The former nanny of the three children who were killed in Timaru on Thursday says they were an "awesome family" and the kids were "wonderful".
Three children, twins Maya and Karla and their sister Liane 6 were found dead at around 10pm on Thursday by their father Graham Dickanson.
The girls mother, 40-year-old Lauren Dickanson was taken to Timaru Hospital. She was later arrested and charged with murder.
She appeared in Timaru District Court on Saturday where she was remanded into a secure mental facility.
The family had recently completed MIQ after arriving from South Africa and had settled in the South Island town.
The parents are both doctors and the father, an orthopedic surgeon, found his children dead when he returned to their Queen St home.
Mandy Sibanyoni worked as a childminder for the family in South Africa.
She told AP she was "torn apart."
"And it’s like those kids, they are my kids too because I raised them."
"I don’t know what to do about this because the only question that I’ve got now is, what happened? What went wrong? Because [the mother] cared for her kids," she told AP
She said there was no sign of any being wrong when she worked for the family and both parents loved the children.
Speaking to Newshub earlier on Friday, neighbours say they were watching television on Thursday night when they "heard sort of a noise like a deep moan".
Jade and Rob Whaley say they went outside to investigate, but couldn't see anything of interest. They went back inside and about five minutes later heard "a loud bang", prompting them to go back out.
"We couldn't see the spotlight had come on so we knew someone wasn't on the property," Rob says. "It sorta sounds liked a car door being slammed or a car being kicked. We couldn't hear anything so we went back inside again."
But while they were inside, Jade said they heard more moaning "going on and on", perhaps from the offender.
"They were moaning and making lots of noise like, 'What have I done?'"
The police arrived shortly afterwards.
The town's Mayor, Nigel Bowen, told Newshub locals were already struggling after the fatal crash in August which left five teenagers dead, and the COVID-19 lockdown.
