The final phone call was frantic, a mother’s voice trembling on the line as she reported her six-year-old daughter missing from their home in Mount Druitt, Western Sydney. On the morning of August 1, 2010, Christy Abrahams told the emergency operator that she had woken to find the front door open and her little girl, Kiesha Weippeart, gone. The search that followed would grip the nation, but the truth that emerged nearly a year later would reveal a far darker and more tragic story of 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮, systemic failure, and a little girl who was failed by almost everyone who was meant to protect her.
The initial response was swift and urgent. Police launched a major search, scouring bushland, parks, and reserves across the area, hoping to find Kiesha if she had simply wandered off. Her mother, Christy, and her partner, Robert Smith, made emotional public appeals, pleading for her safe return.
Smith, standing beside Christy, described Kiesha as a happy, bubbly child who loved to play. He expressed hope that she would be found soon, urging anyone with information to come forward. The community rallied, holding candlelit vigils and leaving flowers and toys at a makeshift shrine outside the family’s unit.
But as the days turned into weeks, the behavior of Christy and Smith began to raise suspicions among police and the public. They made no effort to join the search parties. Life for Christy appeared to resume a disturbing normalcy, with reports of her getting her hair and nails done and going shopping.
Their friend and neighbor, Alison Anderson, initially defended them against growing rumors, but she would later become one of their most vocal accusers. The investigation, codenamed Strike Force Garrison, revealed that Kiesha had not been seen by anyone outside the immediate family since early July, three weeks before she was reported missing.
The forensic evidence was damning. When police examined the unit where the family had lived, they found blood belonging to Kiesha in every room. Christy was brought in for questioning, and her answers became increasingly evasive and hostile.
She could not explain the blood, and she grew angry when police pressed her on the timeline of events and Smith’s movements on the morning she vanished. The cracks in their story were widening, but the full horror of what had happened was still hidden.
The breakthrough came through an intricate undercover operation. An officer managed to get close to Christy, gaining her trust by promising to help her move the body. In a recorded confession, Christy finally revealed the truth.
She said that on the night of July 10, Kiesha had been refusing to put on her pajamas. In response, Christy gave her what she called a nudge with her foot. The nudge caused Kiesha to fall and hit her head against the bed.
Christy said the little girl’s body went like jelly, but she claimed Kiesha responded when asked to squeeze her finger. Instead of seeking medical help, Christy put her in the shower to try and wake her up. When she checked on her the next morning, Kiesha was dead.
The disposal of Kiesha’s body was callous and calculated. Christy and Smith kept her body in a suitcase for several days before burning it and burying the remains in a shallow grave in bushland near Shelby, in Sydney’s west. They threw away the hammer used to dig the grave and the suitcase.
They then took a taxi home, returning to a life of lies and public appeals for the return of the child they had killed. The undercover officer led police to the deposition site, and Kiesha’s remains were found on what would have been her seventh birthday.
The subsequent trial revealed a history of 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 and neglect that had been allowed to fester for years. Christy’s own childhood was marred by domestic violence and the death of her mother. She had been placed in foster care and group homes, and by the age of 16, she was in a girls’ refuge.
Her first child, a son named Aiden, had died in 2003 under suspicious circumstances. The cause of death was listed as unascertained, and no inquest was held. Kiesha herself had been the subject of multiple reports to child protection services.
She had been bitten by her mother, had a cigarette burn on her body, and had only attended school four times in her entire life. Truant officers made seven trips to the home between January and July 2010, but each time the door was locked and they received no answer.
The court heard that Kiesha had suffered ten different injuries to her body and head, including a jawbone broken in two places. A dental expert testified that the fractures to her teeth were caused by multiple blows of significant force, equivalent to an adult sporting injury. The pathologist stated that the injuries were mainly found in children who had suffered severe, prolonged physical 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 and would have left Kiesha in considerable pain.
Christy Abrahams pleaded guilty to murder on the first day of her trial. She was sentenced to a minimum of 16 years in prison, with a maximum of 22 and a half years, for murder and interfering with a corpse. Justice Ian Harrison stated that the trust between a parent and child is of the highest importance, and that Christy had caused Kiesha’s death with the infliction of violent lethal force on a vulnerable and defenseless child.
He noted that Christy had been abused as a child, but said that what happened to Kiesha was the foreseeable and predictable consequence of preventable cyclic 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮. Robert Smith was tried separately and sentenced to a minimum of 12 years for manslaughter and being an accessory to murder.
The case sent shockwaves through the community and 𝓮𝔁𝓹𝓸𝓼𝓮𝓭 deep flaws in the systems meant to protect vulnerable children. Kiesha’s father, Chris Weippeart, who had maintained his innocence and had not seen his daughter for years, died suddenly in November 2012, before the trial concluded. The community, which had held vigils and hoped for a miracle, was left to mourn a little girl who had been failed by her mother, her stepfather, and the authorities who had multiple chances to intervene.
Kiesha’s headstone reads: “You are not just a memory or part of our past, you’re part of our family as long as it lasts.” Her story remains a painful reminder of the duty of care owed to every child, and the devastating consequences when that duty is abandoned.
