Photos: Mother Charged for stabbing her 7 children to death

The mother of seven of the eight children was charged with eight counts of murder on Sunday in a bedside hearing, two days after they were found stabbed to death in a Manoora home.She appeared before a magistrate at the Cairns Base Hospital where she is being treated for stab wounds to the chest, which were possibly self-inflicted.

Neighbours reveal Warria, who is the mother to seven of the children and an aunt to the other, was seen by neighbours running through the street screaming at 3am on the morning the bodies were found.She approached a group of children and 'had a go at them', according to one community member.After her confrontation with the youngsters she wandered back towards her home.

Only hours earlier a neighbour, Tahnia Ruttensteiner, had witnessed her clearing toys from her house with her children, claiming she wanted 'a fresh start'.Another member of the community claims in the weeks leading up to the massacre he had noticed the mother was behaving erratically.

He said Warria had been heard arguing with her husband over her 'ill health'. He claims it was her behaviour, along with a bizarre turning to God, that led to Warria's husband walking out of the house just a few days before the atrocity.

'He's been heard shouting at her that if she didn't stop, he was leaving. And then he did, moving into a house with other relatives,' the man said.

Before charges were laid, it was a heartbreaking scene near the house where the children were found as family members made their way up to the willow tree where tributes had been left for the young alleged victims. 

The maternal grandmother of seven of the children who were killed wailed: 'No! No! My babies, my babies!'Several men carried one of the fathers to the scene where he sat on a seat - weak and inconsolable.

He was frail and unable to hold his own body up as he screamed his children's names into the sky in a hoarse voice

The father of the youngest four children was carried to add flowers to the tribute, collapsing on the floor and beating the ground at the foot of the tree.

 'Raiden’, ‘Rodney’, ‘Azza’ and ‘baby girl’, the father screamed over and over again in a rasping voice, while sobbing uncontrollably.Family members mopped at his forehead with a wet cloth, desperate to do something to help the father in his distress. 

Eventually they had to pick him up - his limbs hanging limp - and take him back to the family home to try and console him.