{"id":409378,"date":"2026-05-03T05:31:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T05:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/409378\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T05:31:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T05:31:14","slug":"police-charge-jefferson-lewis-47-with-5yo-kumanjayi-little-babys-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/409378\/","title":{"rendered":"Police charge Jefferson Lewis, 47, with 5yo Kumanjayi Little Baby’s murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ABC<\/p>\n

\"Jefferson<\/p>\n

\nJefferson Lewis is in police custody after being flown to Darwin from Alice Springs. He is expected to be charged with Kumanjayi’s murder.
\nPhoto: Supplied \/ Northern Territory Police Force\n<\/p>\n

Northern Territory Police have charged Jefferson Lewis with the murder of five-year-old Kumanjayi Little Baby.<\/p>\n

The girl, referred to since her death as Kumanjayi Little Baby for cultural reasons, disappeared from the Old Timers \/ Ilyperenye town camp<\/a> in Alice Springs last weekend, sparking a large-scale search and rescue operation.<\/p>\n

Her body was found about 5 kilometres south of the town camp on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Lewis, 47, had also not been seen since Kumanjayi disappeared until he was arrested near the Charles Creek town camp on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

He has also been charged with two counts of sexual assault.<\/p>\n

In announcing the charges at a press conference in Alice Springs this morning, NT Police Commissioner Martin Dole said detectives had been working “around the clock” since Lewis’ arrest.<\/p>\n

“This remains a deeply distressing matter, and our thoughts are firmly with Kumanjayi’s family, loved ones and the wider community that have been deeply impacted by these events,” he said.<\/p>\n

A group of about 400 people rioted outside the Alice Springs Hospital on Thursday night after news broke of Lewis’ arrest.<\/p>\n

Community leaders including Kumanjayi’s kinship grandfather, Robin Granites, called for calm.<\/p>\n

“It is time now for sorry business, to show respect for our family and have space for grieving and remembering,” Granites said.<\/p>\n

Lewis was flown to Darwin in the early hours of Friday morning for safety reasons.<\/p>\n

Police to release footage of ‘abhorrent’ behaviour during Alice Springs riots<\/p>\n

NT Police are about to release footage of rioting in Alice Springs<\/a> after Lewis’ arrest, Commissioner Dole said.<\/p>\n

But before they do, he said he wanted to speak about what people would see.<\/p>\n

“What you will see in this footage is not people processing grief in relation to the death of baby Kumanjayi,” he said.<\/p>\n

“What you will see is not people trying to practise traditional law.<\/p>\n

“What you will see is criminal behaviour, plain and simple.<\/p>\n

“It’s abhorrent, it’s disgusting, and it will not be tolerated or accepted by the Northern Territory Police.”<\/p>\n

He added that anyone who recognised people in the footage – or was personally involved in the rioting – should either contact NT Police, or “come and hand yourself in, before we come for you”.<\/p>\n

– ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By ABC Jefferson Lewis is in police custody after being flown to Darwin from Alice Springs. He is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-409378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}