A major manhunt continues for a man who stabbed an elderly woman to death in a shopping centre car park near Brisbane.

The 70-year-old had finished grocery shopping with her granddaughter at Redbank Plains near Ipswich when she was stabbed in the chest by a man in the centre’s underground car park about 6pm on Saturday.

She died at the scene a short time later after attempts to revive her failed.

The six-year-old girl was unharmed.

Robbery is the suspected motive of the woman’s attacker, who remains on the run.

Police are reviewing CCTV footage and Detective Acting Superintendent Heath McQueen said the incident was difficult to watch.

“It’s extremely confronting for first response officers, bystanders who intervened shortly after to provide medical assistance,” he said.

The offender’s alleged getaway car, a 2009 Hyundai Getz with Queensland registration, was found in the nearby suburb of Springfield Lakes on Sunday morning.

The car will be forensically examined and police are appealing for anyone who may have seen it between 6pm and 7pm on Saturday night to make contact.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles said he had been briefed on the “awful murder” and backed police to find the culprit.

“It is an abhorrent crime, a terribly violent crime, a crime committed, it sounds like, in front of a very young relative of the victim,” he told reporters on Sunday.

“I know our police are working just as hard as they can to catch this perpetrator and no doubt the courts will take this crime as seriously as I do.”

He said nobody deserved to die that way and flagged police would provide an update later on Sunday.

“No doubt they will catch this murderer and I hope they throw the book at him,” Mr Miles said.