Death of 6yo prompts major police investigation

The death of a six-year-old girl has prompted a large scale investigation with echoes of the notorious ‘house of horror’.

Police are investigating if a six-year-old girl who died over the weekend was a victim of criminal neglect.

There are also serious concerns for five other children living in the same household in Adelaide’s north.

Paramedics found the girl at the home in Munno Para in the early hours of last Friday.

She was taken to the nearby Lyell McEwin Hospital but died shortly after arriving.

It is understand the girl was in poor health at the time, prompting police to declare her death a Major Crime.

Officers also removed the five other children, who are siblings of the girl and aged between seven and 16 years old.

The poor health of a 6-year-old girl who died in hospital last week has prompted a criminal neglect investigation.

Task Force Prime was formed to investigate whether what happened to the younger girl is a case of criminal neglect causing death which carries a maximum term of life imprisonment.

Police are also investigating criminal neglect charges relating to the other siblings.

Connections to Adelaide’s infamous “House of Horror” have been drawn in which three adults were jailed in 2008 following shocking instances of neglect and abuse.

Police uncovered the starvation of multiple children at a home in Parafield Gardens after one of the children was taken to the same Lyell McEwin Hospital with a head injury and severe hypothermia.

It was revealed the children were living in appalling conditions in a three-bedroom house along with five adults.

Tania Staker was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2011 with six years non-parole, over cases of abuse and neglect in Adelaide’s “House of Horrors”.

The children were periodically fed two-minute noodles, small amounts of hot chips or dog food.

Tania Staker was found to be instrumental to the abuse, spending welfare money on pokie machines, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2011 with six years non-parole.

Her boyfriend Luke Armistead, brother Michael Quinlivan and Armistead’s former stepfather, Robert Armistead – were each jailed for nine years, with six year non-parole periods.