Gagged Woman Dies As Police Investigate Gang Link to Abduction Terror

The Thai woman who escaped, bound and gagged, from the boot of a moving car on a South Auckland street has died.

Middlemore Hospital confirmed this morning the 50-year-old woman died from her injuries just after 11pm yesterday.

Police had identified the woman and are piecing together why she was in that boot, who put her there and what happened to her before she was found bleeding and unresponsive with critical injuries on Huia Rd, Papatoetoe, on Tuesday night.

The Herald report detectives investigating the incident are looking into organised crime groups, including Asian gangs.

The hunt for the car - a silver sedan - and its driver is ongoing and, yesterday, the woman's injuries were considered so severe there were fears she would not survive to tell police her story.

It appears the woman used a metal rod to jemmy open the boot and make her bid for freedom. With her hands and feet tied and strips of fabric and a man's tie wound tightly around her neck, she managed to escape.

Criminologist Greg Newbold said the woman would have known her life was in danger. Jumping from the moving car was her only hope of survival and her actions showed her desperation to live, he said.

Professor Newbold believed the woman ended up in the boot for one of three reasons: drugs, domestic abuse or a kidnapping/ransom abduction.

"At this point we simply don't know," he said.

Read the full story at NZHerald.co.nz