Children find boy’s body in suitcase floating in pond

A GROUP of children found a boy’s naked body jammed into a suitcase floating in a duck pond at a suburban park, triggering a murder investigation yesterday and a police warning to parents.

There was widespread outrage at the apparent brutality directed toward the unidentified child, who police said did not match the description of anyone on missing person lists, though clues indicated the body had been there for days.

“Put simply, it’s one of the most monstrous acts imaginable,” New South Wales state premier Morris Iemma told the state legislature.

A group of about 10 children playing in the park in the Sydney suburb of Rosemeadow pulled the dark, tartan-patterned bag, of carry-on luggage size, ashore on Wednesday evening and reported their gruesome discovery after opening it.

“We were riding on our scooters when a friend came up and said there was a dead pig down at the duck pond, so we went down to see,” one of the children said on Australian television. His name was not given and his face was obscured because of his age.

“Me and my friend got sticks and flipped it over and then we saw that there was feet, so we went up to our houses to call the police,” he said.

Homicide Detective Superintendent Geoff Beresford said the dead boy — who was jammed in a foetal position and wrapped in plastic — was believed to be aged four to eight, revising downward an earlier estimate of five to 10.