Police have refused to confirm if a suspected human body found in a "state of decomposition" near Goulburn was in fact a doll.
Less than 24 hours after the find and police alerts that it was a human female, they confirmed it was not human remains.
The discovery at Oallen, about 60 kilometres south of Goulburn, about 1pm on Sunday, August 9, sparked a major homicide investigation and left police scouring missing persons' files.
But on Monday, August 10, Superintendent Linda Bradbury fronted the media to confirm it was not a person. She declined to answer questions on whether it was a doll or animal.
Other media outlets have since reported it was a lifelike doll.
"We can confirm that the remains found at Oallen Ford Road, Oallen yesterday are now identified as not being human," she said.
"They were mistaken for a human originally, they are very realistic.
"It's good news here that we don't have a suspicious death on our hands."
Supt Bradbury would not confirm if police suspect it was a prank and said more forensic work will be conducted.
The suitcase was found on the side of Wolgon Road, near Oallen Ford Road, by two day-trippers who had stopped for a break.
"The members of the public did initially think that they'd come across human remains," Supt Bradbury said.
"We had our forensic officers and police as well turn up and, of course, we don't like to disturb them too much in situ, particularly when we are facing inclement weather as we did yesterday and again today.
"The idea is not to disturb crime scenes as much as possible to maintain the integrity of our investigation and it is due to that, where we've been able to collect the remains, and then take them to an investigation at forensics where we determined that they are not human."
Supt Bradbury said police handled the situation well.
"We followed our processes to a 'T' to a high level and I think there's no regrets at all," she said.
