Australian Mother Arrested in Stabbing Deaths of 8 Children

Australian authorities have arrested a suspect in the brutal stabbing deaths of eight children ranging in age from 18 months to 15 years old.

The Australian reports that authorities in the city of Cairns arrested a 37-year-old woman named Mersane Warria who is the mother of seven of the children. The other victim was Warria's niece.

Warria is currently being guarded by the police in a local hospital as she recovers from stab wounds. How she received those wounds is not yet entirely clear. There is no previous record of domestic violence and disturbance involving Warria or the address where the bodies were found.

The bodies of the eight young victims were discovered by a twenty-year-old brother to the seven children of Warria. He called the police after finding the grisly scene.

A different report from The Australian suggests that the mother may have been suffering from some type of mental health episode. This is because a teenage girl who was friends with the victims saw the mother the night before the killings.

The girl said the mother told the children that "Papa God" had given her immense power that enabled her to do "anything." The young girl also says the mother told her that she was a "warrior."

The authorities investing the case in Cairns received back ups from specialists based in the Australian cities of Brisbane and Townsville.

The violent deaths of so many young people put Australians back on edge after the end of a day long standoff between police and a radical Islamist who took hostages at a cafe in Sydney on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

That incident ended with the death of two hostages and the attacker after police stormed the cafe.