An 11-year-old girl has been found dead in an apartment in Auchenflower in inner-city Brisbane.
Her mother, 49, was also found dead in nearby Toowong, in a possible murder-suicide.
Detective Acting Superintendent Geoff Sheldon said police were called to the Dunmore Street apartment for a welfare check at approximately 1.45am.
They discovered the father, 65, asleep, and the 11-year-old dead in the bathroom.
“It’s been a violent death and it’s quite traumatic for our officers involved and for those other emergency services that attended as well,” he said.
“Any death of a child is horrendous but this is particularly so. We’re trying to get to the bottom of the circumstances.”
The family has a second daughter, 8, who was not home at the time of her sister’s death.
Sheldon said the mother was discovered by passers-by in Toowong, and that it appeared her death was a suicide.
“Members of the public early in the morning have come across a body in the area and phoned police, and we made the tragic correlation that it’s the mother,” he said
The father is currently assisting police.
“He’s horrendously upset and he’s with us at the moment trying to explain what’s gone on with the whole night’s affairs,” he said.
“It’s a very tragic circumstance and we’re trying to piece together what happened.”
“At this stage we’re trying to ascertain how the first child died and who’s responsible,” Sheldon said.
“We’re really in the preliminary stages at the moment and we have a family that’s been decimated.”
