Baby who hadn’t been seen for nearly a month is found dead in Adelaide motel room – with incense burning to mask the smell

DAILYMAIL.COM • 1h ago

By DAILY MAIL 22:30 12 Oct 2026, updated 23:37 12 Oct 2026

A baby who had reportedly been missing for up to a month has been found dead inside an Adelaide motel room.

Incense was reportedly burning inside the room when emergency services made the discovery on Saturday morning.

Officers were called to the Tollgate Motel shortly before 10.30am, where they found a baby aged under one dead inside a room. It is understood the child’s body may have been inside the room for up to a month.

The baby’s parents had reportedly been staying at the motel for a month, while residents raised concerns after the infant had not been seen for several weeks.

The couple are not believed to be from South Australia.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said on Monday that neither the family nor the child were known to the state’s child protection system as investigations continued.

‘Whenever a child or infant passes away, it is a tragedy beyond comprehension,’ he said.

‘I’m in a position to be able to advise this family and this child were not known to the South Australian Department of Child Protection but there are still active inquiries underway across other agencies.’

SA Police said on Saturday that Crime Scene Investigators and Eastern District Detectives were investigating the circumstances surrounding the death, with a report being prepared for the coroner.

On Monday, police told the Daily Mail they had no further comment at this stage.

It is understood that between 18 and 20 of the motel’s 39 rooms are occupied by long-term residents, with some having lived there for more than a decade.

Motel resident Jacqui Fricker, who moved in in January, told Adelaide Now she was shocked by the news.

Despite living just two doors away, the 55-year-old said she had neither seen nor heard the baby.

‘I hadn’t heard crying or anything,’ Ms Fricker, a mother-of-two who receives a disability pension, said.

‘You just don’t know, I suppose, what’s going on with other people … just a couple of doors down. Occasionally you hear people fighting … but not a lot, normally it’s fairly quiet,’ she said.

Ms Fricker said she first became aware something was wrong when she heard a man shouting shortly before 10.30am on Saturday.

‘I peered out the window and saw that the police were here,’ she said.

‘That was the first hint of trouble, I didn’t hear anything prior to that. I didn’t think that would happen (here). There was just a big police presence all of a sudden.’

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