Police are currently investigating whether a 12-year-old girl was bashed before she was sent to bed to “sleep it off” report the Sydney Morning Herald.
The young girl was allegedly murdered by her stepfather.
Her mother found her lifeless in bed at 5:45am on Wednesday morning and alerted authorities who arrested the girl’s 31-year-old stepfather two hours later.
He was found a few kilometres away from the family home in Aberglasslyn of the Hunter Valley in NSW.
On Wednesday he was charged with murder and will face Maitland Local Court on Thursday.
The injuries causing the young girl’s death are not known yet, however an autopsy is set to be conducted as early as Thursday.
“The body did show some signs of violence, but in so far as when violence was inflicted, we are still making inquiries in relation to that,” Central Hunter commander Detective Superintendent Craig Jackson told the SMH.
“It would appear that there have been no previous reports [of domestic violence] made.
“No matter how you look at this it’s nothing short of a tragedy,”
