The devastated family of Karen Ristevski are vowing to catch her killer.
Ms Ristevski's badly decomposed body was found between two logs in a park outside Melbourne on Monday afternoon. It was discovered by a walker, who stumbled across the body just off a dirt path.
Ms Ristevski had been missing for nearly eight months.
"How a person such as Karen, so full of love, life and laughter, could be left, abandoned, discarded with no thought or emotion shown is unforgivable," Ms Ristevki's aunt Patricia Grey told media.
"Happy we found her. Devastated that's how she was discarded," she said.
The family are urging anyone with information to speak to police.
"Karen was such a beautiful, kind, generous and loving person," Ms Ristevski's cousin Lisa Gray said.
"We will continue to do everything we can to assist police to help find the person responsible."
Ms Ristevski went missing from her home in Avondale Heights, a suburb north-west of Melbourne, on June 29 2016.
She was born in Wellington, but moved to Australia as a child. Some of her family still live in the capital. They had been told to brace themselves for bad news ahead of the discovery.
In Melbourne, Ms Ristevski leaves a 21-year-old daughter, Sarah, and a husband, Borce Ristevski.
On the day of her disappearance, her husband told police Ms Ristevski went for a walk to "clear her head" after they argued about money.
"She's always, you know, walked back in the door after calming down," Mr Ristevski told media.
Now that her body had been discovered, investigators can focus on finding Ms Ristevski's killer.
Since Monday's grim discovery, several witnesses have come forward.
A couple told police they saw a man with a shovel in the area. They joked with him about burying a body, while the man remained expressionless.
A local woman also reported seeing a white van parked on Loch Rd. Ms Ristevski's body was found close to a track that runs from Loch Rd in Mount Macedon Regional Park.
Both Mr Ristevski and Anthony Rickard his estranged son from a previous relationship have been interviewed by police.
Mr Rickard told media that his stepmother had fled from conflict within the family. He also tried to sell an "unsubstantiated" story to a current affairs show.
Mr Ristevski's phone was detected in Diggers Rest on the day of Ms Ristevski's disappearance. Her phone pinged on towers on Calder Highway and Gisborne. Calder Highway runs through Diggers Rest. Gisborne is about 17 minutes' drive from Diggers Rest. Mr Ristevski's phone was switched off for two hours on the day of his wife's disappearance.
It has been reported Mr Ristevski told detectives he took his wife's car for a drive on the day of her disappearance. He said there was a problem with the fuel gauge, which fixed itself when he went over a bump, so he took the car home.
Ms Ristevski reportedly inherited a share of a NZ$385,000 estate left by her father before she went missing. Her father died in 2014.
Newshub.
