Yu’s body found near M1 exit at Berowra after she was last seen by friends at a Campsie share house in June

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A body believed to be Chinese woman Qi Yu has been removed from bushland alongside a busy Sydney highway.

The body, reportedly wrapped, was found near an emergency stop area on the M1 highway near Mount Kuring-gai about 8.30am on Wednesday. It was removed after 3pm.

Yu, 28, was last seen by friends at her Campsie share house in the city’s southwest on the evening of Friday 8 June.

Her devastated parents flew to Sydney in the following days. They refused to believe she had been killed even after police arrested and charged her 19-year-old housemate Shuo Dong with murder.

Phone records suggested Yu’s white Toyota Corolla was driven north to the area around Mount Kuring-gai, Berowra and Cowan and back to Campsie between 8.30pm and midnight the night she disappeared.

The 2016 model hatchback was later found dumped at Burwood in Sydney’s west the same weekend she disappeared.

Forensic investigators and detectives remain at the scene on Wednesday collecting evidence.

The sliver of bushland is wedged between the highway and train tracks leading to Mount Kuring-gai station just 150 metres away, which is plastered with posters appealing for help to find the missing 28-year-old.

One northbound lane of the highway has been closed, causing traffic to queue more than two kilometres south of the crime scene.

Police search teams, supported by cadaver dogs, helicopters and marine units, have spent weeks scouring vast tracts of bushland and waterways around the area for signs of Yu’s body.