Homicide probe into baby death

The Studholme Street family home of the baby that died at Waikato Hospital. Photo / Dean Purcell

It will take several days to establish what caused the death of a 22-month-old girl taken to hospital with serious injuries, police said today.

The girl was taken to Waikato Hospital early on Saturday afternoon suffering serious injuries and died overnight.

She was the child of a young couple who lived in a house in Studholme St, Morrinsville, to the east of Hamilton.

Police are treating the death as a homicide.

This morning they said a post-mortem examination was carried out on the girl yesterday but investigators were awaiting further test results before they could establish the exact cause of her death.

The tests are expected to take several days.

Police are working to ensure all the girl's relatives before her name can be made public.

The couple had been living in the house for only a few months.

Neighbours yesterday spoke of their shock at the death of the child.

One woman, a shift-worker, awoke to loud banging at her door just after midday on Saturday and found a "panicked" young man who asked her to call an ambulance because the girl wasn't breathing.

He then ran back to his house.

The woman, who asked not to be named, rang 111 and went outside to find out more details.

The man and a young woman were putting the baby into a car.

"He called out 'the baby's not breathing and we're going to the Dallas clinic' and then they sped off."

The clinic is in the same street as the couple's house.

She didn't see the baby, but the woman was cradling something in her arms.

Waikato Hospital spokeswoman Mary Anne Gill said the child was admitted on Saturday, but would not comment on the nature of her injuries.

Another neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said the house had many tenants before the young couple moved in.

Police officers arrived at the house about 5pm on Saturday and forensic experts examined it yesterday.

Last night security staff were standing guard, but the police cordon had been taken down.

The baby is the third to have died in suspicious circumstances in New Zealand in two months.