Dad convicted of murdering wife, 2 grandkids; also assaulting adult daughter with axe (Brisbane, Australia)

The UNNAMED DAD (and grandfather) has been convicted of murdering his wife and two grandchildren. The surviving daughter, the children's mother, had been relying on her parents for childcare while she worked. It's a miracle that the surviving daughter is still alive, since her father attacked her with an axe when she had arrived home to investigate an "odd" phone call from her dad. The daughter suffered skull fractures in the attack.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/daughter-recalls-horror-of-father-murdering-her-family-20090710-dg31.html

Daughter recalls horror of father murdering her family
Malcolm Brown
July 11, 2009

"LOOK at me Dad! I want you to know that although I cannot get my mother and children back, I am going to go out there and claim as much of my life back as I possibly can … you did not win that day!" a woman said in the NSW Supreme Court yesterday, in a bitter victim's impact statement.

The 31-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was speaking during sentencing hearings against her 70-year-old father, who admitted to killing his 52-year-old wife, grandson, 7, and granddaughter, 5, at their Cowra home on June 30 last year.

The man, who pleaded guilty to each murder, and to the attempted murder of his daughter after she discovered the bodies, sat impassively without looking up as she challenged him.

The woman went though the horrors of that day, which began with a telephone conversation with her father that sounded so odd that she realised something was wrong. Her father had been a bully, standing over family members and his wife.

In 2002 one of his sons had been so afraid to tell his father he had done something wrong that he had committed suicide.

The woman herself had broken up with her husband and her parents were helping to care for her two children while she was at work.

On June 30 last year, she had gone home and found her mother's body. She had asked whether she was dead, and her father had said: "No, don't be stupid!" In fact he had bludgeoned and stabbed her to death.

She had then seen the children's school uniforms and her father had said they had worn mufti to school. In the children's bedroom, she had seen the body of her daughter, whom the man had drowned in the bath. Her father had told her she was sick and a doctor was on his way. The body of her son, bludgeoned to death, had been covered by the bedsheets.

She had been standing in shock, when her father had attacked her from behind with an axe, hitting her three times. Though suffering skull fractures, she had fought him off. Her father had driven several hundred kilometres before he was apprehended.

The woman told her father he might as well look at her because it was the last time she would see him, and that she would destroy "every photo, document, video or any other record I find that you were ever part of my life".

Phillip Boulten, SC, for the man, told Justice Lucy McCallum that the guilty plea by his client at the first opportunity should be taken into account. Justice McCallum adjourned the hearing until August 7 for sentencing.