Nine-month-old found about 12.30am lying on the shore at Surfers Paradise

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A nine-month-old baby girl has been found lifeless at the water’s edge on a Gold Coast beach and her death is being investigated as a murder.

Queensland police said the baby had been in the water at some point before she was found in Surfers Paradise in the early hours of Monday morning. She had no obvious injuries and had not been reported missing.

The child’s father, 48, and mother, 23, will be questioned later on Monday.

Gold Coast criminal investigation branch detective inspector Marc Hogan said the parents were found at Broadbeach, about 5km from where the baby was discovered, by a passerby about 12.30am.

He described the beach where the girl was found alone and lying in the sand as “not your typical crime scene”.

“This is a very tragic event. It’s a very sad situation,” Hogan told reporters. “It will impact a lot of people.”

Queensland homicide detectives and New South Wales police are involved in the investigation.

Police from NSW are involved because its officers are interested in the couple’s recent movements in and around the Tweed Heads area, on the Queensland/NSW border.

Paramedics unsuccessfully tried to revive the child after she was found on the beach near the intersection of Staghorn Avenue and the Esplanade, less than a kilometre from the main party precinct for school leavers.

But police do not believe the incident was related to the end of high school celebrations.

Detectives are checking CCTV footage from the Surfers Paradise area for clues to what happened and have appealed to anyone with information to come forward.

A postmortem examination will be conducted on Monday.