Boy arrested over stolen car as police investigate stabbing of Queensland woman in front of granddaughter | Australia news
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Queensland police investigating the stabbing death of a 70-year-old woman in front of her granddaughter have arrested a 15-year-old boy in relation to an allegedly stolen car.
The boy, from Ripley, surrendered to officers at the Ipswich police station about 9.30pm on Sunday. He was charged with one count of unlawful use of a motor vehicle.
Police still want to talk to three other persons of interest depicted in a video released by officers on Sunday.
Vyleen White had finished grocery shopping with her six-year-old granddaughter at Redbank Plains near Ipswich about 6pm on Saturday when she was stabbed in the chest by a man in the centre’s underground car park.
White died at the scene a short time later after attempts to revive her failed. The young girl was unharmed.
On Sunday, police released the video of four males getting out of a 2009 Hyundai Getz in Springfield Lakes, not far from the crime scene, about half an hour after the 70-year-old was killed. Only one is believed to have been involved in the stabbing.
“There is still one person involved in the attack,” detective acting superintendent Heath McQueen told a media conference on Sunday.
“I have a vehicle located approximately 30 minutes after the events and I have four males exiting that vehicle.
“So you can see why we need to conduct investigations.”
He said police were reviewing CCTV and needed the public’s help.
“It’s a cowardly crime like I’ve not seen in my time as a detective,” he said.
“This is a murder of a 70-year-old grandmother in front of her six-year-old granddaughter.
“Now is not the time to remain tight-lipped. Now is the time … to provide us with the information we need to identify the offenders who are responsible for this murder.”
Robbery is the suspected motive of the attacker. The alleged getaway car was being forensically examined.
Police were appealing for anyone who might have seen the car between 6pm and 7pm on Saturday to make contact.
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The Queensland premier, Steven Miles, said he had been briefed on the “awful murder” and backed police to find the culprit.
“It is an abhorrent crime, a terribly violent crime, a crime committed, it sounds like, in front of a very young relative of the victim,” he told reporters on Sunday.
“I know our police are working just as hard as they can to catch this perpetrator and no doubt the courts will take this crime as seriously as I do.”
He said nobody deserved to die that way.
“No doubt they will catch this murderer and I hope they throw the book at him,” Miles said.
On Monday morning the federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said it was “absolutely devastating to think of the life lost but also the horrendous way that this happened”.
“We want people to be able to shop knowing that they can be safe and secure,” he said.
The 15-year-old is expected to appear at Ipswich Children’s Court on Monday.
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