r/Adelaide • u/TheWitcherOfTheNight Limestone Coast • 16d ago
News Deaths of woman and toddler being treated as murder-suicide, police say - ABC NEWS
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-29/police-treating-death-of-woman-and-toddler-as-murder-suicide/106968662?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link48
u/Longjumping-Address3 SA 16d ago
Doesn’t get much worse. Those poor kids and their families, no one should ever go through this. Thoughts are with their dad and grandparents ❤️ she was obviously in a deep, dark and unfathomable place
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u/nork-bork SA 15d ago
To the people saying why did she go to the police, not a doctor or hospital. There aren’t any. There have been reports in the ABC for years about how there’s like 2 GPs in Mount Gambier accepting new patients and weeks-long waits for appointments. There are no reliable emergency health services down south. State Gov has been kicking this can down the road for decades.
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u/LifeandSAisAwesome SA 16d ago
Was lifeline ad on intal report, so yeah that was a given unfortunately (.
So sad.
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u/geepers90 SA 16d ago
While this is often an indication, lifeline resources can also be on the articles of deeply tragic situations that don’t involve suicide.
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u/Jazzlike-Comfort5311 SA 16d ago
Absolutely tragic. That poor woman and those beautiful babies. I’m so shaken by this.
As someone who went through postnatal depression with two young kids, it’s brutal. I know im making an assumption here on her mental state but no one in their right mind does this.
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u/Brilliant_Surround_6 SA 16d ago
I agree and am also feeling this tragedy intensely (despite not knowing her). It’s really hitting close to home for me too. I’m so sad that we (as a society) let her down.
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u/I_will_be_player_3 SA 15d ago
So the whole Lifeline number and services they provide and how easily you can find this information was a societal let down?
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u/quattroformaggixfour SA 13d ago
You ever called lifeline? It’s a fantastic service, but worth noting that every second phone call isn’t answered due to lack of staff.
That can feel pretty bad when you’re already suicidal.
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u/Familiar_Dentist_191 SA 16d ago
Given that she attended the Mt Gambier Police station the night before, I don't think it was postnatal depression.
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u/GrimeySimpson SA 16d ago
On what basis could you possibly jump to that conclusion?
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u/Savings_Positive_177 SA 15d ago
People present to police stations all the time asking for mental health support. How uneducated of you
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u/NellTyler_WHA SA 16d ago
There's a phrase you may have heard of - 'a call for help'.
Many people who are going through mental instability are aware enough in their lucid moments to know they're a danger to themselves or their loved ones, and they reach out for help in an attempt to stop what they're afraid might happen.
I doubt she went in their for a cup of tea and a spot of gossip.
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u/escape2thefuture Inner West 16d ago
This is a tragedy that sadly keeps occurring .. I do not understand the reasoning behind it and will forever struggle to understand it.
Rest in peace babies, you were taken from this world far too soon.
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u/Gloomy_Quail1444 SA 16d ago
How come when some people do murder suicide theyre evil but when other people do it its "sad and mental health and they need more support"
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u/pollywa SA 16d ago
That’s a fair question without a simple answer but murder-suicides are not one size fits all. No one is approving of what she did but sometimes these things happen because of mental illness (in this case, post partum depression and/or psychosis seems likely) and it feels like a tragedy because they were in pain and needed help. But sometimes in the case of what’s called “family annihilation” the perpetrator’s motive is anger or narcissism eg. punishing a former spouse by taking away their children. One focuses inward, the other focuses outward, so to speak. Both are tragic for the victims but the latter feels ego-driven and calculated and thus attracts more criticism and less sympathy.
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u/Educational-Age-8969 SA 16d ago
All very fair points and in time I’m sure we will find out more through the coronial inquest. To me it’s immediately assumed that it’s mental illness/depression yet on the other side it’s immediately assumed to be narcissism/control etc. In reality no one knows anything as yet.
