A video has emerged reportedly showing the car involved in Victoria’s quadruple-fatality crash speeding along a dark regional road.
The clip was posted to Snapchat hours before the red Toyota Corolla carrying five people slammed into a tree near Bochara in the state’s south-west.
News outlets are reporting it was filmed inside the vehicle that was discovered on Saturday morning on Wannon-Nigretta Falls Road at Bochara.
In the footage, rap music plays in the background as a woman can be heard chatting.
A boy asks: “What’s the speed, bro?”
There’s no reply as the female continues her conversation and he asks again, “What speed are we doing?”
The female replies “130” and he responds: “Sweet”.
The footage shows the car is driving at night, with headlights shining onto the empty narrow road.
Victoria Police has not commented on the video.
On Monday, Assistant Commissioner for Road Policing Glenn Weir said extremely high speed was a factor in the accident.
He said an examination of the crash reconstruction revealed the car was travelling “well in excess of 100km/h”.
“To do that speed on that road at that time of day, any time really, is just incomprehensible to me,” Mr Weir told the ABC.
“This is something we’re seeing play out in a number of the serious injury collisions and fatalities that we’ve seen recently – people not driving to the conditions.”
Mr Weir said it also appeared that some of those in the car weren’t wearing seatbelts.
“Of course, in such a high speed and powerful collision, it’s like a pinball machine when you’re not wearing a seatbelt,” he said.
Mr Weir said the car could have been there for many hours before it was spotted by a passerby about 9.30am Saturday.
It was last seen hours earlier at a nearby waterfall’s car park at around 1am Saturday.
Two females and two males died at the scene. A fifth passenger, a 17-year-old girl, remains in a critical condition with upper body injuries at Melbourne’s Alfred hospital.
Three of the victims who were killed have been identified as Alicia Montebello, 31, and teen boys Joshua Elmes and Lucus Garzoli.
The teenage girl who died is yet to be identified.
The 17-year-old girl who was the sole survivor of the crash is understood to be the sister of one of the victims.
On Monday, family and friends of some victims posted heart-breaking tributes.
The region’s mayor said four of the victims were students at Baimbridge College in Hamilton. The town, about 300 kilometres west of Melbourne, has just over 10,000 residents.
It remains unclear who was driving at the time.