Police have charged a 28-year-old man with multiple domestic violence offences after they found a 34-year-old woman dead inside a Sydney unit, 20 hours after she called triple zero fearing for her life.
A critical incident has also been launched to investigate what transpired between the anonymous triple zero call she made, at 11.43pm on Friday, and her body being found 8pm on Saturday.
Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said the woman’s call just before midnight on Friday reflected “she was being assaulted and money was being requested by another person in the unit”.
But, Smith said, the woman gave the phone operator no name or home address on the call, and official databases available to police gave conflicting information about the phone owner’s address.
After arriving around 3am, a little over three hours after the triple zero call, police were confronted with a massive complex of units in Liverpool, in Sydney’s west, comprised of two towers totalling almost 300 units.
“They were unable to determine the exact location of the anonymous call,” Smith said, so police left the scene and continued to try and follow up the source of the call throughout Saturday.
When asked by reporters how long police searched the building, Smith said the critical incident investigation “will obviously establish that timeline for me and I need to satisfy myself of that timeline”.
Around 8pm on Saturday, following a call to triple zero from the dead woman’s neighbour, police went back to the tower block but this time they located the unit.
Inside they found the woman’s body, a small child and the man.
Police arrested the man at the unit and charged him with stalk/intimidate intend fear physical etc harm, contravene prohibition/restriction in AVO and destroy or damage property.
He was refused bail and will appear in court tomorrow.
“I won’t rule out further charges,” Smith said.
He said police had arrived at the building and were ”presented with 297 units and no obvious offence in front of them.”
The incident was referred then to every shift that followed on Saturday, Smith said, until the final call to police was made and they found her body.
The child was taken away by authorities.
The investigation continues.
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