Sisters Found Dead In Canterbury Apartment- Two sisters found dead in an apartment in Sydney‘s south-west under ‘suspicious’ circumstances fled Saudi Arabia as teenagers to seek safety in Australia. See full details below.
Officers doing a welfare check discovered the ladies, aged 23 and 24, in separate beds of their first-floor Canterbury unit on June 7 after they failed to pay rent for four weeks and mail began to pile up outside their door.
The sisters’ remains had been there for some time and had ‘no visible evidence of injury,’ according to police.
Despite the lack of evidence of forced entry, detectives are treating their deaths as suspicious, and the Homicide Squad is investigating.
Teenager Death: Sisters Found Dead In Canterbury Apartment
According to the Daily Mail Australia, the siblings escaped Saudi Arabia without their families in 2017, when they were 18 and 19, and NSW Police are now trying to locate them.
After failing to pay rent for several weeks with mail piling up, the bodies of two women, believed to be sisters in their early 20s, were discovered in a Canterbury apartment block (shown) last week.
The women had been working with a refugee service for five years, assisting foreign nationals fleeing persecution and seeking asylum.
Police were still awaiting autopsy findings on Friday, and they had yet to locate and contact the women’s families in the Middle East in order to formally identify the dead.
According to Daily Mail Australia sources, the sisters were not in regular communication with their relatives back home.
In January 2019, the older sister obtained an AVO against a 28-year-old guy, according to the Daily Mail Australia.
Later, the AVO was withdrawn and dismissed.
On May 13 of this year, the owner of their Canterbury apartment filed a legal complaint against the 23-year-old.
Before taking further action to have tenants removed from the home, landlords can issue legal warning warnings via the civil court for outstanding rent.
That action was initiated four weeks after sheriff’s officers and police officers went to the flat to serve the women with an eviction notice and made the terrible discovery.
It’s unclear what efforts Property Investors Alliance (PIA), the real estate firm in charge of the lease, undertook to contact the sister during the weeks before the sisters were found.
PIA refused numerous requests for comment by Daily Mail Australia.
Daily Mail Australia understands the women fled the Middle East in 2017 to seek shelter in Australia. They were regulars at a petrol station (pictured) near their Canterbury unit
Daily Mail Australia understands the two girls fled Saudi Arabia in 2017. Police are pictured at the apartment block on June 8
Following the gruesome find, forensics combed the flat (pictured) last week.
Despite their horrific history, the women were said to be friendly to their neighbours.
The women began arriving in 2020, right before the Covid outbreak and were regulars until two months ago, when they stopped passing by, according to the staff at a nearby service station.
The couple, one brunette and the other dyed blonde were described as ‘silent’ but very pleasant,’ and they indicated they would only react to queries.
The sisters came to the store for drinks throughout the day, but only appeared to fill up their black BMW coupe with gas at night, according to one female employee.
‘One girl would come in and get iced coffee and V [energy drink] every now and then.’ ‘ Sometimes two or three times a day,’ one female attendant said.
‘I never served her sister but I would see them walking up the street together. When I found out what happened to them, I was very shocked and confused.
The day after the bodies were discovered, a black BMW coupe covered in dust was removed from the apartment block’s garage.
‘She was quite pleasant. She smiled every time she came in and I spoke with her. She never had a sorrowful expression on her face.’
If the women were seeking asylum in Australia, the Department of Home Affairs would not acknowledge it.
A spokeswoman stated, “The agency does not comment on particular instances.”
The Saudi Consulate General in Australia has also been asked for comment by the Daily Mail Australia.
According to a 2019 report by Four Corners, over 80 Saudi Arabian women have attempted to seek asylum in Australia in recent years.
Many of them were fleeing Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship laws, which empower their husbands, fathers, siblings, uncles, and sons to manage their lives, according to the research.
The sisters’ motivations for leaving their homeland are unknown, and the Daily Mail Australia reports that it was not because of guardianship regulations.
The latest revelations come after Daily Mail Australia revealed there were two prior welfare checks, one done by police, on the women in the months leading up to their discovery.
Investigators and forensic teams scoured the apartment building for days, trying to determine out how the sisters perished.
The women were characterized as ‘timid’ in one of the inspections and refused to let anyone into the residence.
However, following protestations from a concerned party, the sisters reluctantly agreed to the check, but spent it huddled together in the unit’s far corner.
As they answered simple questions about their well-being, one sat down and the other hid behind her.
‘They were aloof and didn’t want to talk,’ according to a source.
‘Something didn’t feel right, but they insisted they were fine.’ ‘What else could someone possibly do?’
The initial check was made by police in March, according to a source, with officials leaving after the women insisted they were fine.
The sisters’ black automobile had been keyed in a separate incident months before it was hauled away from their residence last week.
The gruesome find of their decaying bodies rocked the local community, with residents describing the building as typically quiet.
The murders of the sisters appeared to be suspicious, according to NSW Police Detective Inspector Claudia Allcroft.
‘It’s stunning and terrifying,’ one neighbour claimed.
‘Now I have to decide whether or not I want to stay here or relocate.’ I have no idea what happened. ‘No one has informed us.’
Burwood Police Station or Crime Stoppers are urging anyone with information that could help detectives to contact them.
