Kiwi mum charged with murder over toddler found dead in bathtub

Forensic services police officers enter a home in the suburb of Miller in Sydney yesterday after a two year old girl was found dead at the home in Sydney's south west. Photo / AAP

A teddy bear lays abandoned in the yard.

So does a lone pink trampoline, bought just seven months ago by the 34-year-old mother accused of killing her toddler.

News.com.au gained access to the eerie scenes at the dilapidated house where the two-year-old was allegedly murdered and then whose body was allegedly abandoned and left in the bath tub, perhaps for days.

Screengrab of the young girl who was found dead in her home.

Peering through a side window of the flaking fibro house in the gloom, the bathroom where the little girl was killed is out of sight.

But in the yard, where the lawn needs a mow and the worn panels of the house's back wall show age and neglect, there are signs that a little girl once lived there.

Near the teddy bear is a single chair by the concrete back steps and a set of bins.

Next-door neighbour "Peter", who asked his real name not be revealed, said he heard the little girl playing out the back every morning "but now it is quiet".

He said that he has camera surveillance of the yard from four cameras which he has given to police.

"I haven't seen the mother at the house for the last week," he said, although the first images of the mother were revealed today.

The woman appeared in court via video link.

The girl's mother, who was from New Zealand, did not often play outside with her daughter, who Peter believed to be three years old.

But he said the little girl had "laughed and played" with the mother's 28-year-old boyfriend outside and the child had seemed normal.

Peter said the mother, who had a complicated domestic relationship, lived with her boyfriend at the house for 14 months before the alleged murder.

A 40-year-old man who was believed to be the boy's father visited the house regularly.

The mother accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter appeared in a Sydney court via video link today, where it was revealed the little girl may have been dead for up to three days.

The 34-year-old mother did not apply for bail, and it was formally refused, at Penrith Local Court this morning.

Detectives arrested and formally charged the woman at a medical facility in the Blue Mountains.

She was charged with murder after the body of her toddler was discovered by emergency services at a home in Miller just after midday yesterday.

Police say the girl was murdered some time between 6am on Saturday and 12.30pm yesterday, according to court documents.

Detectives formally charged the mother at a medical facility in the Blue Mountains.

The woman has been there since a road accident on Sunday, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Police are still investigating how the little girl died.

An autopsy will reveal if the child drowned.

A male supporter covered his face and ran to his car to avoid the media after the woman's court appearance.

The case was adjourned to Campbelltown Local Court to November 9.

Neighbours first became aware of the situation when a woman approached a house in Merino Street around noon, asking if they had seen a little girl.

The woman asked for a ladder to scale a fence before she entered the home and found the child in the bathroom.

Pat Ingram, who answered the door to the woman, said: "She said she was concerned for the child's welfare. She said she was the next of kin. She asked if I had a ladder."

The concerned woman revealed the mother had been involved in an accident in the Blue Mountains over the weekend after a "fight with her boyfriend".

Robyn Fransisco, whose parents live opposite the house, said the mother "didn't seem like the kind of mother who'd leave her daughter alone".

Neighbours said the family had only lived in the house for a few months.

Ingram said she hadn't seen the little girl since Wednesday and while she hadn't talked to her, she had waved when she saw them on the street.

"The next thing the whole street was full of police and I thought, 'I hope to God nothing happened,' and then they taped the house off," she said.

Police are investigating who was supposed to be looking after the child.

Property records show the house is owned by the Department of Housing.