A missing 28-year-old man’s corpse was discovered in the jungle by council employees as his terrifying last moments were filmed on CCTV.
Workers found Hongli Qi’s remains “50 metres off the road in a thick bushland area,” where they believe he was killed, despite having a history of drug dealing.
At before 10.30 am on August 16, startled employees at Packer Road in Blaxlands Ridge, on the northwest suburbs of Sydney, called police, informing homicide squad investigators of the horrifying discovery.
Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty said, “Obviously, his corpse was dumped there with the hope that no one would ever locate it.”
The corpse was just lying on the ground when it was discovered by a municipal worker who had accidentally moved off the road while doing maintenance.
On May 11, at about 1pm, Qi’s family last saw him alive in Sydney’s Town Hall, roughly 80 kilometres from where his corpse was discovered.
Later that day, at 6 p.m., police released CCTV footage showing him leaving his Macquarie St. apartment building in Sydney’s central business district while seen examining his phone as he passed through the lobby.
Qi, who was born in Vietnam and came to Australia as a youngster, was discovered wearing the same outfit as on the CCTV.
He said it was challenging to ascertain Mr. Qi’s cause of death due to the body’s advanced condition of decomposition.
The original post-mortem, he said, was unable to identify the cause of death.
We’re considering it as a murder inquiry, though, due to the circumstances surrounding both how we discovered him and how he vanished.
Qi was a resident of an apartment building on Macquarie St in the CBD at the time of his death.
He had a criminal history of drug dealing, according to Detective Doherty, and had just spent time in prison.
His buddies and his links in their drug supply network are some of the apparent areas of investigation, according to Detective Doherty.
To help them investigate the mysterious death, homicide investigators are asking for the public’s help.
Detectives are interested in speaking with anybody who may have seen Qi in the days and weeks before his disappearance.
“His absence was very unexpected.”
The 28-year-corpse old was found more than 80 kilometres from the location where he was last seen, according to Detective Doherty, making it extremely probable that he was killed.
Detective Doherty said, “We have a strong conviction that Hongli has been the victim of foul play.”
Everyone who may have information that might help the investigators is asked to get in touch with us so that we can give Hongli’s family some answers and closure.