Identifying and interviewing as many as a dozen teenagers involved in a fight near the Weston skatepark on Sunday morning is the key to police locating and arresting the offender who produced a knife and stabbed an 18-year-old man to death.
While police are cautious in their language about the homicide in which one young man died and a 16-year-old youth suffered serious stab wounds around 1am on Sunday in the carpark, the violence which triggered the fatal incident appears to have culminated from an earlier confrontation that night.
Both victims were known to each other, police said.
Numerous people and a number of cars had gathered in the Dillon Close carpark between midnight and 1am and police are painstakingly combing through CCTV vision gleaned from numerous businesses and private sources in the area in an effort to track and identify those involved.
At least one witness revealed on social media that he had phoned triple zero at the time of incident.
The injured youth was reported to be recovering in hospital, and his account will be critical to the next phase of the police investigation.
ACT Policing's Detective Superintendent Scott Moller said police had already spoken with a number of young people who had been involved or in the area of the fight at the location on the night.
"We've had a significant amount of information come in already," he said.
Supt Moller, in charge of criminal investigations, would not reveal whether the knife used in the stabbing had been found, only to say that police had recovered a "number of exhibits" after a line search of the scene by SES volunteers on Sunday.
"All those exhibits are being forensically examined for DNA and fingerprints; that process could take quite some time," he said.
The victim's white Toyota is also being examined.
He said there was varying ages of people gathered at the scene at the time, from 16 years old through to adults.
He understood that some of the young people involved would be concerned for their safety if they went to police with their accounts.
Parents of some of the teens who had important information may not be aware of their children's activities that night and Supt Moller's advice was equally relevant to them as it was to their children.
He issued a veiled warning that it was better that any information was provided on a voluntary basis, rather than through a tougher, more intrusive line of inquiry.
"I think it's like most incidents, people are concerned about what they are going to tell the police," he said.
"I'd encourage them to tell the truth. We'll work with them and work through the details. The important thing is that everyone who is involved comes forward. We don't want to go down the track of knocking on people's doors and executing search warrants and stuff like that. We'd much prefer that the people come forward and talk about how the incident played out."
He scotched any suggestion that the incident was gang-related and said "there's no evidence at this stage of drugs being involved".
The incident has sparked further calls for a police station in the area to better provide for Weston Creek, as well as the fast-growing adjoining new suburbs of Wright and Coombs.
