Grandmother arrested over deaths of two boys in Coonabarabran

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Police are treating the deaths of two young boys in regional New South Wales as a double murder. The bodies of the children aged six and seven were found in a home at Coonabarabran during a welfare check.

Transcript

00:00Police say a 66-year-old grandmother is likely to face serious charges after two boys, a

00:09six- and a seven-year-old, were found dead at a rural property in Coonabarabran in western

00:14New South Wales. We heard from police this afternoon giving us some more details as to

00:20what they've described as tragic scenes that two young police officers walked into yesterday

00:26afternoon. Now it's understood that police received a concerns for welfare call at about

00:322pm after the Department of Communities and Justice was notified the two boys hadn't attended

00:38school. Police attended the property about 10 kilometres north of the small rural township

00:44of Coonabarabran at about two o'clock yesterday afternoon. We're told that police had to force

00:49their way in and when they got in they discovered the body of the youngest boy, the six-year-old

00:56in one of the rooms. They say they then found the 66-year-old grandmother who had attempted

01:01self-harm in another room and upon further search of the property they found the body of the

01:08other boy, the seven-year-old boy. Now the grandmother was transferred to Dubbo Base Hospital and where

01:15she remained under police guard. She's since been transferred to a mental health facility

01:22in Orange in the central west of New South Wales where she's expected to undergo assessments.

01:27Police say that once she is cleared or discharged from that facility she will return to police

01:34custody where they say she's likely to face serious charges. They say that they're treating

01:40this as a suspected double murder. Police involved have identified that the 66-year-old female has been

01:47conveyed to Dubbo Hospital. She's been since transferred to a mental health facility in Orange

01:52where she'll be detained for the near future until she improves. Upon release she will then be handed back

02:02to police custody where as likely she'll face serious charges. Now we've learned that the 66-year-old

02:08grandmother was the sole carer of the two boys who were in state care and had been for some time.

02:15We understand that they moved to this area, Coonabarabran, about 11 months ago. So weren't necessarily

02:22very well known in this community but just walking through town today it feels extremely eerie and

02:29there's a sense of shock that has fallen over this community. Police say that the biological parents

02:36of the boys have also been notified of their deaths and understandably they say they're not doing well.

02:43Now it's not yet clear what injuries the boys or the grandmother had but a post-mortem on the two

02:51boys will be conducted on Thursday morning which should shed some more light onto the actual causes

02:58of their death. Police and the Department of Education are also urging anyone who needs mental

03:04health support or counselling during this time that they're throwing all resources available to the

03:10community to help them through this period. We know that a lot of parents will be having some difficult

03:15conversations with their children as to why these two boys haven't shown up to school today.

03:21This is something that will take the community a long time to come to terms with and will continue

03:27to be extremely confronting as more details emerge.

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