Harmony Bryant died weeks after she was found covered in fractures in a burning car. Authorities say it was no accident.

Million dollar reward for Harmony Bryant murder

Harmony Bryant’s brutal suspected homicide in 2003 was initially investigated as a non-suspicious car accident and fire.

But Harmony’s father knew “from the moment he went to the site, that this was no accident” her mother Karen Bryant said on Thursday, at a press conference promoting a new $1 million reward for information about her daughter’s death.

Firefighters found 26-year-old Harmony covered in fractures and “laying on her back in her vehicle, which was alight” at about 7am on August 16, Homicide Squad commander Joe Doueihi said on Thursday.

Her Hyundai Excel was 200m off the road, in the bushland surrounding Ocean Dr in Bonny Hills.

Harmony died a month later in hospital with “significant” burns to 60 per cent of her body, and fractures to her pelvis, arms and wrists.

It was four years before the coroner handed Harmony’s case to the Homicide Squad and suspicious circumstances were officially identified.

Detectives found that before the car fire, “Harmony had ventured off from her vehicle and had fallen off the cliff nearby where she sustained the fractures,” Doueihi said.

“Harmony could not have made her own way back to the vehicle with those injuries.”

Police suspicions that Harmony’s death was a homicide have been “purely based” on this evidence that she did not return to her car alone.

As part of a 2011 inquest into the death, the coroner returned an open finding indicating that Harmony died as a result of her burn injuries, and suggested another person lit the fire.

Karen said at the press conference on Thursday that Harmony’s father passed away eight months after his daughter’s death.

“He didn’t get to see his suspicions acknowledged,” she said.

‘There’s a million dollars on the table’

When the crime scene was initially processed in Bonny Hills, police were investigating a car accident, not a homicide.

Doueihi acknowledged on Thursday that “things could have been done better”.

A number of people were investigated at the time that the Homicide Squad took over the case, but Doueihi said ”at the current moment, there are no new persons of interest”.

Police offered a $100,000 reward for information in 2011, but Doueihi said “it didn’t result in any information”.

Now NSW Police have now upped the incentive.

“It has been two decades since Harmony’s death, and we hope that by increasing this reward to $1 million that it will be enough for somebody to start to think about what they may have seen, what they may have heard, what they may know, but have never said anything,” Minister for Police and Counter-terrorism Yasmin Catley said.

“It doesn’t matter how small that piece of information may be.

“It could be the piece of the puzzle that police need to finalise this shocking incident, and to bring closure to Harmony’s family. They deserve that.”

Doueihi urged anyone with information to come forward.

“If that information results in an arrest or conviction, there’s a million dollars on the table.”

Who stayed with Harmony at the caravan park?

The night before the incident, Harmony had booked a caravan at the Mid Pacific Caravan Park in Port Macquarie, about half an hour north of where firefighters found her the next morning.

She is believed to have shared the caravan with another person.

Who that person is remains unknown, and police are also seeking information to identify him or her.

Doueihi said detectives want to speak with “anyone who might have information about who she might have spent that night with, and more importantly about the morning of the incident.”

Police believe there are witnesses to Harmony’s death, and people in the community who know what happened.

It is hoped that two decades to think on the matter, and $1 million, will be enough to generate informants.

“We know people’s views and attitudes change over time,” Doueihi said.

Karen offered her own plea to those people, warning that with a killer at large, the whole community remains at risk.

“You have been given 101 reasons to come forward, remembering that this time it is our daughter, and our sister, but next time it just might be yours,” Karen said.

“Tomorrow, it’s Harmony’s birthday. Do it for her.”