Mother Kylie Patten was still celebrating the birth of her beloved baby boy with a set of heartbreaking snapshots just days before he was found dead, wrapped in plastic and stuffed in a freezer.
Ms Patten, 40, posted a series of pictures of three-month-old Kevin John Patten on her Facebook account two weeks ago calling him her ‘cutie’.
‘Proud, looked so damn well cutie, had to…’ she wrote on January 6 alongside the heartrending photographs of the infant looking up at her helplessly.
Just days later, a family member raised the alarm with police on Wednesday night over concerns for the child’s welfare.
Ms Patten (pictured) posted a series of pictures of three-month-old Kevin John Patten on her Facebook account two weeks ago and called him her ‘cutie’
Kevin John Patten (pictured) is the three-month-old baby found dead in a freezer wrapped in plastic
It sparked a police search at their home in Corowa, on the NSW-Victoria border, that ended in a loud harrowing scream heard by neighbours as it shattered the silence of the sleepy country town street.
Officers found the tiny child’s lifeless body inside a freezer at the house on Church Street, wrapped in plastic and a blanket.
Ms Patten was arrested at the scene and helped police with their inquiries before being released without charge hours later on Thursday morning.
She is believed to have lived at the home with her parents Sue and Wayne Patten, well-known shopkeepers in the small town of 5,482 people, for the past six months.
Local detectives have been joined by the State Crime Command’s Homicide Squad to set up Strike Force Walumil to investigate the child’s death.
Ms Patten had charted Kevin’s whole short life on social media from even before he was born.
‘Mummy loves you,’ Ms Patten posted last March on one of her multiple Facebook accounts, with a picture of the positive pregnancy test.
Little Kevin (pictured) was found dead in his family’s freezer by shocked police after a welfare call was made
Police made the horror discovery as they searched a house in Corowa, 60km west of Albury on the NSW-Victoria border, after reports of a missing infant
It was later followed by a picture of her swollen pregnant belly at 11 weeks and a link to her hospital scans in July.
’25 weeks? Babies heart beat is so strong (loud) that others (loved ones not everybody) can hear it,’ she wrote.
‘Aww sweetheart, how much I love you, I cant wait to hear/see/know you too. xox ‘
Heartbreakingly though, most of Ms Patten’s posts – interspersed with pictures of her cats and kittens – were mostly only liked by herself.
The mum of three, including one adult child, calls herself a ‘Happy Caring Sarcastic (ha!) Sweethearted Person’ on her Facebook profile.
A 40-year-old woman was arrested then released pending further investigations (pictured, investigators at the scene on Thursday)
And she shared her joy at becoming a mature mum in November when Kevin was finally born.
‘Kevin John Patten – Mummy loves you to the stars n all the way back to earth,’ the proud mum posted on November 16.
She posted another three pics a week later, adding: ‘Beautiful Kevin is still amazing Mummy every day. Loves xXXXXx’
Her final pictures of Kevin were posted early in the morning of January 6 and included one pic which appeared to show the youngster sleeping soundly in her lap.
Horrified neighbours were shocked by the police investigation but paid tribute to Ms Patten’s family on Thursday, saying they were ‘nice, good people’.
The new mother had for several years lived at a house across town from her parents’ home on Church street, which was owned by the couple.
Neighbours said she lived there alone with no signs of a romantic partner in at least the past year, and moved out about six months ago.
She is believed to have moved back in with her parents, in the home where John’s body was found, in the final months of her pregnancy.
‘Kylie kept to herself and was very quiet, we knew she was pregnant but only exchanged words a few times,’ neightbours told Daily Mail Australia.
‘Her parents would come and go and she had friends who visited, but no one who stayed over that we could see.’
Neighbours of Ms Patten’s parents said the new mother kept such a low profile they never even saw her and didn’t know she had a baby.