‘Unimaginable grief’: Child dead and two critical after Blue Mountains stabbing caps weekend of horror

The stabbing death of a preschool-aged child in the Blue Mountains capped a brutal spate of domestic violence related deaths over the weekend, with four people killed in separate incidents and two small children fighting for their lives.

Cyclists stumbled upon three children under the age of five and a woman in her 40s, all suffering stab wounds, on Waratah Road, Valley Heights, near Springwood early on Sunday afternoon, in what police believe was only minutes after the violence unfolded.

The children were inside a car that had partially turned into a vacant block, near a fire trail leading into the national park, and the woman was outside the car nearby. Police are not looking for anyone else in relation to the incident.

Those at the scene applied first aid while calling emergency services, but by the time the ambulances arrived a short time later, one of the children was already dead.

Residents of Waratah Road are familiar with tragedy. It is not uncommon for them to hear sirens on the Great Western Avenue that runs parallel to Waratah Road, or for rescue services to use the fire trail to reach people who have suffered misadventures in the park. Historically, bodies have been dumped in the area.

Neighbour Peita Davies said everybody on the street knew one another, and the woman and the children were not believed to be locals. They did not match the physical description of anyone who lived on the street.

The street had been strangely silent throughout the violent event, she said.

“Nobody heard anything,” Davies said. “We all want to know how they ended up here.”

Another resident, Glenn Lyall, said he initially assumed when he saw police in the street that there had been a car crash.

“I could see a hatchback on an angle and two cyclists pointing, and I thought the car had hit one of the cyclists,” Lyall said. It was only later that he learned the nature of the injuries.

Blue Mountains Area Commander, Superintendent John Nelson, said the woman was not known to police, and that the children’s father had been at work when police told him what happened. He would not confirm whether the woman was the children’s mother, or the status of her relationship with the father.

“You can imagine receiving that tragic news, that person is at work, going about their business, and they’ve had this information provided to them,” Nelson said.

“All of Sydney, people are just going about a lovely Sunday afternoon and to be confronted with this is traumatic and tragic for anybody.”

The children were taken to the Children’s Hospital at Westmead in a critical condition, and the woman was taken to Westmead Hospital, where her condition was also critical.