Inquest hears mother, partner likely suspects in baby Soul Mathew Turany's death

Warning: This story discusses graphic details of violence towards children.

Who killed Soul Mathew Turany?

The officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Superintendent Darryl Sweeney, says there are only two sensible possibilities - the 16-week-old baby's mother, Storme Turany, or her then-boyfriend, Tony Farmer.

"Police are satisfied, on the established facts, that during the critical time period, there have been no persons other than Ms Turany and Mr Farmer that had access to Soul," Sweeney told the inquest into the child's death.

"A scene examination had ruled out the possibility that any third party had inflicted the injuries on Soul."

Soul lived with Storme Turany and Tony Farmer in a rural home near Darfield.

On 30 August 2014, he was flown to Christchurch Hospital, after emergency services were called by Turany, sister Skye Lamborn, neighbour Natasha Brougham and Farmer, all expressing concern about the baby's breathing and health.

He died in hospital early the next day.

Sweeney said police had to keep an open mind, as officers were not present when Soul suffered the fatal assault, but "the type of injury sustained by Soul... narrows the assessment of who did this to two people".

"I've probably learned over 30 years that anything can be possible, but sensibly, on the facts that we have, it did come down to the two," Sweeney told coroner Ian Telford.

The inquest heard Soul's skull was broken in two places. He had bleeding in one eye and over a vast tract of his brain.

The right side of the baby's brain was covered in blood by the time he reached hospital.

What killed Soul was reasonably well established, but how he came to suffer those injuries remained a mystery more than a decade after the child's death.

Soul would have turned 12 on Saturday, but the circumstances leading to the end of his brief life were instead being examined by coroner Telford during the two-week inquest in Christchurch.

No-one has ever been charged over the baby's death.

"Throughout the inquiry, three criminal liabilities were considered, based on the various findings and information gathered," Sweeney said. "The charges considered were murder, manslaughter and infanticide.

"Based on the facts and evidence to date, I do not believe the injury to Soul was accidental."

Turany had been interviewed by police on three occasions. She gave a written statement to police while at hospital, within hours of Soul's admission.

When asked directly by police whether she had shaken or hurt Soul, Turany denied any responsibility.

"Miss Turany admitted that she struggled to be a mother and have a relationship, and she'd been considering terminating a relationship with Mr Farmer around the time of Soul's death," Sweeney said.

Turany was then interviewed twice under caution in September 2014.

"Throughout the three interviews with Ms Turany, she has maintained a position of innocence," Sweeney said.

"The consistent theme in Ms Turany's interviews was that she was not involved in the death of her son. She also did not nominate any other person who may have been responsible for the injuries."

Farmer was interviewed four times - on the afternoon of Soul's admission to hospital, about a fortnight later, again in November 2014 and then almost two years later in July 2016.

He spoke to investigators for about eight hours over those four interviews.

"The consistent theme in Mr Farmer's four interviews was that he was not involved in the death of Soul," Sweeney said. "He also did not nominate any other person who may have been responsible for the injuries."

Soul's home held no clues as to what had happened to him.

"There's no forensic information in that scene - bearing in mind it's a single injury and there's been no bleeding," Sweeney said.

"It's an unremarkable scene in that, as I've described, it's a very nice, tidy, well-kept house. It told us some things about the living conditions, but not forensically about how Soul died."

"He was, by all accounts, up to the 30th of August, a well-cared-for baby, who was meeting all his developmental milestones, and appropriately engaged with his mother, with Plunket and a general practitioner."

Messages from Storme Turany to Lamborn and others showed she was under strain as a new mother, but Sweeney said that was to be expected.

"So tired, I think I've had at the most two hours' sleep aye," one message to her sister said.

Sweeney did not read much into those complaints.

"From an investigative point of view, this is kind of life with small children, right?" he said. "It's very difficult, it can be, so it's one of those little bumpy periods."

Turany and Farmer's relationship ended soon after Soul's death. About a fortnight after Soul died, Farmer sent Turany a message.

"I never hurt Soul, Storme," the message said. "You mean everything to me.

"I would never do anything to hurt you. I would've never done anything to f**k up the family I wanted.

"I loved you. I always will."

On Friday, the inquest also heard the distressing and frantic phone calls made to emergency services, as Soul's condition deteriorated on the morning of 30 August 2014.

Soul could be heard letting out cries at times during those calls. It brought his mother to tears and she had to leave the court at times.

"Come on, baby, come on, come on, come on, come on," Skye Lamborn said, while on the phone to 111.

The calltaker assured Lamborn she was doing a great job.

"Oh my goodness, I just feel hopeless," she responded.

By the time of the phone calls, which were about 7am, Soul was barely responsive.

"Every 10-15 seconds, he's taking a breath and it's very gurgly," Lamborn said to 111.

About 6.30am, Turany had called Healthline, with serious concerns about the boy's health.

"I've got a three month, almost four month-old baby and he's been screaming since three o'clock," Turany said. "He's got a cold at the moment, but I've been unable to get him to stop.

"Well, my partner's holding him now and he's just slowed down, but he's got like creamy stuff coming out of his ears."

Emergency services arrived at the home about 7.10am.

Dr Ross Keenan, a neuroradiologist at Christchurch Hospital at the time, said Soul's brain was beginning to meltdown by the time he was flown to the hospital.

A scan about 10.20am showed the dire conditions inside the child's skull.

It revealed blood at the top of the brain, as well as beneath the brain, bleeding in one eye, and the outer part of the brain dead or dying.

"This is an extremely ominous scan, essentially indicating that the brain has almost certainly had a huge hypoxic-ischemic insult, so lack of oxygen, lack of blood supply," Keenan said.

"If the brain has enough time to adapt, it will try to preserve these deep structures, which are vital to survive."

The injuries were unlikely to be survivable, Keenan told the coroner. The damage to the brain was substantial, with only its core, central functions intact.

"All of the things that make humans human - emotion, attentiveness, executive functionality, hearing, motion, sensation - just about all those vital functions that you require for a human to be a human effectively," Keenan said, when asked what functions Soul would lose, based on the damage present in the imaging.

"If you're only left with this and your brain stem, you may still be alive - in that your heart beats and you breathe - but you're really not going to be a functional human."

He estimated the injury had occurred between 6-12 hours before the scan was taken.

"This MRI has been done quite early in the piece and we could probably predict that this is only going to get far, far worse in the next 24 hours," Keenan said.

"The brain's going to swell up. It's going to squash all these spaces and the patient's probably going to cone, where they effectively try to push their brain out through the bottom into their spinal canal, because the brain is so injured and so swollen.

"You get into a vicious downward spiral, which no treatment is going to reverse."

Young infants were unlikely to accidentally cause such injuries to themselves, Keenan said.

"As I'm sure everyone is pretty aware, three-and-a-half month-olds don't really walk around, and don't put themselves in a position of damaging themselves or falling, or all the things that older children can do when they're mobilising," he told the coroner. "From our point of view and my own point of view, this is a non-accidental injury, until proven otherwise."

The inquest continues next week.

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