A warning this next story contains some distressing details. The small town of Coonabarabran in the central west of New South Wales has been left reeling by the deaths of two young brothers. They were under state care and living with their grandmother. The 66-year-old is now likely to face serious charges.
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00:00Beyond the police tape, forensic teams are searching for evidence at this Central West property where two young boys were found dead Monday afternoon.
00:11It was a very confronting situation for the young police officers involved.
00:14You are treating this as a double murder?
00:16Yes we are.
00:17The six and seven year old brothers who were under state care did not turn up to school. Authorities then called their grandmother who is their sole carer and she told them the boys were dead.
00:28The ABC is not identifying the children for legal reasons.
00:32They then located the 66 year old woman who attempted self-harm in that location. Attempt of arrest when she was immediately placed under arrest at that time.
00:41This family was fairly new to town so they weren't known to a lot of people but at the same time it's a small town.
00:48Someone who did get to know them was the boys' karate teacher.
00:52The younger one, he went well with karate but I always loved to help him go along with it because once you got him going,
00:57he got going. The older one went very well by himself. He was very independent, very good at it.
01:02She says they were striving for their yellow belts.
01:05They were close, they were very close. We got home last night and we found their belts in the car that they were meant to grade to.
01:13So it was a very upsetting find for us.
01:15It's understood the brothers had a complex medical history. Police say their grandmother has been moved from hospital to a mental health facility but is likely to face serious charges once back in custody.
01:27These things shock small country towns. The death of one child is bad enough. The death of two is just incomprehensible.
01:34I can imagine that that community is going through hell right now. We'll provide all of the resources and help that we can.
01:40They're part of the school communities here so there will be a lot of people wanting to know why, what's happened.
01:47The post-mortem is scheduled for Thursday.