On Sunday, New South Wales police were called to Oallen, a rural locality near Goulburn, after two members of the public found a suitcase containing what they believed to be human remains dumped on the side of the road. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
The police sent the suitcase to the forensic medicine laboratory, where on Monday morning it was confirmed that the "body" was actually a life-like doll, understood to be a sex doll, dressed in clothes that had hair, a nose piercing and markings that resembled bruises and grazes.
Former NSW police officer Vincent Hurley, a criminologist, said the police had done the right thing. "Police have been blamed over the years, and rightly so, for tunnel vision," he said. "Can you imagine if it was a real body and they just go unzip the bag and say, 'we'll have a poke'? They did the right thing – it's embarrassing, yes, but they followed procedure."
Hurley explained that when police arrive at a reported crime scene, they generally try not to contaminate it. This means they may not have unzipped the bag the entire way to confirm a potential body, because doing so could destroy any fibres or blood that may have been on the zipper.
Paola Magni, a Murdoch University forensic science associate professor, said the best practice for investigating potential bodies inside things like wheelie bins and suitcases is not to open it, but to X-ray it. Even after realising they had a doll, forensic examiners likely would have had to fully continue inspecting it for traces of evidence like semen or other DNA in case it was associated with another suspicious case.
"It's a doll, but if it's connected to another crime, they can use that opportunity to link it to something suspect. Any potentially suspicious situation has to be treated with the best practice in forensic investigation. They did the right thing, they investigated it step-by-step," said Magni.
Hurley also said objects like sex dolls could be "incredibly lifelike" and noted the bodies of real murder victims were often found in confined places like car boots, suitcases and barrels. "It's not unusual to be in a suitcase, it's just unusual that it turned out to be a plastic doll," he said.
Crimes around sex dolls are generally rare, but in Australia possessing a child-like sex doll is an offence. However, the one discovered on Sunday is not believed to be childlike and police investigations into it have concluded.
At her press conference on Monday, Supt Linda Bradbury maintained police had "no regrets". "Our police have undertaken the processes that we do to maintain integrity in such serious crime to a T, and I do commend people for that," she said. Bradbury confirmed the members of the public who discovered the suitcase had made the right decision by pulling over, peeking inside, and calling as soon as they believed it was something suspicious.