Police in Australia ​have ended a homicide investigation after a doll in a suitcase was mistaken for a human body.

The police operation on Sunday in Oallen, a ⁠town about 200 km (125 miles) south-west of Sydney, began when two members of the public found a dumped suitcase on the side of the road.

They opened it up ⁠and found what ​appeared to ⁠be remains of a human body.

Forensic examinations later ⁠determined that “the item located in the ​bag ⁠was a lifelike ‌doll, wearing clothing, with hair and a nose piercing,” police said in ‌a statement on Monday.

“The item ‌also had markings that resembled bruises and grazes,” it said.

Called to the remote town of Oallen, police officers established a crime scene but did not examine the contents too closely.

Superintendent Linda Bradbury said the contents of the suitcase had initially been mistaken for the remains of a human woman.

She told reporters that police “don’t ‌like to disturb remains too ​much in situ, particularly when ‌we have faced ⁠inclement weather, as we did ⁠yesterday and again today.”

The item was “very realistic ‌in terms ​of looking like ‌human remains,” she added.

Speaking to Today, she said a couple were out for a drive when they came across the discovery.

“They were out on a weekend drive as a lot of people do when they stopped for a break and found it,” she said.

“Quite a shocking discovery for them, absolutely.”

In 2023 police in the UK closed off a road for two days to investigate a report of a dead body dumped in woods – only to find out it was a discarded sex doll.

Warwickshire Police said it was with “great relief” that the hand and foot spotted poking out of undergrowth turned out to be an inflatable love aid.

The force said it had followed “proper procedure” by sending a forensic pathologist to the woodland near Kineton, and cordoning off a country lane for 31 hours. But the suspected body was actually a “discarded and realistic life-size doll”, a spokesperson added.

A local source told The Sun: “A rambler spotted a woman’s foot and hand poking out of the undergrowth and called the police thinking it was a dead body,”

“The police thought they had a murder investigation on their hands so called in a forensics team. They had an officer manning each end of the road, there were two forensic vans and other investigators hunting for clues.

“When they finally dragged the ‘corpse’ out they realised the blunder. The officers had a big laugh about it. It was a very dirty, broken and overused sex doll.”