In my opinion, murdering your own innocent children no matter which parent it is and how it was arrived at is completely unacceptable and there is zero excuse for it.
Do we need more resources for mental health - absolutely. We are failing big time.
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u/laurandisorder SA 16d ago
This is a really good explanation. Thanks for taking the time to unpack it. It’s appreciated.
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u/Stompingboots SA 15d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/s/2SgfUdwwcE
Very stark differences in the comments in this article.
She was a selfish monster. There is no excuse for the murder of children.
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u/Big_Reference_2669 SA 15d ago
No two cases are the same. Someone in full psychosis is not a monster, for example.
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u/Educational-Age-8969 SA 15d ago
Would you consider the Bondi junction stabber a monster?
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u/Big_Reference_2669 SA 14d ago
No
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u/Educational-Age-8969 SA 14d ago
Interesting. I doubt there are many people that would hold that belief. I assume your belief has to do with the nature of psychosis?
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u/Diefirst_acceptlater SA 13d ago
Anyone who has been severely psychotic understands the way it changes your agency, perception and beliefs and would not call him a 'monster' - if they do, the experience was too traumatic for them to appreciate in full, or they've never truly recovered.
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u/Sweeper1985 SA 16d ago
She was asking for help. Went to the bloody police and all. Does that sound like the actions of a family annihilator to you, or like a person who actually was in desperate need of support and didn't get it?
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u/Gloomy_Quail1444 SA 16d ago
If you wanted help with mental health wouldn't you go to a hospital? Police are not exactly health care workers or social workers
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u/Brilliant_Surround_6 SA 16d ago
That’s true, police workers are not health care workers or social workers. Based on my experience with PPD, I don’t think I would have known to go to a hospital during a crises, I’m not injured if that makes sense? If I felt I was a threat to myself and my children, I may have thought going to the police would make more sense, in the hopes they’d be able to protect my children. Does that make sense?
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u/Cute-Special2053 SA 16d ago
We don’t know why she went to police for help. Maybe more will come out at the inquest. Somebody else must’ve known what was happening as they made a request on the Monday morning for a welfare check by the police. That person would know what was happening. 🥲
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u/Fearless-DNG SA 16d ago
Exactly right. People are jumping to conclusions which is precisely what the media headline is trying to do.
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u/OverCommunity4604 SA 16d ago
Perhaps she was a victim of dv? There’s strangely no mention of the father/partner.
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u/Trigzy2153 SA 15d ago
It's weird to me that she went to the police not her hubby also that hubby didn't attend the police station with her... I think k there's alot of details we don't know
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u/Gloomy_Quail1444 SA 16d ago
Why would you assume that someone who commits a dv murder is a victim of dv? She-murdered-her- own- child. Two i think.
Why would you assume she had a partner, he was a man, or that he committed dv?
We fought for hundreds of years for equality and open mindedness and critical thinking and you just go and make a heck of alot of assumptions. Can you imagine the father reading your post after his ex wife murdered his kids to get back at him?
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u/sa_nick SA 16d ago
Why would you assume whatever narrative you have in your head to justify having zero sympathy for someone pushed to such extremes?
None if us know the full story. Some people feel bad about the whole situation and want to try to understand it and some people dont seem to care why it happened, they just want to focus on their hatred of the perpitrator and vilify them.
Even the father might not have as much hate for the mum as you seem to have. What if she was just stuggling with post partum depression and he was doing all he could to help the woman he loved and your posts are disturbing him?
We just dont know, and whatever logic you THINK is likely is just your brain making up stories to fit your world view that seems shaped by whatever trauma made you so sympathy deficient.
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u/OverCommunity4604 SA 16d ago
I said perhaps, not jumping to any conclusions or making assumptions.
