The street in the Newcastle suburb of Wallsend where a six-week-old baby girl was found dead. Credit:Max Mason-Hubers By the time they arrived back it had turned into a horror scene, the pair walking into a bedroom find their mother and wife standing over the family's latest arrival - a six-week-old baby girl. But the girl wasn't moving, and then they saw that her throat had been savagely cut, with detectives investigating on Friday night whether post-natal depression may have been a factor in the newborn's shocking death. The mother, a 26-year-old Senegalese woman, was taken away from the Wallsend rental home screaming and in handcuffs. Detectives were hoping an interpreter would help them discover what occurred in the last horrific moments in the baby's short life.

The neck wound was the only injury found on the baby, and a kitchen knife was also being analysed on Friday. "It is a very tragic set of circumstances here today and we our hearts go out to other members of the family and friends of the family," Newcastle local area commander Superintendent John Gralton said. The tragedy was etched on the faces of relatives and friends, some of whom congregated across the road in McIlvenie Park to console each other. There was not much conversation, just moist and empty eyes as they grappled with what the mother was accused of doing. "It's an older neighbourhood so it was lovely seeing young children out playing," resident Lynne Northey said.

"I'm still in disbelief of what could have caused this. "It just makes you feel ill, really sick, your mind just goes to places like could the neighbours have helped. "But you just don't know the circumstances." Detectives liaised with the homicide squad as other investigators doorknocked the neighbourhood in an effort to get an inkling into what may have motivated someone to do that to a newborn child. Resident Ellen Graf said the family had lived in the house for about six months.

"I could hear a child screaming out a couple of times this morning," Mrs Graf said. "I noticed a relative come and take some children away. "It is just horrible." Realtor Bob English said the family had several young children and were "lovely". He placed the family in the three-bedroom rental home late last year when they moved to the area.

"They were very nice," he said. The house owner, George Spryopoulos, said he had only met the family once when he arrived to fix a gate that had been damaged during the April storms. "They were a lovely family," he said. But exactly what has occurred behind close doors was still being investigated by police. What is known is that the father and seven-year-old daughter had left early on Friday to attend an appointment with an ear specialist at John Hunter Hospital.

I was when they returned that they came across the horror. Another relative called for an ambulance but there was nothing the paramedics could do to save the little one. She had no other wounds on her tiny body other than to her neck. With post-natal depression a suspected factor in the death, the woman would also undergo a psychiatric assessment. She was part of a large family from West Africa which had emigrated to Newcastle for a safer and happier life.

"I only got a cab the other day and the cabbie was telling me about his brother who lived in the house, and that they had just had a new baby," Mrs Graf said. "He said they were excited about it." Detectives were also concerned about possible reprisals within the region's African refugee population, and were liaising with community leaders and welfare agencies in an effort to keep the peace. The woman remained in custody on Friday night. Her seven-year-old daughter was with other relatives as police liaised with NSW Department of Family and Community Services about her ongoing welfare.

Newcastle Herald