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Police have released gruesome details about the murder of a man shot multiple times in the head with a high-powered nail gun.

This shocking x-ray of Chen (Anthony) Liu’s skull clearly shows nails embedded in his head and neck.

It has emerged as part of a renewed appeal for information about his death.

A post-mortem examination found that at least 34 nails were fired into the 27-year-old’s head before he was weighed down and dumped in a river in Australia.

His badly decomposed body was found in marshland in Sydney’s Georges River on November 1 last year by two children on a canoeing trip.

Police believe he was shot in the back of the head 12 days before the children made the discovery on the banks of the river in Oatley Bay, near Morshead Drive at Connells Point.

Homicide Squad Superintendent Geoff Beresford said the murder had stunned investigators.

"In 36 years, I've never seen a murder of this nature," Supt Beresford told reporters in Sydney.

"It's a particularly brutal and vicious murder and hence the reason we are seeking information from the public."

He said 34 nails had entered "predominantly into the head area" at very close range, fired from an 85mm nail gun.

"We believe the perpetrators had every intention of the body not being discovered," Supt Beresford

"Certainly there were efforts made to perhaps weigh it down if you like, and it was the force of nature, the tides, whereby the body has been discovered on the river bank."

Police are investigating associates of Mr Liu, but say there is nothing to suggest any links to a criminal group.

Mr Liu arrived in Melbourne on a student visa from China in early 2000 and moved to Sydney, where he married for a short time and separated, police said.