Source: The Daily Telegraph
Couple charged with murdering young girl
A couple has been charged with murder in a major development in the case of a missing Sydney girl.
SHE is the woman who stood by Kristi Abrahams and Robert Smith in the dark days after Kiesha went missing.
She shielded them from unwanted attention and defended them at every opportunity.
But yesterday Alison Anderson led a vigilante group yelling abuse that chased a police vehicle carrying the charged parents.
For the past nine months, Kiesha's disappearance has consumed Ms Anderson.
She has hosted candlelight vigils in the little girl's honour, set up Facebook pages to keep her name in people's minds and fed each tiny detail she had to police, hoping it would lead to a breakthrough.
"I said from the day she went missing that I would fight for that little girl and I have done that the best I could," Ms Anderson said.
She was once a close friend of Abrahams, having met her when they lived in the same suburb. The day Kiesha was reported missing, and whispers began spreading thick and fast that the child's parents might have been responsible, Ms Anderson refused to believe it.
"[But] the thing that upset me the most was that they never once went out and looked for her," she said.
Outside Mt Druitt police station, Ms Anderson led a group of locals who screamed abuse at the couple as they were taken to a nearby court.
"I wish I could have said it to their faces," she said.
The arrests heralded closure for a western Sydney community desperate for answers. As police scoured under debris and fallen branches at what is alleged to be Kiesha's burial site, dozens made the lengthy trek into the bush to farewell Kiesha and pay their respects.
It was a good 90 minute walk though rugged terrain, but for these folk, it was a journey they wanted to make.
"We aren't here to spectate, we are here to pay our respects to that little girl," Caron Simpson said.
"People might think strange of us, but we have followed this case day-by-day for nine months, and we deserve to see the end too."
One father said: "Kiesha has been lying in here for all that time, and we had no idea."
Back in Hebersham, at the white fence that has become a shrine to Kiesha, people came to pay their respects. A group had organised for a candlelight vigil to be held for Kiesha's birthday last night - no one expecting it would be the same day her remains were found.
"I think it's about time," one of the women said.
"It's Good Friday, it's her birthday and something good happened today."
