Farmer Geoff Hunt's wife raged at him
for being lazy as he sat watching Home and Away with their three kids.
He calmly got up, made dinner and the school lunches - then he shot them
all before killing himself. How you can kill your own kids is beyond
me. Read full story from Daily Mail below
The night
Geoff Hunt killed his family before taking his own life his wife Kim had
raged at him about finances, claiming one of her husband's brothers was
stealing from the family trust.
An
inquest into the deaths of Lockhart farmer Geoff, nurse Kim and their
children Fletcher, 10, Mia, 8, and Phoebe, 6, is taking place this week.
A
forensic psychologist told the inquest it's likely the farmer primarily
wanted to kill himself due to his depression and a total loss of hope.
However,
he may have decided to kill his family as he believed they were
dependent on him and he thought 'he would spare them future pain'. His
use of a gun to inflict a single fatal injury also indicates he did not
wish to inflict pain on his wife and children, the psychologist said.
The
evidence suggests Mr Hunt gunned his wife down in the driveway of their
property in the NSW Riverina before walking inside his house and
shooting each of his children dead as they lay in their bed.
The
last person to see them alive, carer Lorraine Bourke, has detailed the
tense final night in their home, with Mrs Hunt berating her husband for
being lazy as he watched Home and Away with his children after giving
them dinner and making their school lunches.
Mrs Hunt became depressed and often flew into a rage after suffering a brain injury in a near-fatal car crash in 2012.
The inquest heard that Mr Hunt also seemed very depressed and quiet on September 8, 2014 - the last night he was seen alive.
Mr
Hunt had confided in a counsellor that his worst fear was being alone,
as the family sought help from mental health experts in their final
years.
Just weeks before she died, Mrs Hunt told a relative she was not in love with or attracted to her husband.
Ms
Bourke told the inquest Mrs Hunt demanded her husband do something
about the family finances - despite the inquest finding the farm was
profitable, expecting a good yield in their next crop and there was no
debt or financial stress.
'Kim would
often demand that he do something about the money issues. The topic of
money stressed Kim out,' Ms Bourke told the inquest, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Mrs
Hunt ranted that one of Mr Hunt's brothers and his wife had stolen
money from the family trust to build a new house and buys cars and
boats.
Geoff Hunt ran the canola farm with one of his three brothers and with his father John.
On their final evening, Mrs Hunt also became angry that the family paid Mr Hunt's parents $1 million a year, the inquest heard.
The mood was so tense in their final hours 'you could cut the air with a knife'.
A
NSW forensic psychologist who examined the case says Hunt probably
acted on impulse when he gunned down his wife and three children before
taking his own life.
Sarah
Yule has told the inquest that the grieving town of Lockhart will never
know what triggered a loving father with no history of domestic
violence to destroy his entire family last September.
'I
don't believe we can know that. It could have been something in a
conversation that occurred that evening,' Dr Yule told a Wagga Wagga
courtroom on Thursday.
Under
questioning on Thursday, Dr Yule agreed that Mr Hunt's behaviour in the
last hours he was seen alive - making lunches for his children to take
to school the following day, setting up plans for a tennis game with a
friend later in the week - suggested he probably killed his family on
impulse.
But
she believed Mr Hunt's primary motivation was to take his own life,
'with the homicides occurring in his mind as a secondary necessity'.
Dr
Yule said family destroyers may be motivated by 'pseudo-altruistic
intent' when they kill their loved ones, 'in that they feel they were
sparing them from further pain'.
'I
believe it occurred in the context of a distorted rationale in his own
mind. I believe that he presented a face of being able to cope,' Dr Yule
said.
'Something
at that particular time has caused him to lose whatever component of
hope he had left that he could fix things ... that it would never get
better, and he couldn't fix it.'
Relatives
of Riverina couple Geoff and Kim Hunt, whose bodies were found along
with those of their children at the family's Lockhart property, have
also spoken of their pain and regret that they never saw the tragedy
coming.
Mr
Hunt's brother and sister-in-law, Allen and Renae Hunt said they would
'never be rid of the gut-wrenching heartache' that enveloped them when
they learned that Geoff, Kim, 10-year-old Fletcher, eight-year-old Mia,
and the baby of the family, six-year-old Phoebe, were dead.
A
statement from the couple, who ran the Lockhart farm with Geoff, says
they struggle with their regret, wishing they had done more to help
Geoff at his time of need.
Source: UK Daily Mail