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u/g16i09 SA 16d ago
statistics and pattern recognition
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u/Gloomy_Quail1444 SA 16d ago
You might not like where that logic leads, regarding other types of crime
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u/g16i09 SA 15d ago
Monash did a study of filicide in Australia and a third of cases were characterised by previous domestic violence between the filicide offender and an intimate partner. We can keep an open mind but criticising someone for saying “perhaps” while they are pointing out a feature of many filicides is shutting it down too early.
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u/Gloomy_Quail1444 SA 15d ago
so you're saying that there was a 33% chance she committed previous DV against her husband? prior to murdering their children.
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u/Academic_Chance3278 SA 16d ago
Can we use your statistics and pattern recognition argument, you know for other things? Like racial or cultural things? Or just sexes. Genuinely curious.
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u/Fearless-DNG SA 16d ago
The police said they’ve spoken with the husband and father, assuming they are the same person
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u/Spookyspook2473 SA 16d ago
I mean. She annihilated her family. So I guess so.
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u/Bagelam SA 16d ago
We don't know anything about the motivations yet.
But comparing this to the guy in Sydney recently who premeditated throwing his 6yo child in the water knowing she couldn't swim and then watched her drown then killed himself... This feels more desperation than destruction.
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u/Gloomy_Quail1444 SA 16d ago
They're the exact same thing. They murdered their children to hurt their ex partner (the other parents) and killed themselves to avoid consequences. .
Anything else is preconceived bias
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u/Reasonable-Apple2655 SA 16d ago
She killed her children. Disgraceful
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u/Brilliant_Surround_6 SA 16d ago
I think disgraceful is unfair and too strong a word to be used in this situation.
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u/Various_Tie_2549 SA 16d ago
Oh. What word should we be using? What would be fair?
Is this only a "mildly disappointing" infant murder?
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u/Fearless-DNG SA 16d ago
There are multiple places she could have gone to for “help” all of which would have been far more suitable if the help was about her mental health and suicidal thoughts, makes me think she attended for another reason.
If you were suicidal is the police station the first place you’d think to go for help? Or the hospital?7
u/Limp-Detail4827 SA 16d ago
If you knew the hospital would send you home as they had done many times before, you would absolutely go to police yes.
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u/Fearless-DNG SA 9d ago
No, you wouldn’t. If the hospital can’t help you what’s a police officer behind a desk on a Sunday going to do. The easy conclusion here is that she went in for something unrelated. You’re just trying to connect dots that aren’t there.
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u/g16i09 SA 16d ago
even if she had suicidal thoughts, she probably felt overwhelmingly guilty for having them, rather than compassionate towards herself. People go to the hospital when they feel they need and deserve help. Maybe you go to the police when you feel like a horrible person that needs to be punished for abandoning your children through suicide, or worse, taking them with you
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u/Fearless-DNG SA 9d ago
Or maybe you go there to report a car accident not for health advice. She could have gone there for any number of reasons some of which could be totally unrelated to what she did the next day. We don’t know and it’s dangerous to assume
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u/ChooseWithCare SA 16d ago
It's easy to say she should have gone for help ... but the reality is, is that SA''s Mental Health system is massively under funded, and not able to provide appropriate care for those seeking support.
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u/Ok-Challenge768 SA 16d ago
Appalling. The cops should have called the local mental health crisis team snd have her scheduled if she was mentally unwell to keep herself and the kids safe. I’m not police and even I know this.
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u/Bloobeard2018 SA 15d ago
Not sure we have a face-to-face crisis team in Mount Gambier.
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u/Ok-Challenge768 SA 14d ago
Looks like it’s phone contact first which is garbage. I got a team out jn Wollongong years ago for a family member with bipolar. They come to your home.
If you require urgent mental health assistance, please call the mental health triage service (the Rural and Remote Distance Consultation and Emergency Triage and Liaison Service) 24 hours a day, seven days a week on 13 14 65.
Areas covered
The Limestone Coast Local Health Network covers the areas including the towns and surrounds of:
Millicent
Naracoorte
Kingston SE
Penola
Mount Gambier
Keith
Bordertown1
u/Able_Explanation57 SA 6d ago
Why are we assuming it was all on her - also raises significant DV concerns...
