Sam Mooy, "I love that little girl" (PEOPLE & PORTRAIT 2026)

Kumanjayi Little Baby was missing for 4 days when we arrived in the township of Alice Springs, on Wednesday April 29. I am fortunate to have beared witness to Grandmother Peggy Rockman Granites as she spoke so fondly of her granddaughter Kumanjayi Little Baby at the Old Timers' camp, as members of the Northern Territory Police and emergency services volunteers continued the search for missing five-year-old in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, on Thursday, 30 April 2026. While I had met Peggy the day before, the maternal grandmother took the time to sit with me that following day on a matress in the front yard of Kumanjayi's home, holding my hand and recalling fond times together as her grandma. We spoke of familial experiences and love and loss. It was then, that Peggy just cried and cried, squeezing my hand tightly, hoping that the five year old would come home, or be found. Peggy said she would often babysit the girl and her brother, and said she remembered holding her hand while walking in community. She said she “couldn’t wait for her to come home”. “I love that little girl,” she said while wiping flowing tears from her face. Sadly, later the same day the devastating news came that they had located the body of Kumanjayi, in a creek bed approximately five kilometers south from her home. Officers arrested and hospitalised Jefferson Lewis that evening after receiving numerous calls he was at one of the town camps in Alice Springs and was being violently assaulted, and in-turn which then led to a night of violent confrontation between the community of Alice Springs, and the Northern Territory Police. NT Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas into an angry crowd of about 400 protesters who had converged on the hospital where Lewis, 47, was being treated under police guard, on Thursday night after was arrested over the death of Kumanjayi Little Baby.

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