New South Wales police officers who treated a sex doll as a potential human body followed the correct procedure, according to forensic experts, despite the embarrassment caused by the discovery. The incident occurred on Sunday in Oallen, a rural locality near Goulburn, when two members of the public found a suitcase dumped on the side of the road and reported it to police, believing it contained human remains.
The suitcase was sent to the forensic medicine laboratory, and a police statement released on Sunday said the body was believed to be female. However, after forensic examinations on Monday morning, it was confirmed that the 'body' was actually a life-like doll, understood to be a sex doll, dressed in clothes, with hair, a nose piercing, and markings that resembled bruises and grazes.
Police followed protocol to preserve evidence
Former NSW police officer Vincent Hurley, now a criminologist, told Guardian Australia that investigators 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.
X-ray is best practice for suspicious containers
Paola Magni, a forensic science associate professor at Murdoch University, said that the best practice for investigating potential bodies inside things like wheelie bins and suitcases is not to open them, but to X-ray them. 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,' said Magni, an expert in decomposition. '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.'
Lifelike dolls and rare crimes
Hurley also noted that objects like sex dolls could be 'incredibly lifelike' and that the bodies of real murder victims are 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, and police have previously charged people after intercepting air cargo found to contain such items. 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, Superintendent Linda Bradbury maintained that 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 that 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.
