Police charge Cairns mother with murder of eight children

An Australian woman was charged with the murder of eight children including her four sons and three daughters.

Mersana Warria, 37, who was taken to hospital on Friday after the bodies were found, was charged in a bedside hearing before a magistrate on Sunday. She remains under police guard and has been excused from attending a Cairns magistrates court hearing on Monday.

The victims have been formally identified as her daughters aged 12, 11 and two, her sons aged nine, eight, six and five, and her niece aged 14.

Their bodies were found at a house in the north Queensland city’s suburb of Manoora on Friday.

Detective Inspector Bruno Asnicar did not say how police would allege the killings took place, and that investigators were yet to piece together a full sequence of events.

Asnicar said the children were found stabbed to death, while the woman was suffering from stab wounds to the chest. Several knives in the home are being examined, while suffocation was also a possible a cause of death.

Asnicar said he expected autopsies would be completed later on Sunday.

Asnicar said the rest of the woman’s family, including the five fathers of her children and parents of her niece, had been advised of the charges.

“It would come as no surprise that this is a very raw, very emotive time for everybody,” he said.

“The family’s deeply, deeply upset. But the community’s pulling together … I think it’s as good as it can be out of tragic, tragic circumstances.”

The tragedy comes as Australia is still reeling from the shock of a deadly siege in a Sydney cafe. During the siege, a gunman burst into the café and took 18 hostages. Two hostages were killed while the gunman was shot dead by police to end the standoff.