Police say a woman found dead inside a unit on the New South Wales Central Coast was murdered before her home went up in flames.<\/p>\n
The body of 77-year-old Diane Harkess was found in the lounge room of a unit on Melissa Close at Bateau Bay, following a fire on August 24.<\/p>\n
Initial inquiries suggested Ms Harkess died from severe burns.<\/p>\n
Tuggerah Lakes Police District Commander Superintendent Chad Gillies said police now believed she was murdered before the fire.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The body of Diane Harkess was found inside her Bateau Bay unit after a fire on August 24. (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n
“The post-mortem and investigations identify it was a violent death where she sustained catastrophic injuries,” he said.<\/p>\n
“And that is driving our investigators to identify those persons responsible.” \u00a0<\/p>\n
Superintendent Gillies said “the investigation in terms of the murder” was ongoing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Police are looking for a beige puffer jacket, a light brown hooded jumper and a black hat. (ABC News: Jenae Madden)<\/p>\n
Dumped clothes<\/p>\n
Police believe someone involved in Ms Harkess’s death dumped clothing worn that night somewhere between Bateau Bay and Chittaway Point.<\/p>\n
“We are working on the belief the offender may have discarded clothing either in backyards, front yards, in bushlands or on the street,” Superintendent Gillies said.<\/p>\n
“We believe if the offender or offenders did discard this clothing, it may hold crucial forensic evidence and we can then further our investigations.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The scene of the fatal fire in Bateau Bay, on the NSW Central Coast. (ABC Central Coast: Mary-Louise Vince)<\/p>\n
Police are looking for a beige puffer jacket, blue or grey tracksuit pants, a light brown hooded jumper and a black hat.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Gilles said anyone who had come across clothing “remotely similar” was urged to contact police.<\/p>\n
Anyone with \u00a0CCTV footage or information about the fire or Ms Harkess’s death was also asked to contact Wyong police or Crime Stoppers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police say a woman found dead inside a unit on the New South Wales Central Coast was murdered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,99877,2806,7770,44,99876,99875],"class_list":["post-147926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bateau-bay","tag-central-coast","tag-fire","tag-news","tag-suspicious-death","tag-unit-fire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}