A 27-year-old woman and an eight-year-old boy she was a carer for have died after being hit by a truck on the Pacific Motorway near Newcastle in New South Wales.

Police said the woman's car had stopped in a breakdown bay on the M1 at Cameron Park, near George Booth Drive, on Sunday evening.

"The driver got out of the vehicle and opened the side door," Acting Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said.

"At that stage we believe an eight-year-old child has entered the roadway, followed by a 27-year-old carer.

Jemma Lilley’s fascination with serial killers goes back at least a decade to the crude online novel she wrote about murder when she was a 16-year-old living in her ­native Stamford, England.

Indeed, she had hoped to ­become a serial killer.

Lilley once boasted that she knew how to commit murder and get away with it.

She wanted to kill and the feeling was getting stronger. And when she finally lived out her fantasy with her obsequious housemate Trudi Lenon in June last year, Lilley gloated that police were too dumb to catch her.

Krystal Sellars

Ten years ago this month, a support group for families of people with autism spectrum disorders held its first meeting in Cessnock.

Since then, Strive for Autism has helped to provide support for such families, and raise much-needed awareness of the lifelong developmental condition that can affect communication, sensory perception, social interactions and behaviour.

Strive for Autism president Maxine Baird said the group’s meetings provide information and support, and a forum for families with questions and stories to share.

Laura Armitage

A MUM’S dream to get a better education for her son, who has autism, could see a new independent school set up in Lilydale.

Melissa Handbury has been working to open Lyrebird College for two years, and the idea grew after planning for the future of nine-year-old son Logan.

Ms Handbury said the process highlighted to her the need for more tailored teaching and therapy-based learning for children with autism, particularly at secondary-school level.

Mark Macluskie packed his belongings and left home for the first time to attend college this fall.

The winner of one of 20 coveted Flinn Scholarships, Mark has a full ride to study mechanical engineering with two minors in electrical engineering and mathematics at Arizona State University.

Mark is the consummate scholar: intelligent, charismatic, a whiz at math.

A year on from the murder-suicide of the Lutz-Manrique family in Sydney's north, the children's special needs school is still grappling with the tragic deaths and has formed special support groups for parents.

It was October last year that police made the gruesome discovery of the Lutz-Manrique family, in an elaborate murder suicide in the leafy Sydney suburb of Davidson.

Ava Benny-Morrison

A SYDNEY community was rocked when Fernando Manrique killed himself, his wife and their autistic children. Maria Lutz’s friends have spoken out.

A FEW days before Maria Lutz was killed while sleeping next to her 11-year-old daughter, she told a friend about her husband’s drastic change in behaviour.

It could have been seen as Fernando Manrique’s final desperate attempt to salvage his marriage.

But, to Sarina Marchi, a former community worker, Mr Manrique’s sudden interest in being a model father rang alarm bells.

Tim Williams

A DISTRESSED mother says she only discovered an out-of-school-hours care worker repeatedly kicked her autistic, intellectually disabled son in a fast-food restaurant because the woman confessed to her – one term later.

Jordy Bonser, of Woodcroft, is furious that the southern suburbs school failed to tell her the worker, who was employed by the governing council, allegedly attacked her son on a vacation-care excursion to the McDonald’s restaurant on South Rd, Darlington, in January.