Influencer Veruca Salt picks out a coffin for her baby son Cash after he died at six weeks old

A young Australian mother whose son died two days ago has tragically gone from choosing a bed to buy him to choosing his small coffin for his funeral.

Kimberley Summer Hartley, better known as Veruca Salt, shared a photo of a children’s coffin catalog on Instagram on Wednesday, along with a heartbreaking caption.

“When I was choosing which bed to buy for him, I didn’t think I would have to choose one of these,” she wrote.

Mrs. Hartley loved being a mother so much that she wanted to have ten children with her baby’s father, a British man she met at a music festival.

But the heavily tattooed influencer announced to her social media followers on Tuesday that her six-week-old son Cash had died in his sleep.

Long before the tragedy, Mrs Hartley had been very open about her colorful past, something she had put behind her since becoming a mother.

She previously spoke to Daily Mail Australia about her court appearances, her difficult upbringing and the ups and downs of her life in the sex industry.

Ms Hartley moved to Australia from New Zealand when she was three years old, but has a strained relationship with her parents.

In 2019, she was reported missing when she disappeared from a wedding in Surfers Paradise, failed to respond to her friends’ texts and calls, and reappeared a few days later 1000 kilometers away at the Desires brothel in Wollongong, NSW.

In an interview, she explained that she lost her phone at the wedding but didn’t have time to look for it because she had to race to NSW for work.

She had no idea she was missing or that police had appealed to the public to find her.

It was also during that conversation that she made her profession public for the first time.

“I’m not ashamed to tell people I’m a sex worker,” she said at the time.

“But I’m quite a private person, and it scares me to tell the whole world my biggest secret.”

At the same time, a warrant was issued for her arrest for failing to appear in court on charges that she stole $8,015 worth of family heirlooms from an Eastgardens home in December 2018.

She pleaded not guilty to theft and stealing property from a house in Sydney’s Downing Center Local Court. The charges were dismissed.

Ms Hartley, who used the name Veruca Salt, started an OnlyFans account during the Covid pandemic, started earning $15,000 a month and never looked back.

Her social media followers grew to around a million via TikTok and Instagram and she became very open about her life, her profession and ultimately her new role as a mother.

When she announced her pregnancy in June last year, the 25-year-old’s social media content quickly shifted from daily musings and vlogs about her sexual encounters to baby updates and preparations.

She rented a new house in Southport, decorated his nursery, bought a custom-made rug for her baby, shared photos from the day she was induced and posted a video of him just hours after his birth.

She never revealed the identity of Cash’s father, but instead dropped a series of clues.

In her TikTok videos, she said the man was from London and of Jamaican descent, that they met at a music festival and spent just 12 hours together before she realized she was pregnant with his son.

After Cash was born, she shared screenshots of a conversation in which she told him she wanted “ten more” children with him. He replied, “Look how you handle it.”

She was open about her plans to have a large family with the same man, but said she didn’t see herself in a romantic relationship with him because she doesn’t trust men.

Ms Hartley announced Cash’s death in an Instagram post on Tuesday afternoon.

‘It is with a heavy heart that I write this. My baby died in his sleep Monday morning,” she wrote.

‘I don’t know what happened, he’s having an autopsy this week, but it’s unlikely I’ll ever get an answer.

“I’m only saying this because people still comment on my TikToks saying how happy I am with him and ‘just wait for the toddler phase’ and all that, and I really can’t take it anymore. I’m so sorry.’

In the early hours of Wednesday, Ms Hartley shared a bittersweet video of the smiling newborn.

You could hear her say, ‘Oh my God, I love you so much. Do you know? Do you know how much I love you?’

The video was captioned with a heartbroken emoji.

Hours later, she broke down and cried in a new TikTok video.

Queensland Police are investigating Cash’s death but the situation is not being treated as suspicious.