Unanswered question after mother's body was found in a burnt-out car (2025)

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An investigation into the motive behind a violent kidnapping continues after police found the burnt body of a woman in a torched car and her son, eight, was assaulted.

The gruesome discovery was made after five men broke into a 45-year-old woman's Bankstown home, in Sydney's southwest, on Thursday night and severely assaulted both her and her son, police said.

The woman was dragged into an SUV, which was later found burnt out 6kms away in the suburb of Beverly Hills.

A badly burnt body was discovered inside the car, which authorities believe is the kidnapped mother.

Police have not ruled out that she was burned alive and are still trying to answer one major question: the motive behind the attack.

'We don't know if it's organised crime, we don't know if it's gang related,' Superintendent Rodney Hart, Commander of Bankstown Area Command, said on Friday.

Police said the family was not known to them.

A major focus of the investigation remains trying to determine how the men knew the 45-year-old woman.

The kidnappers had firearms when they broke into the Bankstown property.

The group assaulted an eight-year-old boy with a baseball bat so severely he had to be placed into an induced coma after undergoing surgery for serious head injuries.

His 15-year-old brother, who gave police his account of the ordeal, was also taken to hospital for assessment.

The boys' father is believed to have been interstate on a business trip and is returning to Sydney to support his children.

'This crime is horrendous. The level of violence is unheard of but I want to reassure the community that we strongly believe that this is a targeted incident and that this is not a random kidnapping,' Superintendent Hart said.

'The two children are our main focus. Their welfare and their security is paramount to us.'

Neighbours have told reporters they had heard a woman's scream that night and described the woman as friendly.

A neighbour who lives with her family in a granny flat behind the deceased woman's house arrived back about 4pm the following day not knowing what had occurred.

She had been home during the kidnapping but heard nothing unusual.

'When I go out this morning there was police here,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'I asked the police but they didn't tell me anything,' the neighbour said.

She said she had lived at her place for about two years and the dead woman and her family had been in their house when she moved in.

She last saw the woman a few days ago but had not seen her husband for about a month.

'Sometimes I just say hi,' she said.

'They have two boys. Her kids are always inside. They do not play with my girls.

'I'm a bit scared because I live in the backyard of her house. I feel sad for her and for her children.'

Police will work to obtain CCTV from the area between the two crime scenes and are appealing for the public to contact them with any relevant information or video.

Sydney