Police release interview footage of Gunnedah teen killer

Video footage of police speaking with a teenager who killed a 10-year-old girl in country NSW has been released for the first time by the courts. See the video here

A teen who killed a 10-year-old girl in country NSW had earlier told her mother: “I think about killing people all the time” before a local GP advised she would send a referral for a specialist in Sydney that never arrived.

And the mother told the GP her daughter heard voices in her head, played disturbing video games for hours and had killed a chicken for no reason at their Gunnedah farmhouse.

The Tamworth GP described some of the teen’s actions as “standard teenager behaviour but … concerning”.

Bodycam footage of the teen being placed into a police van after she was found in a neighbouring rural property.

The teen speaks to two detectives while seated next to a NSW Ambulance chaplain who is a support person. The interview was a few hours after the killing.

Agreed facts tendered to the teen’s NSW Supreme Court trial stated that the GP said the mother would receive a phone call about the referral, but about one week later when the 10-year-old was killed at the farm she had never been contacted.

Just before the GP appointment, the teen laid down next to her mother in their living room and said: “Mum, I want to tell you something, but I’m not sure how you will react” to which the mother replied: “Try me”.

“I think about killing people all the time,” the teen said.

The teen also brought up the topic of killing chickens during the conversation, according to the documents.

On July 8, 2020, she killed the 10-year-old girl at the farm. The details of the killing are suppressed by the courts.

A court heard the teen was suffering from undiagnosed schizophrenia at the time.

At the time of the incident, the teen had not at any time seen a psychiatrist or psychologist, had not been diagnosed with any conditions and was not taking any medication.

Newly released police bodycam and interview footage has shown the moment officers found the teen in a neighbouring rural property sitting calmly on a chair following the attack.

A plainclothes Detective appeared startled in the vision and asked: “Do you understand what you’ve done?” The teen replied: “Yep”.

The teen gave an interview at a police station only a few hours after the incident and told two detectives she had argued with the 10-year-old the night prior.

Emergency crews at the scene following the incident.

“(It was about) her saying I’m creepy and I should be in a mental hospital … just because I was laughing, my laugh sort of sounds like a hyena’s,” the teen said in the footage.

“(I was) furious, I get told that a lot at school … I get called a psycho b-i-t-c-h, I guess it’s cause I smile creepy”.

She also told police about a game called “serial killers”.

“Serial killers as in a term as in pretend I’m a serial killer and you’re the victims, just run away and I’ll just be a bit intimidating and stuff so it makes the game, puts it a bit more on edge … it’s just another way of calling a game something,” she said.

Following the killing police also seized diary entries the teen had written.

In one entry written a day before she killed the 10-year-old she wrote: “I will if I can take mum’s phone so I only have dad to worry about calling the police, I’ll beat the sh** sticks out of dad and kill mum, but I can’t be too loud because I have Gramma and Pop to worry about along with Aunty … so If I’m correct my kill count will be 11 people.”

The teen pleaded not guilty to murder due to mental illness in the NSW Supreme Court this week and a judge returned a verdict of act proven but not criminally responsible.

The court heard she had undiagnosed schizophrenia at the time of the killing and was hearing voices “coaxing her to kill”.

She will be detained in a youth justice sentence indefinitely and is now under the control of a mental health tribunal.