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AUSTRALIA-CRIME
Three toddlers among dead in Australia mass killing
PERTH, Australia, Sept 10, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The bodies of three pre-school
girls were among five people found dead at an Australian suburban home,
authorities confirmed Monday — as new details emerged of a grizzly multiple
killing that has shocked the country.
Police found the remains of the toddlers, as well as those of their mother
and grandmother at an unassuming detached family home near the south-western
city of Perth.
The discovery came after a man, aged in his 20s, visited a regional police
station earlier Sunday, investigators said.
Western Australia police said Monday the “five people killed were twin
two-year-old girls, a three and a half-year-old girl, their mother and
grandmother”.
“The man currently assisting police remains in custody, no charges have
been laid at this time.”
No further details about when and how they were killed, or the family’s
relationship with the man, were released.
A neighbour told national broadcaster ABC he had returned from a holiday
to “silence in the street”.
“We noticed that the house next door was pretty quiet, which was unusual,
being that they had the young kids,” Richard Fairbrother, who lives next door
to the family’s house, said.
“We had some friends staying here who have also mentioned that they didn’t
see or hear anybody next door for the week that we were away… we could hear
and see the kids playing in the backyard quite often.”
Other neighbours spoke of a community that was close, calm and peaceful.
Mass killings are rare in Australia, but this appears to be the third such
family tragedy to hit Western Australia state in recent months.
In July a man allegedly killed his mother and two siblings. A grandfather
shot dead his wife, daughter and her four children in murder-suicide in May.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0818 hrs