Prabha Arun Kumar, Arun Kumar travelled nearly 10,000 kilometres from India to Sydney, hoping his wife might have survived the stabbing attack he overhead on his mobile phone.
In fact, Prabha Arun Kumar had died before her husband even reached Bangalore airport. The call came through to his family, who decided the widower should not travel alone bearing such news.
"She was a beautiful person, the bravest woman in our family," Mrs Kumar's nephew, Thrijesh Jayachandra, told Fairfax Media. "She liked adventures."
Mrs Kumar, 41, who worked as a software engineer in Sydney for the past three years, completed a 3700 metre sky dive soon after arriving in Australia.
Mr Jayachandra remembered his aunt as a selfless mother to her nine-year-old girl, Meghana, who remained in Bangalore. She only dreamt about her daughter, never about herself," he said.
Mrs Kumar was attacked in a park a few hundreds metres from her home on Amos Street, in Westmead, just after 9pm on Saturday. She spoke with her husband on the phone as she walked from the Parramatta train station, up Argyle Street, then along a dimly lit walkway through Parramatta Park.
"She told him there was a huge person following her, a huge person around her," Mr Jayachandra said.
"Suddenly, a moment later, he could hear her scream 'Just let me go, just take whatever you want, just don't hurt me'. A second later she told him, 'He has stabbed me'. And until the phone got disconnected my uncle was hearing her ... making weird noises, like moaning."
No one in the Bangalore family except Mr Kumar, 42, had a visa; he left home knowing only that his wife had been critically injured.
The family has so far shielded Meghana from the news of her mother's death but they plan to tell her in a day or two.
"She asks 'Why is Mum's photo there in the newspaper, why is Dad's photo there in the newspaper?'," Mr Jayachandra said.
"She knows something is wrong in the family because people are coming around and there are so many visitors and media everywhere."
Mr Jayachandra said Mrs Kumar had planned to return home after her contract with the IT company Mindtree finished in early April. The couple had discussed going on an Australian holiday with Meghana before returning to India together.
Police do not believe the attack was racially motivated or that Mrs Kumar knew her killer.
She had worked a double shift on Saturday and reportedly declined a lift from colleagues, not wanting to inconvenience them. She left Parramatta Station about 9pm and was found by a resident, bleeding, about 9:30pm. Her housemate had warned her not to walk through the park after dark.
Mr Jayachandra said Mindtree had been "very supportive" of his family since the death but the company should have given Mrs Kumar a cab ride home after working at night.
A Mindtree spokeswoman said: "We are working with the officials of both the countries to help the family to bring her body back to Bengaluru (Bangalore)."
"We are providing all the necessary support to authorities investigating the case."
Yadu Singh, president of the Indian Australian Association of NSW, said neither the Sydney Indian community nor the Indian media were treating the death as a race-related crime.
But he said the community felt "sadness, shock, frustration, agitation and even a bit of resentment" at a lack of security in Western Sydney.
Mr Singh said in the last 10 years it had become more common for Indian women to work overseas and send money back to their families.
In fact, Prabha Arun Kumar had died before her husband even reached Bangalore airport. The call came through to his family, who decided the widower should not travel alone bearing such news.
"She was a beautiful person, the bravest woman in our family," Mrs Kumar's nephew, Thrijesh Jayachandra, told Fairfax Media. "She liked adventures."
Mrs Kumar, 41, who worked as a software engineer in Sydney for the past three years, completed a 3700 metre sky dive soon after arriving in Australia.
Mr Jayachandra remembered his aunt as a selfless mother to her nine-year-old girl, Meghana, who remained in Bangalore. She only dreamt about her daughter, never about herself," he said.
Mrs Kumar was attacked in a park a few hundreds metres from her home on Amos Street, in Westmead, just after 9pm on Saturday. She spoke with her husband on the phone as she walked from the Parramatta train station, up Argyle Street, then along a dimly lit walkway through Parramatta Park.
"She told him there was a huge person following her, a huge person around her," Mr Jayachandra said.
"Suddenly, a moment later, he could hear her scream 'Just let me go, just take whatever you want, just don't hurt me'. A second later she told him, 'He has stabbed me'. And until the phone got disconnected my uncle was hearing her ... making weird noises, like moaning."
No one in the Bangalore family except Mr Kumar, 42, had a visa; he left home knowing only that his wife had been critically injured.
The family has so far shielded Meghana from the news of her mother's death but they plan to tell her in a day or two.
"She asks 'Why is Mum's photo there in the newspaper, why is Dad's photo there in the newspaper?'," Mr Jayachandra said.
"She knows something is wrong in the family because people are coming around and there are so many visitors and media everywhere."
Mr Jayachandra said Mrs Kumar had planned to return home after her contract with the IT company Mindtree finished in early April. The couple had discussed going on an Australian holiday with Meghana before returning to India together.
Police do not believe the attack was racially motivated or that Mrs Kumar knew her killer.
She had worked a double shift on Saturday and reportedly declined a lift from colleagues, not wanting to inconvenience them. She left Parramatta Station about 9pm and was found by a resident, bleeding, about 9:30pm. Her housemate had warned her not to walk through the park after dark.
Mr Jayachandra said Mindtree had been "very supportive" of his family since the death but the company should have given Mrs Kumar a cab ride home after working at night.
A Mindtree spokeswoman said: "We are working with the officials of both the countries to help the family to bring her body back to Bengaluru (Bangalore)."
"We are providing all the necessary support to authorities investigating the case."
Yadu Singh, president of the Indian Australian Association of NSW, said neither the Sydney Indian community nor the Indian media were treating the death as a race-related crime.
But he said the community felt "sadness, shock, frustration, agitation and even a bit of resentment" at a lack of security in Western Sydney.
Mr Singh said in the last 10 years it had become more common for Indian women to work overseas and send money back to their families.
