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Police have released new details about a violent crime spree that preceded a fatal, head-on crash.
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On Friday, December 5, a 24-year-old man died after driving the wrong way on the exit ramp of Gungahlin Drive to the Barton Highway and colliding with a truck.
Later that evening, ACT Policing said the deceased driver was allegedly linked to a home invasion and a gunpoint robbery in the hours before the crash.
About 4.15am on Friday, a 72-year-old Conder woman disturbed two masked home invaders, who are said to have tied her up and forced her to provide bank login details.
Police said the pair fled the scene in the resident’s Mazda SUV, which was eventually recovered by investigators.
Later that morning, police were called to a Dickson money exchange business on Woolley Street over claims that several people had threatened staff with firearms and made away with cash.
The group fled the scene in another car, a Nissan Pathfinder, stolen from a Gordon home hours earlier, police said. That vehicle was found in flames in Macquarie.
Police allege at least one of the armed robbers got in a silver Audi sedan, seen in Woden and Tuggeranong, and pursued multiple times by officers.
Police said those pursuits were terminated due to the driver’s erratic driving.
About 12.15pm, the same Audi drove the wrong way up the Gungahlin Drive exit ramp and crashed head-on with a small tip-truck.
The impact appeared to have flipped the truck and destroyed the Audi, which needed to be cut open by firefighters to rescue the trapped driver.
Detective acting Superintendent of the north district, Anthony Brown, said on Friday that the truck driver was able to free himself from the wreckage but was being treated in hospital for injuries to “extremities”.
“He [truck driver] was quite shaken up,” the acting superintendent said.
Contents from both vehicles had spilled on to grass while debris appeared to be blocking a section of the ramp.
Police said at the time that the off-ramp would remain closed for “a number of hours”.
“We’ll continue to investigate both the criminal aspects of this and the collision, and we’ll present a report to the coroner,” acting Superintendent Brown said.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Investigators are still searching for two other people involved in the violent morning incidents.
An ACT Policing spokesperson said: “Police are urging anyone who witnessed the home invasion in Conder, robbery in Dickson, or has dash-cam footage of the Nissan or Audi, to come forward.”
The crash occurred two days after another man died on a rural ACT road in a crash between his motorcycle and another car.
The driver of the Audi is the ninth road death in the ACT in 2025.
I report on crime, emergency services, police and jail matters. Email me on bageshri.s@canberratimes.com.au or send confidential tips to bageshri.s@proton.me
I report on crime, emergency services, police and jail matters. Email me on bageshri.s@canberratimes.com.au or send confidential tips to bageshri.s@proton.me
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