By Perry Duffin, Clare Sibthorpe and Daniel Lo Surdo
Warning: Graphic content
Masked invaders have broken into a home, assaulted a young child with a baseball bat and forced a woman into a car at gunpoint before a body, believed to be hers, was found in a burning car kilometres away in Sydney’s south-west, police say.
Neighbours have described hearing screams, a car speeding past and sirens as the woman was snatched from her home in what police call a “horrendous crime”.
Police were called to Welfare Avenue North in Beverly Hills just before 11.30pm on Thursday, following reports that a car was on fire. Once on the scene, authorities recovered a body in the back seat.
The body is yet to be identified, but police believe it is that of a 45-year-old woman abducted at gunpoint in the neighbouring suburb of Bankstown one hour earlier.
Investigators were called to the Bankstown home at about 10:30pm where a 15-year-old boy told them a group of five men, armed with a baseball bat and a gun, forced their way into a home with their faces covered.
The kidnappers seriously assaulted the woman and struck an eight-year-old boy in the head with a baseball bat.
The group then forced the injured woman outside, into a dark SUV, and sped away followed by a white sedan.
Police and paramedics raced to the scene and took the injured child and a teenager to hospital for treatment and assessment.
The youngest boy remains in an induced coma following emergency surgery.
‘This crime is horrendous, this level of violence is unheard of.’
Superintendent Rodney Hart
“We don’t know if it’s organised crime, we don’t know if it’s gang related,” Superintendent Rodney Hart told media.
“This crime is horrendous, this level of violence is unheard of.”
Hart said it appeared to be a targeted attack, and not a random kidnapping.
The woman’s husband is interstate, has spoken to police and is returning to Sydney.
“We don’t know too much about the [victims] … they are not known to police [such] that we would consider them a high target in the organised crime network or world,” Supt Hart said.
“[It’s] very early in the investigation, it’s an extremely serious, violent, horrendous crime that we are throwing everything that we have at it to ensure that we bring these people to justice.”
One woman who lives near the house where the kidnapping took place says she was shaken and afraid when she heard a woman scream shortly after 10pm last night.
“It sounded like someone was about to die,” she said.
“I came outside and saw a Mercedes speed past.”
The blazing car was found on Welfare Avenue, about a 10-minute drive from the home in Bankstown.
Multiple police cars were parked outside the Bankstown home as forensic officers combed through the scene on Friday morning.
Another neighbour also described hearing the scream, saying it worried her because she knew the woman who lived there and said she was friendly.
“I’m in shock that this could have happened – she is just a sweet woman who keeps to herself,” the neighbour said, adding she saw about “four or five” police cars there shortly after.
The neighbours did not want to be named for privacy reasons.
Police have also cordoned off all entrances to the Beverly Hills street, including the nearby nature reserve, as forensic officers assess the burnt-out car.
Forensic officers assess the scene.Credit: Dylan Coker
It took one truck of firefighters about 20 minutes to extinguish the burning car, before they discovered the woman’s body in the back seat. Vision from the scene shows the front exterior burnt off and a burst windshield.
Superintendent Adam Dewberry from Fire and Rescue NSW.Credit: Dylan Coker
“Once the fire was extinguished and the steam and the smoke had disappeared, it was a pretty grisly sight for our firefighters,” Fire and Rescue NSW Superintendent Adam Dewberry said.
“We all take a little bit of these things with you; some of it we forget about and others come back when you don’t expect it, but we have excellent support systems in place.”
He said it was not clear how the “extremely hot, intense and rapid” fire started, but it would not have been alight for long before crews arrived.
Welfare Avenue North is a dead-end residential street in Beverly Hills, adjacent to the M5 East motorway. The car was found at the end of the street, closest to the M5.
Police have established Strike Force Bushfield to investigate.
Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
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