Guards have remained overnight outside a property in the small Southland town of Otautau where an 8-year-old boy was killed on Wednesday night.
Police officers were called to the rural settlement of 700 after family members alerted them to the death.
A teenager has been charged with the boy's murder and appeared in the Youth Court in Invercargill yesterday afternoon.
RNZ Otago-Southland reporter, Timothy Brown, spoke to Susie Ferguson from Otautau.