{"id":644213,"date":"2026-05-02T04:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T04:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/644213\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T04:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T04:52:08","slug":"kumanjayi-little-babys-relatives-share-grief-at-child-ripped-away-as-nt-chief-minister-foreshadows-charges-indigenous-australians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/644213\/","title":{"rendered":"Kumanjayi Little Baby\u2019s relatives share grief at \u2018child ripped away\u2019 as NT chief minister foreshadows charges | Indigenous Australians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kumanjayi Little Baby\u2019s relatives have released a statement saying they felt \u201chelpless\u201d when they heard she was missing, and hope their community can unite in grief.<\/p>\n

\u201cA life so precious, so full of innocence, gone far too soon,\u201d the Gurindji families said of the five-year-old Warlpiri girl, who was found dead in Alice Springs<\/a> on Thursday evening \u2013 five days after she had gone missing from her bed in the Old Timers town camp.<\/p>\n

Jefferson Lewis, 47, was arrested in connection with her disappearance and is expected to be charged as soon as Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a distance, [we] first heard the sounds on TV \u2013 a child missing, abducted, taken and ripped away from her mother\u2019s life,\u201d the Gurindji families said in the statement shared by Northern Territory senator and minister for Indigenous Australians<\/a> Malarndirri McCarthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt helpless, holding on to hope that someone, somewhere would bring news \u2013 an update, a sign, anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen came the voice of the police commissioner, echoing with heartbreak. In that moment, we knew she was gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pain of that reality will stay with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Kumanjayi Little Baby\u2019s grandfather called for calm<\/a> on Friday after unrest outside the Alice Springs hospital, where Lewis had been taken after being assaulted at the town camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is time now for sorry business,\u201d Robin Granites, a senior Warlpiri elder, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is feeling very upset and emotions are very high. Our children are precious, of course we are feeling angry and hurt at what has happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis was later transferred to Darwin due to safety concerns and was discharged into police custody.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re expecting police to lay charges today,\u201d the NT chief minister, Lia Finnochiaro, told Channel 7\u2019s Sunrise on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, they\u2019re being left to do their important work, and no one wants to jeopardise anything that gets in the way of bringing the person who did this to justice.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think Territorians and Australians, who are incredibly invested in this outcome, would expect to see the police make a move today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hundreds of volunteers joined emergency services personnel in the five-day search for Kumanjayi Little Baby.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had extraordinary numbers, hundreds and hundreds of people, coming together to try and find this beautiful little five-year-old girl, and obviously everyone\u2019s heart is just completely broken right now as we move into grieving,\u201d Finnochiaro told Sky News on Saturday.<\/p>\n

She said the scene outside the hospital after the arrest was \u201creally, truly truly horrific, but it was isolated\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had police officers injured, firies, ambulances \u2026 it has been dealt with, and we move forward stronger as a community and wait to see what charges police lay.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said everyone she spoke to had condemned the unrest, and that she had met with Kumanjayi Little Baby\u2019s mother on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was just as appalled as everyone else is,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Gurindji families thanked everyone who helped in the search for the child.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is [our] hope that this unity we have seen \u2013 people coming together, standing strong \u2013 will continue to grow, so we can walk forward together, shoulder to shoulder, as one community,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN<\/a> on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support; or call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Mensline on 1300 789 978<\/p>\n

This story and its headline were amended on 2 May 2026, to give the culturally correct name for the girl: Kumanjayi Little Baby<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kumanjayi Little Baby\u2019s relatives have released a statement saying they felt \u201chelpless\u201d when they heard she was missing,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-644213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644213","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=644213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}