Queensland police have said a “much clearer picture” has emerged of circumstances around the killing of eight children in Cairns as the mother of seven of them remains under police guard in hospital on suspicion of their murder.
The woman, 37, has not been charged but is under arrest after seven of her own children and a teenage niece were found on Friday stabbed to death.
Far north Detective Inspector Bruno Asnicar said the woman had been formally interviewed by police.
He said police were working towards laying charges on Sunday after piecing together more information over Saturday night on the full circumstances around the case.
Asnicar said police were grateful to witnesses from the community who came forward “particularly over the last 12 hours”.
“A great deal has come in overnight and it’s not things I can discuss now, simply because we’re in the investigation stage now and everything I’m doing at the moment is going towards a court brief,” he said.
“So it’s going to be presented to the courts and that’s not something we can discuss in the media at this point.”
Asnicar said police had formally interviewed more than 100 witnesses.
Acting assistant police commissioner Paul Taylor said identification of the dead children by names and photos by some media outlets overnight – an apparent breach of Indigenous community protocols – was disappointing.
Taylor said he had phoned elders from the local Torres Strait Island community, of which the family was part, to assure them police were not the source of that information and he would do so in person if necessary.