World News
Mother of children stabbed in their home charged with eight counts of murder─── 10:16 Sun, 21 Dec 2014
Cairns - Distraught family members of the eight children massacred in a Cairns home in north Queensland have visited the makeshift memorial to honour them as the woman allegedly responsible their deaths was charged with murder.
A group of about 40 people - made up of the elderly, parents, young children and babies - were seen walking up the road, and were heard screaming and crying in distress and anguish.
Some relatives were so overcome with emotion that they needed to be carried to the site.
They clutched flowers as they stumbled down the street to add to the growing pile - a symbol of the immense grief in the community for the lost lives of the little children.
Warria - also known as Raina Thaiday - appeared before a magistrate at the Cairns Base Hospital where she is being treated for stab wounds to the chest, which were possibly self-inflicted.
Before charges were laid, it was a heartbreaking scene near the house where the children were found as family members made their way up to the willow tree where tributes had been left for the young alleged victims.
The maternal grandmother of seven of the children who were killed wailed: 'No! No! My babies, my babies!'
She was supported by other family members as she wailed, her eyes closed in raw grief as she clutched a small white towel to her face to wipe away her tears.
She was supported by other family members as she wailed, her eyes closed in raw grief as she clutched a small white towel to her face to wipe away her tears.
Several men carried one of the fathers to the scene where he sat on a seat - weak and inconsolable.
He was frail and unable to hold his own body up as he screamed his children's names into the sky in a hoarse voice.
he father of the youngest four children was carried to add flowers to the tribute, collapsing on the floor and beating the ground at the foot of the tree.
‘Raiden’, ‘Rodney’, ‘Azza’ and ‘baby girl’, the father screamed over and over again in a rasping voice, while sobbing uncontrollably.
Family members mopped at his forehead with a wet cloth, desperate to do something to help the father in his distress.
Family members mopped at his forehead with a wet cloth, desperate to do something to help the father in his distress.
Eventually they had to pick him up - his limbs hanging limp - and take him back to the family home to try and console him.
The outpouring of grief comes after the babysitter for some of the children revealed she stopped working for Warria after the mood in the house shifted.
Cristal Atkinson's two-year stint as babysitter ended for Warria as she started feeling 'uncomfortable' with the atmosphere in the Murray Street home in Manoora, The Courier Mail reported.
It comes as officers refused to rule out that illegal drug use was part of their investigation on Sunday.
Ms Atkinson said she used to look after the children three to four times a week until Warria, 37, stopped calling her.
'There was a really different vibe in the house - it just didn't feel comfortable to be there,' Ms Atkinson said.
The babysitter - along with neighbours - have also described Warria's erratic behaviour just hours before police were called to the home and made the horrific discovery on Friday morning.
Ms Atkinson told News Corp the mother was seen shifting furniture out of her home with her children expected to have their night’s rest on mattresses in the garden.
'She was saying she wanted to start a new life,' Ms Atkinson said.
'About 24 hours before the kids were found, we saw her down the end of Murray St acting irrationally. Twenty-four hours later, we heard the sirens.'
Ms Atkinson said the community was in disbelief and in shock over the children's deaths.
Police told reporters on Sunday morning they had not ruled out drug use as part of their investigations.
Detective Inspector Bruno Asnicar said he was unable to comment on this other than it was 'a very important part of the investigation'.
'I want to make it clear I'm not dismissing it. I'm saying I can't discuss whether it's true or not,' he said.
Warria, who had suffered non life-threatening injuries in the incident, has been formally interviewed by police and post-mortems on the victims are expected to be done as soon as late Sunday.
Det Insp Asnicar said police were also exploring suffocation as a cause of death.
'We are considering that and that's why it's taking a bit of time,' he said.
'I've just told you the post-mortems have not been finished so I won't be able to say anything definite until they have been concluded.'
