Community
13 December, 2024
In memory of ‘angels’
TEN years after the eight ‘angels’ tragedy, 100 people gathered at Murray St Park on Wednesday to honour the young lives lost on December 19, 2014, reflecting on their legacy of resilience and hope.
Four girls, aged 14, 12, 11 and two, and four boys aged nine, eight, six and five were killed and the community gathered to pay their respect to the children and their families and share stories with prayers, songs and a symbolic lighting of eight lights for each of the children.
“It’s about uniting and connecting community together, working with young ones and providing youth programs for the kids in the community. This happened 10 years ago but it’s still felt here in the community,” organiser Sonya Panuel said.
“Especially talk about mental health, we want to see the community connect so we can avoid another situation like this,” she said.
Childhood friend and neighbour of the eight children Jade Atkinson returned to Murray St for the first time in five years to pay her respects and grieve the loss of her best friend Malili who was only 14 when she died.
“Malili was my best friend,” she said. “We were all neighbours, I was friends with all of them, I have some great memories of them, especially in this park.
“I haven’t been here in five years. I visit Malili’s grave often, but I never come here, it’s too much.
“I never told a parent or anyone what was going on in that house, I regret that, someone should’ve said something, it was evident things weren’t right.
“I’m a mum now to my two-year-old. Her name is Poppy and it’s very sad to think that Malili didn’t get to be a mum because she definitely wanted to be a mum.
“Now having a child myself I can’t understand how you could do something like that.”
Manoora Community Alliance secretary Paul Brady said the tragedy had been a wake-up call for the community and a lot had changed since then.
“Lives were changed because of this tragedy. The community was unified in that they didn’t want to have a community like that, we needed to do something different about life in the community,” he said.
“We have to be much better neighbours, we have to care about the children and people in our neighbourhood ... I think the Manoora community has come together to prevent things like this from ever happening again.”
Raina Thaiday, who killed seven of her children and her niece, was suffering from psychosis stemming from undiagnosed schizophrenia. She was deemed to be of unsound mind and remains in a mental health facility. The charges against her were dropped.
