Acting Premier Tim Nicholls lays a bunch of flowers at a memorial in a park next to the home of the children who died in Cairns. Pic: Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images Source: Getty Images

She had been up all night searching for a missing child, throwing bedding into the back yard, screaming into the phone.

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When the girl came home they fought violently, the teenager fled, and an unspeakable act of evil was committed.

Ms Warria, known as Aunty Mali, allegedly stabbed to death and suffocated seven of her own children and a niece in her family home in Cairns.

Acting Assistant Commissioner Paul Taylor and Cains Detective Inspector Bruno Asnicar address the media. Pic: Liam Kidston

Police are investigating reports of illicit drug use – namely “ice” – that may explain a possible psychotic episode.

Ms Warria, 37, was found by her 20-year-old son slumped out the front of the Murray St house about 11am on Friday, with visible knife wounds.

He went inside and found the body of a slain child in the loungeroom. Other bodies were found throughout the bloodied house. His screams for help as he called for an ambulance soon echoed across a nation.

Ms Warria, a Torres Strait Islander, has been arrested but last night charges were yet to be laid over one of Australia’s worst mass murders.

The father of killed niece Angie Thaiday identified the body of his daughter in the morgue yesterday. It was supposed to be a day of celebration – her birthday.

His beautiful daughter, who “loved her friends, school, reading”, had knife wounds to the neck and stomach.

The mother of seven of the children found dead in a Cairns home has been arrested for murder.

He told how the children were “locked ... in a room and killed ... one by one’’.

“Why?” he said.

“Why my girl? How can anyone do that? So many lives.”

It is unclear who was killed first. It is also unclear if the bodies lie where they were slain – or if they were later moved.

“My sister was a big girl, why didn’t she fight back, was she so terrified, did she die quickly?’’ said Angie Thaiday’s half-sister Sophia Bakoulas.

“It was a massacre, all innocent children. My heart, my stomach is fluttering.

Murray St, Manoora, remains a crime scene. Pic: Brendan Radke

“I can’t fathom the terror.’’

Sophia spoke as she laid a wreath among those from hundreds of other mourners in a park next to the Murray St murder scene.

Family, friends, neighbours, and complete strangers paid emotional, often tearful tributes to the eight lost lives.

“Eight kids died in silence. They never dreamt life would end like this,’’ said one note, tied to a large teddy bear.

One handwritten letter, in a frame, said: “How vulnerable we suddenly feel.’’

Murray St residents said “shard, rock, ice” or methyl amphetamine was cheap, addictive and readily available in the northern city.

Police have formally identified the eight children killed in a Cairns home.

Babysitter Cristal Atkinson said she stopped visiting seven months ago when the mother started to show signs of depression.

“She just shut everyone out,’’ the teenager said.

“People stopped coming over and I didn’t want to be around it any more.

“The vibe just changed in the house.”

She babysat the children for two years and described them as “happy, smiling, sweet” children.

“The kids did everything their mother asked them, cooking and cleaning,’’ she said.

“I’m going to miss their sense of humour the most. They were always playing pranks.

“She was a good mum, it was a clean, well-organised home – but things went sour.’’

Acting Premier Tim Nicholls said: “Our hearts go out to the families, friends and the community, for what we have seen happen here.

“I’m sure people throughout Queensland join with me in expressing both our sorrow and regret at how terrible these events are at a time when we’re thinking of our families.”

Pathologists are performing autopsies on the children, with the results expected to be brought forward in the next couple of days.

Detectives said the mother would remain under police guard in hospital, where she is in a stable condition with stab wounds to the neck and chest.

Aerial view of the rear of the Manoora house where eight children died. Bedding can be seen in the back yard. Pic: Brian Cassey Source: News Corp Australia