This comes as more neighbours reveal Warria, who is the mother to seven of the children and an aunt to the other, was seen by neighbours running through the street screaming at 3am on the morning the bodies were found.
She approached a group of children and 'had a go at them', according to one community member.
After her confrontation with the youngsters she wandered back towards her home.
Only hours earlier a neighbour, Tahnia Ruttensteiner, had witnessed her clearing toys from her house with her children, claiming she wanted 'a fresh start'.
Another member of the community claims in the weeks leading up to the massacre he had noticed the mother was behaving erratically.
The man, who has a respected standing in the Cairns Torres Strait Islander community, said Warria had been heard arguing with her husband over her 'ill health'.
He claims it was her behaviour, along with a bizarre turning to God, that led to Warria's husband walking out of the house just a few days before the atrocity.
'He's been heard shouting at her that if she didn't stop, he was leaving. And then he did, moving into a house with other relatives,' the man said.
Neighbours have expressed regrets that they did not approach her, but explained that they were used to noise from the house, where there were often loud parties.
They also explain that on troubled Murray Street, it is far from uncommon to hear screaming and shouting.
The revelations come as an uncle of the children found dead revealed he last spent time with his eight nieces and nephews just a day before they were found stabbed to death. Some of the children's 20-year-old brother was the one who found the gruesome scene.
Police have revealed the victims were four girls, aged 12, 11, and two, and four boys aged nine, eight, six, and five, and five fathers had been informed that their children had been killed in the massacre.
The children's uncle told Daily Mail Australia they were in the front yard of the Manoora property when he spoke to their mother.
He said one of the children's fathers had plans to take the kids away to Bamaga - the tip of Cape York in Queensland's far-north.
'The dad wanted to take the kids up to Bamaga. That's what he told me he was doing, he'd been talking about it for six weeks,' the uncle said.
The man claims his sister-in-law had 'found God and was changing her life around'.
'The last I saw them was the day before when she was cleaning up with the kids at the front,' he said.
'I was standing on the fence with me bike yarning to her for 10 minutes.
'She was saying that she'd kicked out the boys with drugs and found God and she was changing her life around.'
'She used to drink and that but she come good after the last lot of [the last four] kids.'
The uncle said the mother she had not been religious beforehand.
'She was when she was younger with her adopted mother but not after that,' he said.
'She had this church DVD she was always watching. She'd started preaching to me in the last week or so. Always talking about God.'
Another cousin, who wanted to be identified only as Raniet, told Daily Mail Australia on Saturday Warria had turned to God just days before the killings.
Raniet - a Torres Strait name - said Mersane Warria took her seven children to St Margaret's Anglican Church a few kilometres from her home last Sunday and sat them all in a pew, holding her 18-month-old baby in her arms.
'We haven't seen her there before and it was very strange that she should have taken all the children along with her,' she said.
'We haven't seen her there before and it was very strange that she should have taken all the children along with her,' she said.
Reverend Don Ford confirmed the mother-of-seven had turned up at his small church and had sat with the children in a pew 'towards the rear'.
'In fact, she has been two or three times, week after week, with the children and was noticeable because of all the children she had with her,' Rev Ford said.
'The only conversation I had with her was when we met after the service and she introduced herself and said she was looking for a new church.
'The only conversation I had with her was when we met after the service and she introduced herself and said she was looking for a new church.
'That was the extent of the conversation and of course I've been shocked to learn what happened yesterday.'
The father of some of the murdered children, identified as 'Gavin', was filled with grief as he stood in the park with other family members on Saturday before he moved off.
'He's in deep shock and it's getting deeper as the hours go by,' a grandmother said.
Nodding towards a house in a neighbouring street on the other side of a small park, she added: 'He lives just across there. He's been wandering around a bit but he's disappeared. We feel sorry for him. The shock he feels must be greater than all of us.'
Police have confirmed they found a number of weapons, specifically 'edged weapons, knives', at the property.
Daily Mail
