Human remains found near a highway overpass have been identified as belonging to Sydney woman Samah Baker, who was murdered by her jealous ex-boyfriend more than four years ago.
A woman alerted police after she discovered partial remains on 28 July in grassland near the Hume Highway on the southern outskirts of Goulburn, about 200km southwest of Sydney.
Investigators carried out an extensive search at the site and more remains were later found.
Police on Thursday said the body had been forensically identified as belonging to 30-year-old Baker, a TAFE worker who was murdered near her Parramatta apartment in January 2019.
James Hachem, 37, is serving a minimum 18-year prison term for the killing, which his sentencing judge described as a “great human tragedy”.
Hachem was found guilty of Ms Baker’s murder last year, despite investigators being unable to find her body.
In a statement on Thursday, her family said their grief had been compounded by their inability to have a funeral or say goodbye to their loved one.
“The news of her remains being discovered four and a half years later isn’t a neat resolution, but it does offer a small measure of what we’ve been longing for all this time,” they said.
“Each development in the case feels like a reopening of our barely healed wounds, reminding us of the harsh reality of our loss.”
Detectives scoured bushland at Yarra, southwest of Goulburn, about two months after Ms Baker’s disappearance.
During that search, they located a number of items of interest but did not find her remains. However, two days later Hachem was charged with her murder.
Ms Baker was last seen by a friend after being dropped off at her western Sydney home in the early hours of January 4, 2019.
She had been in an on-again, off-again relationship with Hachem for more than three years, but the month before her murder she ended it after meeting a new partner.
Hachem became enraged after seeing the pair kissing on the day she went missing, luring Ms Baker out of her apartment with a concocted story about his parents being involved in a car accident, before killing her.
He later went to Bunnings and bought various items including a double sheet, gloves, cleaning products and a digging trowel, before driving to isolated rural areas.
Judge Robertson Wright said Ms Baker’s murder had caused a great loss, describing the victim as “a captivating person who made those around her feel whole”.
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2023-08-30 22:33:21
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