{"id":611075,"date":"2026-09-25T05:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T05:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/611075\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T05:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T05:42:09","slug":"pair-charged-with-murder-of-young-child-in-southland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/611075\/","title":{"rendered":"Pair charged with murder of young child in Southland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two 19-year-olds have been charged with the murder of a young child<\/a> in Southland.<\/p>\n

The child was taken to hospital in a critical condition<\/a> after emergency services were called to a property in Otautau on Sunday, but died at Auckland’s Starship Children’s Hospital on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Police launched a homicide investigation the same day.<\/p>\n

The pair first appeared at the Invercargill District Court on Monday charged with grievous bodily harm, but appeared again Friday on new charges of murder before Judge Mark Williams.<\/p>\n

The pair were denied bail and the matter was moved to the high court, where they were scheduled to appear next month.<\/p>\n

They have interim name suppression.<\/p>\n

Court documents said the injuries were caused between 28 August and 20 September.<\/p>\n

On Monday Crown prosecutor Mary-Jane Thomas told the court the child was not likely to recover and opposed the pair’s bail. They were also granted interim name suppression.<\/p>\n

Detective Inspector Stu Harvey previously said police would continue to support the child’s wider family during the court process.<\/p>\n

“We know this tragic incident will no doubt be felt widely in the Otautau community, and police will be providing reassurance over the coming days,” he said.<\/p>\n

– RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including what caused an Air New Zealand engine to catch fire, and why Liam Lawson’s swearing at Lewis Hamilton. (Source: TVNZ)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two 19-year-olds have been charged with the murder of a young child in Southland. The child was taken…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[67,111,43,139,69,15488],"class_list":["post-611075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-southland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611075","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=611075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}