Tag Archives: north

This is so sad. We can’t even imagine how traumatic it must’ve been for the neighbors who overheard screams coming from the home. Via DailyMail reports : The chilling sound of a woman pleading for forgiveness was heard coming from the home where eight children were found stabbed to death on Friday in Cairns. The 20-year-old brother of most of the victims alerted authorities. On Thursday night a woman was heard shouting: ‘Don’t let them take them away from us. God bless us. Forgive me for what I’ll do.’ A neighbor said they heard a woman screaming in a mixture of English and Torres Strait Creole, a native language of islanders. Mersane Warria, who is also known as Raina Thaiday, is a person of interest in the deaths of the children, according to reports by the Courier Mail. Far Northern Region Acting Chief Superintendent Russell Miller confirmed Ms Warria was a person of interest in relation to the deaths of her seven children and niece, the Sun Herald reported. Ms Warria was also rushed to hospital in a critical condition with stab wounds to her chest. The 34-year-old remains in Cairns Hospital in a stable condition and will undergo a mental health assessment. On Friday night police had still not laid any charges. Cairns Regional Crime Co-ordinator Detective Inspector Bruno Asnicar described the massacre as a ‘tragic and traumatic event’. Details about what investigators found inside the house have not been revealed but a neighbor said she had been told there were bloody scenes ‘everywhere’ inside. Officers who arrived first on the scene said it was like ‘something out of a horror movie’. This sounds really awful, but apparently there were some warning signs. Thursday a neighbor said she saw the mother taking personal possessions from her home to her front yard saying she was going to ‘make a fresh start’, writes the Courier Mail. A 13-year-old girl said she walked two of her girlfriends to the Murray Street house on Thursday evening after they had been shopping. She said when they got to the house, the older girl’s mother – Ms Warria – came out and gave her money for a taxi home. ‘She was saying stuff about God and other stuff,’ she told AAP near the crime scene on Friday afternoon. She said: ‘Papa God gave me the power to do anything.’ Warria also told the girl she was a ‘warrior’. The brother/cousin who found the crime scene is being comforted by family. A relative has told of her horror after the bodies of eight children aged between 18 months and 15-years-old, were found dead at a Cairns home following a massacre just six days before Christmas. Ms Warria’s devastated cousin, Lisa Thaiday told reporters the woman was the children’s mother. ‘I just can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Those poor babies.’ Ms Thaiday said another sibling, a 20-year-old man, arrived home to discover his brothers and sisters dead inside the house and alerted the authorities. He is now being consoled by other family members. ‘I’m going to see him now, he needs comforting,’ Ms Thaiday said. She described the family and extended relatives as close-knit and many live in surrounding suburbs. ‘We’re a big family and most of us are from the (Torres) Strait,’ she said, adding that she rushed to the scene after hearing about the incident on the radio. Can you imagine a family experiencing so much loss, just a few days before Christmas? Our thoughts and prayers are with the Thaiday family. AP Images Continue reading →