[DK06]

"AT the Caltex truckstop in Wyong, north of Sydney, rumours are running strong about the hit-and-run victim whose body was found scattered in pieces along the F3 freeway three nights ago.

A staff member says she has it on good authority there was "very little blood" on the freeway and that police have yet to find the man's head, arms and legs.

It's a story with all the hallmarks of urban myth -- police said yesterday they were not treating the death as suspicious, and believe the 33-year-old victim was killed after stepping out of a stationary car on the side of the freeway late on Tuesday night.

But the "headless torso" theory shows how unnerved people are by this macabre story of a man killed and then dismembered by passing traffic.

Perhaps it is the setting: a lonely stretch of the eight-lane freeway that snakes through hilly bushland near Kariong, 70km north of Sydney. On a drizzly night the most visible features are oncoming headlights and the ghostly sight of a life-size yellow dinosaur perched on a hill, advertising the nearby Australian Reptile Park.
Some time near midnight on Tuesday, a driver heading north on the freeway ran over the pieces of what appeared to be a dead animal, then realised with horror it was a human body. His call to police prompted the closing of the northbound lanes and a grisly search for body parts along a 400m stretch of freeway.

Police said yesterday they believe the 33-year-old victim, from the Sydney suburb of Quakers Hill, was a passenger in a northbound car that pulled over and stopped at the side of the freeway about 8.45pm. He got out and a short time later was hit and killed by a passing vehicle.

The suggestion that for two hours semi-trailers and cars ran over and dismembered the corpse has struck a nerve. Was the body unrecognisable, or were people too hardened to pull over and report what they had seen?

On Thursday morning, a caller to 2GB talkback radio reported in a shaky voice he had driven along the freeway at about 11.30 on Tuesday night and seen "bits and pieces" of the body.

"Whoever hit that person or whatever was laying on the road knew they'd -- they've hit it, you know," he said.

Another witness left a post on the Daily Telegraph website saying he saw "clumps of meat strewn all over 2 lanes of the freeway, each no bigger than your fist".

Early rumours on the internet suggested it was a headless body dumped at night -- one woman called for the perpetrators to be executed. Later it was suggested the victim had got out of the car after an argument with his mate.

Police have said this is "not entirely true", but have confirmed a witness saw a maroon Commodore or Ford Falcon hit an object at about 9pm, followed by a semi-trailer which swerved.

By yesterday afternoon, all evidence of the tragedy was gone from the freeway. At the Wyong truckstop, opinion among the truckies was divided about whether any driver, even one perched high in the cabin of a massive semi, could hit and kill a human being at night on the freeway without realising it.

"If it's a dark night and he's wearing black, you wouldn't necessarily see him," said Jeff Smeaton, a long-haul driver. "Late at night you could get anything jumping out near the reptile park."

Terry Attom, standing near his truck on a lunchbreak, found it hard to believe. "My opinion is whoever's hit him first must have known," he said. "There would have been a lot of damage. I've hit kangaroos, which are about as big as a full-grown man, and you know when you've hit one.

"Whoever's hit this bloke is living with this, that's my take on it."

http://www.news.com.au/national/myst...-1226016312138

[MisterX]

most people probably didn't think it could be a human that they hit if it was in pieces

[Faline]

Messy

[Frank_Furter]

I fall to pieces
Each time I see you again...

[Drusilla]

No mobile phone pics?
You'd think this would be just the sort of thing folks at the scenenwould capture on their cell phones.Oh well.

[joethurr]

[Blewvane]

That road is a major heavy transport artery so it wouldn't suprise me if it was a semi trailer that hit whoever it was. A truck traveling at 120Kms makes a mess when it hits something, the driver may have thought he hit a roo and that's why he didn't stop.

[Nite]

thank you blew