HOUSING officials have just checked that the home of murdered toddler Dean Shillingsworth is still secure, amid fears it could become a target for violence.

With community outrage running high over the tragic case, police and Department of Housing staff are taking steps to keep the Rosemeadow home safe from possible revenge attacks.

The mother of little Dean - whose body was found in a suitcase in a nearby pond last week - is incustody on suspicion of his murder.

The boy's father is in prison on an unrelated issue.

The house has been boarded up by police to keep it safe from revenge attacks - sources believe officers were worried about a possible firebombing - and to preserve the scene while officers gather evidence.

Department of Housing officials today said the home may be rented out in due course to a new tenant.

"Police have still got control of the site so it's in their hands at rhe moment," one said.

Earlier today The Daily Telegraph told how the grandmother of murdered toddler Dean Shillingsworth made a desperate visit to Campbelltown police station last Thursday, worried about the welfare of the little boy.

Ann Coffey, Dean's primary carer , had not seen the boy with the cheeky smile since June 7, when she left him with his mother Rachel Pfitzner for a pre-arranged visit.

The two-year-old's naked body, inside a tartan suitcase, had only been recovered about 5pm the previous day when a group of curious children fished the case out of a duck pond at nearby Ambarvale.

As Ms Coffey sat inside the southwestern Sydney police station, she saw the suitcase, hoping it did not spell tragedy for her grandson - the son of her own son, Paul Shillingsworth, who is in jail at Junee.

"She was in another room and saw the suitcase brought in," family spokeswoman Josie Windsor told The Daily Telegraph yesterday.

A police officer drove Ms Coffey around to the Pindarus Way, Rosemeadow, home occupied by Pfitzner and her boyfriend of more than a year.

But the little Aboriginal boy she had raised in Tamworth since he was a baby was not to be found.

"A young guy answered the door and said he (Dean) had already gone to (child) welfare," Ms Windsor said.

The terrible truth of the child who slipped through the cracks and fell victim to murder emerged yesterday.

While police were still yet to confirm the cause of death, the little boy was allegedly killed on October 11, six days before his body was discovered in the suitcase which had been weighted down.

Dean's 26-year-old mother was arrested for his murder on Saturday and subsequently charged, while her 29-year-old boyfriend was questioned and released.

Dean's grandparents on both sides of the family said that if the child protection system worked as it should, Dean would be alive today.

"It should never have happened," Ms Coffey's husband Edmund Cavan said yesterday.

The couple and extended family visited the Ambarvale duck pond yesterday to lay flowers, stuffed toys and the Aboriginal flag in tribute to the little boy whose death has caused community outrage.

The family volunteered photographs of little Dean to The Daily Telegraph, with Ms Coffey giving her written permission to put a face and a name to the tragic victim.

Pfitzner's mother, meanwhile, said her daughter was having difficulty coping with caring for the boy.

She said Pfitzner had informed the Department of Community Services (DOCS) a couple of months ago that he would be better raised by Ms Coffey, who has raised him since he was 14 months old.

Yet, the woman told The Daily Telegraph, DOCS did nothing to assist.

"She reached out for help and nobody helped her," the mother, who did not wish to be named, said yesterday. She said Pfitzner was "upset nobody was helping her".

"She was struggling, you could see she was struggling."

Pfitzner's mother said the last time she saw her daughter was during a visit to Pfitzner's home last Tuesday, when she seemed

A WOMAN is helping police with their investigation into the death of a young boy found in a suitcase dumped in a south-western Sydney pond.

A police spokesman confirmed a woman was being interviewed in relation to the death at Ambarvale, where the decomposed body of a child stuffed in a suitcase was found by local children on Wednesday.

The breakthrough came as police last night smashed their way into a house in connection with the discovery of a small boy's body inside a suitcase in a Sydney duck pond.

As many as 12 police cars, including a wagon, converged on Pindarus Way, Rosemeadow, near Campbelltown, about 8pm.

The cul-de-sac is less than a kilometre from where the body of the toddler - now believed to be as young as two - was found on Wednesday.

Plainclothes officers broke down the door of a house where a couple live with their three children, aged about eight, six and two.

"They smashed into the house with a battering ram and tore the house apart," neighbour David Edge told The Daily Telegraph.

"Everyone in the street was questioned about the family. We were asked when we had seen them last; if we had seen the children.

"I have not seen the father since the weekend and the mother was last here on Monday. I didn't see the boy who was in the stroller."

Another neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: "We have not seen (the family) since Sunday."

Other residents in the Department of Housing home in the street have been spoken to about the family for the past two days.

One local said the youngest boy, believed to be aged about two, had not been seen in recent weeks.

"There was always the three of them. Then only two, the older two," he said.

"We just thought (he was with DOCS). But there's police all over their home. He was always in the pram."

Police last night sealed the street, with media barred from entering. "I was asked if I knew the family and about the boy found in the pond," a resident said.

A post-mortem examination was conducted on the boy's body yesterday, which revealed he was younger than originally thought - aged between two and four.

A search of the pond by 12 police divers ended yesterday, with the removal of the crime scene tape that has surrounded the whole Mandura-ma Reserve.

A small blue tartan suitcase containing the boy's naked body was retrieved from the pond by curious children about 5pm on Wednesday.

Police inquiries are continuing into whether it had been there for a week.

Detectives from Strike Force Eber yesterday revealed the child's revised age made the investigation even more difficult, due to the lack of school and dental records for a two-year-old.

Detective Superintendent Geoff Beresford said police were hopeful further forensic examinations on the body would give them a stronger idea about the boy's identity and cause of death.

Supt Beresford said the fact the boy had still not been formally reported missing raised questions about the child's parents.

"The normal profile naturally is that (if) the child is missing, their parents or relatives would report that child and at this point we still don't have any formal reporting of a missing child," he said.