Detectives are urgently seeking the two women, who could hold “crucial” information to their homicide investigation, now entering its third week. Mr Gajic, 71, was found dead with severe head injuries in his apartment on Mansfield Place on New Year’s Day.

Screams were heard as friends made the grim discovery of Mr Gajic’s body, hours after he is thought to have been killed. It was revealed on Saturday that a suspect linked to the murder was no longer on Canberra’s streets, and was no longer at liberty due to other, separate charges.

Police were tipped off to the existence of the two women by other witnesses they have talked to in the weeks following Mr Gajic’s death.

Detective Sergeant Anthony Brown urged the women to come forward, saying they were not being treated as suspects. “The two women were walking into or around Mansfield Place on the morning of the incident,” he said. “We believe they may have seen other witnesses or possibly our offender coming into or leaving Mansfield Place and our victim’s residence.”

The only description available of the women is that one is middle-aged, and the other mature-aged.

It is unclear whether a weapon was used in the killing of Mr Gajic, a drug dealer who was known to police before his death. Police suspect he may have been killed in the middle of the morning, but was not discovered for a number of hours.

Detective Sergeant Brown said police had spoken with a large number of witnesses. “We’re pursuing a number of persons of interest and following up on a number of lines of inquiry,” he said.

Mr Gajic’s death is the third suspected murder in the Canberra region in recent weeks.

His death came a week after the discovery of the death of 27-year-old Nicholas Sofer-Schreiber in Lyneham, on December 28. Mr Sofer-Schreiber, a legally blind orphan, was stabbed to death in his unit some time before December 28.

His death shocked many in Canberra, and sparked an outpouring of grief and tribute from friends and others who knew him through the punk rock scene.

Criminal investigations detectives are continuing to investigate the homicide, and have previously stated they have identified several “persons of interest”. Police have said that both murders require the “highest degree” of investigation, and have assured the community that both cases are progressing well.

Meanwhile, a Queanbeyan man was charged with murder after a man house-sitting for a friend was found dead in a home on January 2. The man had allegedly been mowed down by a car in Queanbeyan on December 20, but had since been released from hospital. The man’s alleged killer will appear in Goulburn Local Court in March.

There is no suggestion the three cases are linked.