A 34-year-old man has admitted murdering a baby and trying to kill a woman and another child in a New Year’s Day attack this year.

The Hamilton infant died at a home on January 1, and an older child and a woman, understood to be their mother, were also attacked.

NZME understands the woman was stabbed in the neck.

This morning, a man reappeared in the High Court at Hamilton, where he pleaded guilty to murder and two charges of attempted murder.

Defence counsel Richard Barnsdale made an application for his client’s name to be permanently suppressed.

Justice Kiri Tahana scheduled a date for that application to be heard in August and ordered interim suppression to continue.

Police forensics staff on a Hamilton street, where a baby was killed, and two others seriously injured. Photo / Dean Purcell

Crown Solicitor Rebecca Mann said she would likely file an application for permanent suppression of the victims’ names.

After reading reports that the defendant was not mentally impaired, Justice Tahana convicted the man and remanded him in custody for sentencing in September.

Witnesses recount the horror

While the media was declined a copy of the court’s summary of facts today, due to issues around identifying victims, NZME spoke to several witnesses at the time of the incident.

As police carried out their scene examination at the victims’ home and another house on the street, blood was seen smeared on the walls of the porch and the front door frame of the second house.

The residents at the property declined to comment, but others said the offender was stopped by police dogs nearby.

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He had been jumping fences, moving between properties, trying to escape police, they said.

One local resident who said he was one of the first on scene, said: “I knew the baby was gone ... it was lifeless”.

He saw a man dragging a woman, bleeding from the neck, across the street.

“I was trying to look for [the alleged offender] to make sure the kids were okay because we know that they had kids there,” he said.

The last time he saw the injured woman, she couldn’t breathe properly but was speaking.

Another neighbour said she and others helped keep two uninjured children safe, wrapping them in blankets.

“[One child] was playing with a doll, and she mimicked what she saw. The trauma that poor child has to live with.”

Near where the man was found, large pools of dried blood could be seen on the footpath. The incident brought many neighbours to tears.

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.