Police confirm ‘lifelike’ doll stuffed in suitcase had nose piercing, ‘bruises and grazes’

Police have confirmed what was thought to have been a body found stuffed in a suitcase left in remote NSW bushland was in fact a “lifelike” doll.

Police were called to the grisly discovery in Oallen, about 60 kilometres south of Goulburn, at 12.50pm on Sunday.

A media release on Sunday night said a body had been found in suitcase, believed to be that of a woman.

But on Monday morning Superintendent Linda Bradbury said the contents of the suitcase had initially been mistaken for the remains of a human woman.

She said police did not, as a habit, significantly disturb human remains at a crime scene, meaning the contents of the suitcase had not been closely examined.

But testing on Monday morning proved they were not human.

The suitcase may have held a doll-like object, she said.

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“So some good news here that we don’t have a suspicious death of a human on our hands,” she said.

“They are very realistic in the terms of looking like human remains, but we’ve confirmed by other means that they are not.”

Now police have confirmed the contents was a life like doll, wearing clothing, with hair and a nose piercing.

“The item also had markings that resembled bruises and grazes,” police said.

CQUniversity criminology researcher Associate Professor Xanthe Weston said the incident was handled “remarkably well”.

“Whenever suspected remains are discovered, that they will always take every precaution. So they were in a suitcase, so they were fully contained,” she told 9News Late.

“So the police wouldn’t have wanted to actually unwrap those remains and potentially destroy evidence.

“So it was going to take some time for them to do that correctly to make sure that that scene was preserved had they turned out to be human.”

Speaking to Today on Monday morning, Bradbury said a couple were out for a drive when they came across the discovery.

“They were out on a weekend drive as a lot of people do when they stopped for a break and found it,” she said.

“Quite a shocking discovery for them, absolutely.”

After finding out the remains were not human, Bradbury said the couple who made the discovery did the right thing in calling police.

“Members of the public did initially think they’d come across human remains,” she said.

The crime scene was packed up after the suitcase contents were revealed.

Neighbour Nathan Woodward said:  “I mean, the mind runs wild at what could have happened, you just don’t know.”

It remains unclear how the incident happened.