New Zealand police on Wednesday  found the body of a young Asian woman in a car outside the home of a three-year old, who was abandoned at a train station in Australia.

But police in New Zealand, Australia and the United States are still hunting for the girl’s father, who they believe caught a flight to Los Angeles after abandoning toddler Qian Xun Xue, nicknamed “Pumpkin’’, in the Australian city of Melbourne.

Police stopped short of naming the dead woman as Anan Liu, the 27-year old missing mother of the girl, but said they had informed the woman’s mother in China of the find and said they were treating the death as a homicide.

The body was found in the boot of a car parked outside the Auckland house Qian Xun Xue lived with her mother Anan Liu and father, 54 year-old magazine publisher Nai Zin Xue. We would very much like to speak with Mr Xue, the registered owner of the vehicle.