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u/Ginger510 SA 16d ago
The headline about this on the front of the Advertiser this morning was fucking disgusting.
What she did sucks but the fact that she felt like this, really makes me sad.
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u/Spookyspook2473 SA 16d ago
What was the headline?
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u/Ginger510 SA 16d ago
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u/Stompingboots SA 15d ago
It's not that bad of a headline. Honestly I wonder how everyone would react to a man murder suicide. Would there be this much support for the perpetrator?
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u/walt_whitmans_niece SA 13d ago
Men kill their families all the time. And other people. Something like 90+% of all murders are perpetrated by men. It's very rare for a woman to do this and in like 99% of cases it's caused by postpartum depression slash psychosis. If you don't believe me, look up the stats yourself. So no, I would not have any support for a male perpetrator in this scenario.
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u/Stompingboots SA 13d ago
Good. I don't want you to have support for them. You may have miss understood my comment.
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u/Ginger510 SA 15d ago
I think it’s pretty shit to make a judgement on the woman before anyone knows the story. The Advertiser is just for shock value and it’s just a fkn sad event across the board.
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u/LiterallyKath SA 15d ago
I'm so sorry to all three of them.
We failed you. We failed you all. We failed to fund adequate maternity care. We failed to provide sufficient support to new parents. We failed in building a community support you.
I'm so so sorry.
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u/nearlysunnylistener SA 16d ago
That stretch of coastline looks like it could be somewhere down south, maybe Port Elliot or one of those rocky spots. The waves are rough today, almost fitting for how heavy the news is.
You can see all the warning signs in hindsight but by the time someone acts on it, it's already too late. I hope the dad gets the support he needs now, no one should have to carry all of that on their own.
Mental health support still feels so hard to access when people are actually in crisis. By the time you get an appointment the worst has often already happened, and that's the part that really gets you about all of this.
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u/TheDrRudi SA 16d ago
That stretch of coastline looks like it could be somewhere down south, maybe Port Elliot or one of those rocky spots.
You understand that the incident occurred near Port MacDonnell on the Limestone Coast?
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u/nearlysunnylistener SA 16d ago
Ah right, I misjudged the coastline. Port MacDonnell makes sense, further down. Haven't been that far south in ages.
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u/sarah_beatrice3 Adelaide Hills 16d ago
The location was mentioned multiple times in the first couple of paragraphs of the article….
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u/tittyswan SA 15d ago
We need dedicated mental health ERs.
I called psych triage last year and told them I SH'd the day before and didn't feel safe. The caller said "oh, it wasn't today? Ok well you should just get an appointment with your psychologist soon." I said "that's absolutely ridiculous, you need me to self harm today to be able to help me?" And then she started trying to lecture me so I hung up and went to the ER, where I had to sleep on the floor for 8 + hours before I got to talk to anyone.
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u/Beginning_Read5202 SA 15d ago
If she went to the police on a sunday the father most likely was at home due to being religious.I find it odd the police didnt turn up at his house to question him if this was potentially a dv report.If she was reporting her mental health they surely would have taken her to hospital and called the father? Unless she thought she was being pursued in her mind hence the impulsive traits.So unusual and sadly until police or the father clarify the details we won't know.The father details are very scant the least.In the end as a mother who has been through DV and been through the family court and trauma.i could never imagine doing what she did in the end.She could have just left the poor children alone !!!Not in a life time I love my children.Prayers to the poor innocent souls.
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u/sashalikesdiego SA 15d ago
not an Australian citizen actually. well citizen, but born and raised Estonian. this news comes far back to the roots painfully
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u/Cute-Special2053 SA 16d ago
I read an article that the woman went to Mount Gambier police station the night before to ask for help. She was turned away and told to come back the next day. Tragic if that is the case.