Police find new clue in Wayne Russell’s joy ride death

Police investigating the death of a 12-year-old boy have recovered a stolen car believed to have carried him away from an accident site near Wollongong.

Police investigating the death of a 12-year-old boy have recovered a stolen car believed to have carried him away from an accident site near Wollongong.

Wayne Russell, 12, suffered shocking head and internal injuries and died after he was pulled from a mangled hatchback which slammed into a power pole at Towradgi, near Wollongong, on Tuesday morning.

They are also looking at whether the crash is linked to an alarming craze - that NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb warned about just days earlier - where people post footage of high speed car chases to TikTok.

Police sources confirmed officers investigating the fatal accident located a silver Ford Focus on Thursday morning in the nearby suburb of Bellambi.

Wayne, 12, died from horrific injuries he suffered when a car he was in slammed into a power pole on Tuesday morning at Towradgi, north of Wollongong. Picture: Facebook

Witnesses had reported seeing people get into a silver car and leave the scene soon after the “almighty bang” at 1.30am on Tuesday that woke residents and alerted police at the nearby Corrimal Police station.

Several officers ran to the scene but found the vehicle was empty.

Police are still trying to locate the driver of the black Holden Barina that crashed at high speed into traffic lights on Memorial Drive near Towradgi Rd.

They believe Wayne was a passenger in the car when it crashed and was pulled from the wreckage by other occupants, before he was dropped to a friend’s place in Balgownie, and the people with him fled.

When paramedics arrived at the house at 3am, the 12-year-old was suffering from catastrophic internal injuries.

Police at the scene of a crash at the intersection of Towradgi Road and Memorial Drive, Towradgi, where a Holden Barina crashed into a traffic control light. The vehicle was found empty when police arrived Credit: Shapchat

He was rushed to Wollongong Hospital, but staff couldn’t save him.

Police are also looking at whether the crash is part of dangerous TikTok craze, using the hashtag “creepin while ya sleepin” where children as young as 10 are filming themselves joy-riding in stolen cars and taunting police to chase them.

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb exclusively told the Saturday Telegraph just days before the Towradgi crash that the trend was “spreading like wildfire”.

“In one case we had four children in a car, one child had the pedals to control the speed and the other child had the steering wheel for visibility so they were relying on each other,” Commissioner Webb said.

“These are babies behind the wheel. The risks to the community and themselves is extreme. A vehicle in the hands of someone unskilled is taking a lot of risks, the vehicle at that point becomes a weapon.”