The murder that shocked Australia: a five-year-old girl snatched from her bed and murdered has sparked riots, vigilantism and broken the heart of a city

The search began in the early hours, before the heat descended on Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory.

At around 1.30am on April 26, a five-year-old Aboriginal Warlpiri girl was reported missing from the Ilyperenye Old Timers camp on the southern edge of the city.

For days, police and volunteers combed the surrounding land, along red dirt paths and dry riverbeds, in the hope that she had been abandoned and might still be found alive.

About 300 people took part in the search. Officers covered five square kilometers on foot and another 80 by plane and vehicle.

The little girl, who cannot be named under cultural law and is now known as Kumanjayi Little Baby, was raised by her mother and extended family in the camp, where overcrowded housing and limited services defined their daily lives.

Relatives said she could not speak and communicated mainly through hand gestures.

As the search expanded, attention quickly turned to Jefferson Lewis, a 47-year-old distant relative who had been staying in the same house.

Locals later said he had been acting “strangely” in the days before the girl disappeared, drinking heavily and keeping to himself.

Just hours earlier, witnesses said she was seen holding hands with a man her family knew and it was quickly determined he was Jefferson.

Later that day, police had found his shirt, children’s underwear and a duvet cover in the dry bed of the Todd River, making the area a crime scene.

Forensics would later detect both his and the child’s DNA on the underwear.

What followed became one of the Northern Territory Police’s largest manhunts.

Officers traveled through Alice Springs and to remote communities in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, knocking on doors and following leads.

The search was complicated by Lewis’s lack of a digital footprint. Police also suspected he may have been helped to evade capture.

On April 30, five days after the girl disappeared, Kumanjayi Little Baby’s body was found on the banks of the Todd River, about three miles from her home.

Police said they were treating her death as a homicide.

Within hours, Lewis was tracked down at another town camp on the outskirts of Alice Springs.

But by the time police arrived, a group of residents had already located him and taken matters into their own hands.

According to locals, a group of young boys recognized him first and saw him lying in the long grass behind a shipping container, with a stick in his hand. When he tried to run away, they called for help.

The chaos that followed unfolded quickly as more than thirty people joined in a violent attack on the man in a shocking case of vigilante justice.

The attackers used rocks, an old stroller and the stick he was holding as weapons to knock Lewis unconscious.

“They wanted to break his legs,” a local resident told the Daily Mail. ‘At first he tried to get away, but he had no chance. They surrounded him.

‘They wanted to cause maximum pain and jumped on him, kicked him and hit stones on his head.’

“Many people joined in after the young boys came the first time,” the locals added.

Some in the crowd filmed the attack and published the harrowing footage on social media.

In one video, Lewis lay motionless as people gathered around him. In another, a voice shouted, “There he is, the ugly bastard.” Right there’.

“There are rumors that he was stabbed almost 40 times,” the source said. “He was soaked in his own blood, so I believe it.”

Others in the crowd shouted for an ambulance. “People thought he might be dead and some people called the ambulance because they believed only God could take a life.”

When police and paramedics arrived, they formed a circle around him as rocks were thrown.

“Don’t save him,” someone from the crowd shouted. “Look, they throw him in the back of the ambulance and protect him, knowing what the hell he did.”

After a struggle, Lewis was taken to Alice Springs Hospital with serious head injuries.

But the violence did not stop there. Within hours, about 400 people gathered outside the hospital demanding he be handed over for customary “retaliation.”

Projectiles were thrown at officers and vehicles, a police car was set on fire and four of five ambulances were damaged and rendered inoperable.

After five hours of unrest, riot police were forced to use tear gas and pepper spray to disperse the crowds.

However, the violence then spread across the city. A nearby petrol station was looted and looted, while fires were set in bushland and in waste containers. Damage was estimated at A$200,000.

Five emergency workers were tragically injured during the unrest. More than a dozen people have since been arrested, as police continue to search for others suspected of helping Lewis evade capture in the days after the child disappeared.

Police Commissioner Martin Dole said, “Members of that city camp decided to give Jefferson vigilante justice and we received numerous calls saying he was about to be attacked.”

About the looting, he added: “What you will see is not people trying to apply traditional law. What you will see is criminal behavior, it’s as simple as that.’

Kumanjayi Little Baby came from a large and well-known Central Australian family, connected to artists and public figures.

Her family requested that her name not be used after her death, in accordance with Aboriginal cultural practices.

In the days that followed, they called for calm and urged the community to allow the justice system to take its course.

Her mother, Jacinta White, spoke directly to her daughter in a statement, saying, “I know you are in heaven with the rest of the family.

“Me and your brother will meet you one day. We give our lives to Jesus. It will be so hard to live the rest of our lives without you.

Lewis, who had been released from jail just six days before the kidnapping after serving a prison sentence for aggravated assault and domestic violence, was charged on May 2 with murder and two counts of assault.

He had been ordered to return to his hometown of Lajamanu upon his release, but instead traveled to Alice Springs, where he moved between homes in the Ilyperenye Old Timers camp.

He appeared at Alice Springs Local Court via video link on May 5.

The hearing lasted about 20 minutes and he was not allowed to appear shortly before the girl’s family arrived. The case was postponed until July 30.

There were emotional scenes outside court after Kumanjayi Little Baby’s family turned up to witness the hearing only to realize they had missed it.

An elderly woman could be seen sobbing as she walked up the court steps with Kumanjayi Little Baby’s brother.

They had white ocher on their faces, which is worn by the indigenous people during the mourning period.

In Alice Springs, the shock has not abated, reigniting debate over conditions in urban camps and the safety of Aboriginal children.

There have been calls for an investigation, while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has pointed to federal spending on remote housing.

Meanwhile, Mayor Asta Hill has said she worries the riots will overshadow the generosity of spirit seen in the days following Kumanjayi Little Baby’s disappearance.

Speaking to the Guardian, she said: ‘What happened in the hospital last night sort of interrupted this sense of… the silence of dwelling on grief, I think.

“I am genuinely concerned because this story told nationally about Mparntwe (Alice Springs) is often negative.

“We are always in the news for the wrong reasons, and the loss of Kumanjayi Little Baby is absolutely devastating. But a very important part of that story is also the love and care that this entire community showed for her and her family in the search for her.”