The quest for answers in a Cairns mother’s dark past

THE Cairns mother accused of murdering eight children lived a life marred by dysfunction and trauma before the killings.

ALLEGEDLY abused as a child, pregnant in her mid-teens, and bashed in the head with a hammer a decade ago, the Cairns mother accused of murdering eight children lived a life marred by dysfunction and trauma before the killings she now calls “the incident”.

Relatives of the young victims yesterday were united in unrestrained grief as 37-year-old Raina Mersane Ina Thaiday, also known as Mersane Warria, was formally charged with the murders of her seven youngest children and her niece.

Police are working around the clock to piece together what could have driven Ms Thaiday to allegedly stab to death three daughters, aged 12, 11, and two; four sons, aged nine, eight, six and five; and her 14-year-old niece on Friday morning in her home in the western Cairns suburb of Manoora. Those familiar with the horrific scene have described seeing bodies and blood throughout the house.

Senior investigators yesterday dismissed suggestions Ms Thaiday was high on the drug “ice” at the time of the killings, and confirmed they were probing her recent and refreshed religious devotion.

For the four Sundays before the alleged mass murder, Ms Thaiday took her children to a new church, St Margaret’s Anglican Church in the Cairns suburb of Westcourt.

She was observed on her knees praying on the grass outside her home on Friday morning.

The mother of nine is still under police guard in the Cairns Base Hospital, where she has been ­assessed by psychiatrists. There she was formally charged in a bedside hearing yesterday.

Ms Thaiday was also interviewed by police, but refused to speak about the alleged stabbings, which The Australian has been told she refers to as “the incident”. She is now represented by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service, which declined to comment yesterday.

In interviews with senior police, friends, neighbours, and relatives of Ms Thaiday and her children, a picture of her life has emerged, both in Cairns’s western suburbs and earlier, on Darnley Island, the tiny volcanic atoll in the Torres Strait, from which her family came.

Ms Thaiday had nine biological children to at least five different ­fathers, one of whom is in jail.

The father of her youngest children, Gavin Willie, was yesterday supported by dozens of relatives as he visited the makeshift shrine — crowded with bouquets of flowers, handpainted signs, candles and teddy bears — in the park next to the home.

Mr Willie collapsed and wailed “my babies, my babies”, surrounded by weeping mourners.

The Cairns officer co-ordinating the police operation, Detective Inspector Bruno Asnicar, said he could not say whether there were current child-safety notifications or orders relating to the family. He said that would be investigated by police.

Ms Thaiday’s goddaughter, 11-year-old Jennifer Jackson, told The Australian she missed playing with her “Aunty Mero” and her children in the backyard of the home, now a cordoned-off crime scene.

“Normally when I go there she’s in the backyard, hanging out the washing,” Jennifer said.

“She’d plait my hair; I’d play with the kids.”

Jennifer’s aunt, Beryl Jackson, and her grandmother, Anna Jackson, said they had known Ms Thaiday for more than 20 years, since her family moved from Darnley Island, known in ­traditional language as Erub.

The Jacksons told The Australian Ms Thaiday was pregnant with her first child at 14, and was soon living in public housing in Manoora, in cramped accommodation known as the Murray Street flats. Two years ago, she and her brood were shifted further up the street into a bigger house.

Beryl Jackson said after the birth of Ms Thaiday’s second daughter, who was 12 when she died on Friday, the woman confided in her about her troubled past. It was around the same time, Ms Jackson said, that Ms Thaiday was bashed by the father of one of her children, who allegedly hit her on the head with a hammer.

Ms Jackson’s brother, Jason Jackson, told The Australian he had known Ms Thaiday since she was 16 and knew her children very well. “I can’t fathom it,” he said. “I miss them coming up here all the time. I’d love to go to the hospital and ask her (Ms Thaiday) why … the children never done a sin in their life, and this is how they get repaid.”

In the early hours of Friday morning, before the killings, Ms Thaiday was said to be still awake, drinking. Neighbours have told The Australian she was concerned about some of her daughters, who had not yet come home.

The murders were reported to police at about 11.20am on Friday when her eldest son, aged 20, came home to find his siblings dead. His mother was found outside the house with self-inflicted knife wounds.

The Australian has chosen not to publish the names and photographs of the deceased children, in accordance with their families’ wishes and cultural protocols.

Ms Thaiday yesterday appeared before Magistrate Alan Comans at a bedside hearing in the Cairns Base Hospital. The matter will be back before a magistrate today, but Ms Thaiday will not be required to appear in court although she will remain under police guard.

Autopsies on four of the children revealed they died of multiple stab wounds, and police are forensically examining several knives found at the scene.

Ms Thaiday’s family attended the All Saints Anglican Church on Darnley Island in the Torres Strait, when she was young. A candlelight vigil was held there on Saturday night.

Four weeks ago, she started going to a new church. St Margaret’s Anglican Church priest Reverend Don Ford yesterday told The Australian she appeared to have brought the whole family, right down to her youngest, her two-year-old daughter, in a pram.

“She seemed quite happy,” Mr Ford said. “She told me, ‘I’ve been a long-time resident, and I’m looking for a new church to go to’.”

After The Australian attended Mr Ford’s service yesterday, two detectives arrived to speak with the priest.