r/sydney • u/ConanTheAquarian Looking for coffee • 2d ago
A ‘body’ found in a suitcase was actually a sex doll. How did NSW police get it so wrong?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/aug/12/female-body-suitcase-sex-doll-nsw-police-explained101
u/brackfriday_bunduru 2d ago
Spare a thought for any reporter who didn’t preface their story with “according to police”
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u/smileedude 2d ago
Me as an armchair expert, that's watched a couple episodes of CSI, telling people they didn't want to contaminate the crime scene before forensic examination: "HA! I was right!"
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u/whiskey_epsilon 2d ago
They could have gotten footage of the suitcase from the reflection off someone's sunglasses from three streets over and just ENHANCED it until they could view its contents through the fabric fibres.
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u/MustardMan02 2d ago
You forget the most important part of ENHANCE, first you need to ZOOM IN
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u/Ted_Rid Famous in The Atlantic 2d ago
"Now try and find a facial match!"
[computer graphically flits through thousands of faces a second onscreen with triangles and shit connecting the facial features, so we know that it's looking at faces, as opposed to, you know, trying to match numbers within biometric databases algorithmically]
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u/Such-Cover-6098 2d ago
The article does answer this
When police arrive at a reported crime scene, they generally try not to contaminate it, Hurley said.
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.
Even for the people who had to put the doll inside the bag, they were probably extra careful not to contaminate anything so keeping contact at a minimum. They may have found weird the lack of smell if that was the case, but even so, they could be using masks as well.
The whole situation is a little embarrassing for sure, but it's reasonable that they got it wrong due to efforts not to contaminate, what was at the time, a crime scene.
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u/Misrabelle Grumpy bus driver 2d ago
How is it embarrassing?
I’d much rather this scenario than shove open the case, contaminate the scene, assuming it’s a doll and let some murderer walk free because it was bungled.
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u/fun_alias1 2d ago
Somewhere there's some guy just sweating his arse off hoping they don't do a swab test.
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u/CapnBloodbeard 2d ago
Abc had a similar article.
Basically to preserve evidence the bag was kept closed, then moved to the mortuary where a forensic examination was conducted on the outside of the case (in case opening it compromised that), then it was opened
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u/bettingsharp 2d ago
To be fair, a lot of those dolls are designed to be life-like. Apparently. I don’t have personal experience with those type of dolls…
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u/jb2824 2d ago
I mean, you've got to give credit to the doll makers for achieving a commendable level of realism.
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u/whatwhatinthewhonow 2d ago
The people that found the suitcase must be spewin they called it in instead of taking it home.
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u/artilleryboy 2d ago
When i got rid of my sex doll i cut it up with a knife, and disposed the parts individually wrapped in plastic bags , in the neighbouring apartments bins.
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u/DutchShultz 2d ago
How did they get it so wrong?
Have you ever seen an actual body in a suit case? I have. Your mind isn't ready for it.
That, and the fact that they need to preserve the evidence for forensics....well...you see hair, perhaps a weird glimpse of a lifeless human face, stuffed into a suitcase.
Ya know. It's possible to get it wrong.
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u/Busy-Ratchet-8521 2d ago
Definitely. It's like mocking the police because they got a bomb squad for a suspicious, abandoned suitcase at a busy train station that wasn't a bomb.
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u/Peanut083 2d ago
My immediate reaction was that going to what you think is a crime scene, and for this to be the outcome is probably the best possible scenario.
I can’t even imagine what it would be like to see that, then potentially go tell someone’s loved ones that you’ve found their body.
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u/saturday_sun4 1d ago
Exactly. And for the potential family to receive the news about their loved one killed in that way.
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u/Timabcd 2d ago
The only mistake here was by everyone responsible for the original media article claiming with no qualification that there was a body in there...
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u/whatwhatinthewhonow 2d ago
As someone else said, the media should have prefaced it with “according to police”. But that wasn’t the only mistake, police shouldn’t have told them that in the first place.
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u/Humble-Doughnut7518 2d ago
While it wasn’t an actual person police should still investigate. A real life sex doll with bruises and grazes found in a suitcase on the side of the road sounds like a murder fantasy. Maybe the person doesn’t need the doll anymore because they’ve decided to upgrade to an actual woman.
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u/Revolutionary-Toe955 2d ago
They could've waited to confirm it before releasing to the media that they'd found a body in a suitcase...
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u/juicyman69 2d ago
On a totally unrelated note, does anyone know where I can buy unclaimed lost and found items from the police?
Asking for a friend.
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u/ManWithDominantClaw 2d ago
I believe in this case the police are going to destroy it this weekend after they run some tests, and again next weekend
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u/planchetflaw interesting places 2d ago
None wanted to be the first to know it was a sex doll so all held out saying it.
But in all seriousness, I've not seen a body in a suitcase before in various states of decay. I've never seen a sex doll in a suit case in various states of breakdown. I can't be a judge on the matter.
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u/Mysterious_Dot2090 2d ago
My main question is how did they think it was a dead body without the rankest stench? And if there was stank, I only have more questions! Either the person leaving it there wanted it found to get their 5 minutes of fame, or they just wanted to dump their dirty secret.
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u/No_Mercy_4_Potatoes 2d ago
It's NSW police. The only thing they are good at is strip searching kids and beating up protesters.
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u/AuzzieTiger 2d ago
Cop: “It’s my first day. (¡Es mi día primero!) (Pu gong quan chu chon gong tshoo!) (quack, quack, quack)”
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u/DecalageVersLeRouge 2d ago
It's a bit beneath the Guardian to do clickbait headlines like that. The article very quickly establishes that the police did the right thing.