Northern Territory Police say they believe the death in custody of an Indigenous woman in Tennant Creek on Saturday was the result of a “medical episode”, while admitting there was no nurse on duty to check her records.
Police say officers were conducting cell checks at the Tennant Creek watch house about 1pm when they found the 44-year-old unconscious, and she was rushed to hospital but could not be revived.
Speaking to the media on Sunday, Acting Assistant Commissioner Peter Malley said the woman underwent a “custody health assessment” after her arrest for an alleged aggravated assault about 6pm on Thursday.
Acting Assistant Commissioner Malley said officers had conducted a cell check at 12.30pm and it was at the next scheduled check that she was found unresponsive.
Police say the woman was found unconscious in a cell at the Tennant Creek watch house and could not be revived. (ABC News: Stephanie Zillman)
“At one stage she was in a cell with another lady, there was no interactions between the two and the other lady was released from custody 20 minutes before the episode occurred,” he said.
“We reviewed the CCTV and at 12.34 she was in the cell alone and was seen to fall to the ground, so at this stage we believe it’s a medical episode, but we won’t have a post-mortem conducted until later on in the week.”
Acting Assistant Commissioner Malley said, unlike in Darwin and Alice Springs, the Tennant Creek police station did not have a custody nurse on duty who could have checked the woman’s medical records.
“For a normal arrest, a custody incident, we don’t do that,” he said.
Tennant Creek is 500 kilometres north of Alice Springs and almost 1,000 kilometres south of Darwin on the Stuart Highway. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)
“The police officer that accepted her into custody conducted that [assessment] and there was no disclosures, no visible injuries to the female at that stage and so everything was believed to be OK.
“It’s really about those underlying issues that we can’t see and obviously, with a custody nurse, they have the medical records there so they can have a look and see what the history actually is of the prisoner coming into custody.”
Acting Assistant Commissioner Malley said the woman’s cell was “still currently locked down” as a crime scene and would remain so until after the post-mortem was conducted.
He said the investigation was being led by the Major Crime Unit with oversight from the force’s Professional Standards Command.
Acting Assistant Commissioner Peter Malley says he has no concerns about police investigating themselves. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)
“A death in custody’s taken very, very seriously by us and it’s at the same standard that we would investigate a homicide,” he said.
“We investigate our own all the time, we’re very good at it and people talk about conflicts all the time but we’re legislated to do it and we do it very well.”
Acting Assistant Commissioner Malley said he expected the results of the post-mortem to be available by the end of this week.
Indigenous deaths reach record high
More than 30 years after the 1991 royal commission, Indigenous deaths in custody are now at their highest level for decades.
According to the national deaths in custody report by the Australian Institute of Criminology, released this month, there were 113 deaths in custody recorded in 2024-2025.
Of those, 33 were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people — the largest number of Indigenous deaths in custody since 1979.
In the Northern Territory, recent high-profile examples, including the death of 24-year-old Kumanjayi White in Alice Springs in May, have sparked an outpouring of grief, and vigils and rallies across the country.
Steve Edgington says the NT government is “doing everything we can to prevent deaths in custody”. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)
On Sunday, Country Liberal Party member for Barkly Steve Edgington, whose electorate includes Tennant Creek, said he was already aware of heightened tension in the town following the woman’s death.
“I think with any death in custody, there will be concerns from the family,” he said.
“I have heard in Tennant Creek that there are a couple of people that are obviously angry and frustrated.
“But I think what we need to do is allow the police and the coroner to get on with the investigation so that we can get to the bottom of finding out exactly what happened.”
Plan to address Indigenous deaths in custody rejected
Mr Edgington said the NT government was “doing everything we can to prevent deaths in custody” and “ensure the safety of people while in custody”.
“There are police on duty and there are CCTV cameras in watch houses,” he said.
In October, the NT parliament overwhelmingly rejected a proposal for an independent national body to be established to address rates of Indigenous deaths in custody.
At the time, Independent MLA Justine Davis, who was behind the proposal, said federal support was vital because smaller jurisdictions like the NT often did not have the capacity to hold an independent investigation into what had gone wrong.
