Police have arrested a man after a suspected domestic violence murder in the New South Wales Hunter region.<\/p>\n
Christopher James McLoughney was arrested at nearby Bellbird on Saturday night, after a tip-off from a member of the public.<\/p>\n
Officers allegedly found a sawn-off shotgun and ammunition in the 37-year-old’s car, which was taken for forensic testing.<\/p>\n
Mr McLoughney was taken to Cessnock Police Station.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Police have established a crime scene at the Kearsley property. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Superintendent Steve Laksa said officers were called to reports a woman had been injured, with alleged gunshots heard on Ellalong Street in Kearsley, near Cessnock in the Hunter Valley, about 7.30pm on Friday.<\/p>\n
He said officers who found the 39-year-old woman described the scene as “horrific and traumatic”.<\/p>\n
“Hunter Valley police, Cessnock police and a number of other police attended to reports of a female who suffered serious injuries,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“There is information a firearm was discharged at the premises.<\/p>\n
“Hunter Valley police are being supported by the state crime command homicide squad in what’s reported to be and is being investigated as a domestic violence-related homicide.”<\/p>\n
Police said a child, who was at the home at the time, was found looking for help.<\/p>\n
“Police have been informed that child walked a distance of some 300 to 400 metres from the premises seeking support from neighbours and that child was seen by drivers not from the area who supported this young child,” Superintendent Laksa said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Forensics and homicide detectives are on scene. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
“Triple-0 was called and police then attended the scene, so it was quite horrific.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Police were called to reports of a domestic violence incident in the Kearsley home. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Forensic investigators have established a crime scene, with an autopsy to determine the cause of the woman’s death.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Detectives returned to the Hunter Valley crime scene. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Police have offered support to the woman’s family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police have arrested a man after a suspected domestic violence murder in the New South Wales Hunter region.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[150790,150789,43,44,41,39,42,40,150791],"class_list":{"0":"post-255368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-cessnock-domestic-violence","9":"tag-cessnock-murder","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-woman-killed-cessnock"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}