at the time have been urged to come contact police.
‘It’s really important that we try and establish a timeline of the movements of the victim and his friend, on that Friday night, Saturday morning,’ Det Insp Shepherd said.
‘We can put the victim and his friend with the vehicle at various times throughout the night, but we just really want to tighten down on their movements.’
He added there was a particular particular interest for information outside of the current investigation.
‘Someone may have seen another vehicle, they may have seen another person and if that’s the case we really need them to come forward.’
