Police Ask For Assistance Investigating Baby’s Death

POLICE are calling for anybody who had interaction with the seven month old baby and his family in Aberdeen, in the days and hours before his death on Sunday afternoon.

Detective Inspector Matthew Zimmer crime manager Hunter Valley Police District said police were following several lines of enquiry into the death of the baby, but hoped a post-mortem being conducted in the next 48 hours would help direct those lines of enquiry.

They confirmed the mother of the child and her immediate family were cooperating with police for the investigation and several teams of police have been tasked to the local area to assist the investigation.

The family had just moved into the house, but police confirmed they are a local family.

Transcript of police statement:

Hunter Valley police are currently investigating the death of a seven month old boy I can confirm today the child’s death is being treated as suspicious.

About 3pm on Sunday, the 17^th of May the child presented at Muswellbrook Hospital in an unresponsive state.

Despite the best efforts of hospital staff, unfortunately the child could not be revived.

As a result Hunter Valley police were contacted and an investigation was commenced.

A crime scene was established at a residential premises in Aberdeen and I can confirm that crime scene has been processed and examined by specialist forensic officers.

A post mortem examination in relation to the child’s death will take place in the next 24 to 48 hours in an attempt to establish the cause of death.

I can confirm that that will take place shortly.

We are also hoping and I anticipate that that examination will also identify the injuries that the child may have suffered which may have contributed to the child’s death.

We are still trying to establish the circumstances surrounding the child’s death so we are speaking to people who had contact with this child in the days and hours leading up to the child’s death.

We’re also asking any members of the community who know the family or have had contact or interaction with the family in the days leading up to the child’s death that they contact Hunter Valley Police or CrimeStoppers on 1800 333 000.

As you can appreciate it is an ongoing investigation and we are in the early stages of the investigation so we are limited on the amount of detail that we can provide at this stage, but I’m happy to take some questions.

At this stage it is too early to comment on the persons of interest but I can say that we are following a number of lines of enquiry and those investigations will continue.

We are asking people in the community who know the family, if they have had interactions with the family they can make contact with us… we are asking people who have had contact with the family who know the family and have had interaction with the family in the last few days leading up to the child’s death if they can make contact with us and we’ll speak to them further about it.

The information that I can supply at this stage is that the family are local.

(Were the family known to police?)

I can’t comment any further on that.

I can say that we are cooperating with the mother of the child and her immediate family as the investigation continues.