Australia - 7 dead in mass shooting and suicide - Osmington WA - 11 May 2018

Maybe this is why the cops will be there for another five days. Making sure who really did the deed.
Was it grandpa or did someone else leave grandpa till last and shot him to make it look like suicide. Use his phone, place the gun in an obvious position and walk away.
Everything seems too obvious but out cops will find the truth. Was there a disgruntled sibling wanting money, someone’s toes were trodden on? :thinking:

“We know where the call was made from, we know whose phone it was made from," said WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson.

https://www.watoday.com.au/national...to-margaret-river-deaths-20180512-p4zexk.html


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And the WA coppers were very firm in stating that the general community had no need to be concerned or frightened, that it was all under control and no need to engage in vigilante patrol stuff.. keep calm and carry on, said the WA chaps.
 
I know Katrina through meeting up with her and her kids and also on a homeschool facebook group we are on. She was a lovely mum who did everything she could for her kids and so used her knowledge to help others with kids with special needs, including myself. The homeschooling world is reeling and so in shock how such a horrible thing can happen to a beautiful woman and her children. Nothing makes sense, but Im so hoping that the phone call will be what will help police the most in the investigation.
 
And the WA coppers were very firm in stating that the general community had no need to be concerned or frightened, that it was all under control and no need to engage in vigilante patrol stuff.. keep calm and carry on, said the WA chaps.

This might be because the gunman rang them up and said "I've just killed six members of my family, and now I'm going to kill myself, you may need to send the coroner and a few hearses to the following address..."

Not every crime is some nefarious conspiracy. Many of them are simple, personal, tragedies.

My own opinion.
 
Being winter in WA, now, and in many ways, the Margaret River area settles back into it's own after the summer tourist season, it isn't an unusual thing for small farmers to do off-farm work up until September, or even October, each year, a few days a week, the home farm can be kept up to par with just a few days a week unlike the spring planting, the summer maintenance, and the autumn harvesting.. the yearly cycle would mean looking for off-farm work more to be occupied over winter, and lots of places need experienced workpeople for jobs than can only be done at this time..

I didn't read into his advertising for work as a measure of financial desperation, but more of a usual cycle of labour distribution on a seasonal basis among small farmers...

It’s not like me to be ruthless but here goes. :D

The property was allegedly purchased for $800,000, that’s a fair wack back in ‘2014/15 excluding the machinery.
He might have had some Super to see him through, for a while, maybe the sustainability option was their only option. Looks pretty but hard yakka.

Now there were 4 autistic children and an unemployed mum (carer). I would believe our govt would be helping them with weekly benefits.
I noticed Grandma on a Janome trying to make a quid.
A neighbour said he’d seen grandpa on the tractor once or twice but never got to say hello.

Maybe he got Jack of seeing his super wafting away. Maybe he wasn’t coping with the autism.
Crikey he didn’t have to shoot the lot of them!

All had a heavy load on that farm. It might have looked sweet and huggy but I’m thinking differently.

There was 7 hungry mouths to feed.





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This might be because the gunman rang them up and said "I've just killed six members of my family, and now I'm going to kill myself, you may need to send the coroner and a few hearses to the following address..."

Not every crime is some nefarious conspiracy. Many of them are simple, personal, tragedies.

My own opinion.

That appears to be the general idea... Since the shots were heard around 4am, yet the call to the police didn't take place until 5am it's difficult to conclude that the shooter was a stranger, hanging about a strange place with 7 dead bodies for an hour with the sun coming up at 7am ( winter) ...
 
It’s not like me to be ruthless but here goes. :D

The property was allegedly purchased for $800,000, that’s a fair wack back in ‘2014/15 excluding the machinery.
He might have had some Super to see him through, for a while, maybe the sustainability option was their only option. Looks pretty but hard yakka.

Now there were 4 autistic children and an unemployed mum (carer). I would believe our govt would be helping them with weekly benefits.
I noticed Grandma on a Janome trying to make a quid.
A neighbour said he’d seen grandpa on the tractor once or twice but never got to say hello.

Maybe he got Jack of seeing his super wafting away. Maybe he wasn’t coping with the autism.
Crikey he didn’t have to shoot the lot of them!

All had a heavy load on that farm. It might have looked sweet and huggy but I’m thinking differently.

There was 7 hungry mouths to feed.





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I agree mostly, TGY!!.....

in 2014 he would have been 57, too young to collect the pension, and probably not able to access his super annuation from his teaching career, and yet too old for a large home loan, I gathered they had a farm on the river and sold that and bought this current farm in Osmington road.. he would have had his super coming to him in about 5 more years, a huge sum, too, plus he would have had a lot of equity in the current property from the proceeds of their former farm. I am not being disagreeable, but putting another perspective forward.

Also. I gather from that picture that it was Katrina's second wedding, surrounded by her kids, unless Mr C was the partner and father of the kids all along and they married 'late', as we say. Who knows what property she bought with her onto the farm and indeed she would have been subsidized and rightly so by the federal and state gov for the kids and their schooling.

How on earth anyone home schools 4 autistic kids at home is a dilemma that to me has no solution whatsoever, yet apparently , that 's what she did, to my total admiration and astonishment. Did father help? or the 2nd husband? he is a local builder, so that is possible... .
 
That Janome was top of the line , around about $3,500, no toy!


the garden to the farm appears to be immaculate. that takes time and money and muscle, lots of it, plus a lot of productive dreamtime to get a grip on the vision. .. there was money to spare on aesthetics, things apart from the profitable and sellable, the fruit orchard, for example, would have taken a fair chunk out of all of $ 20,000 to set up and get started, never mind maintaining it, the pruning alone would have been a specialist job.

For me, I am not seeing lack of money in this horror, at all. Margaret River land is a goldmine, whatever way you look at it, for investment, for farming, tourist properties, horse stuff, whatever he paid for it in 2014, it would be worth 30% more now , even 40, despite the relentless corruption of the WA state government.
 
I agree mostly, TGY!!.....



How on earth anyone home schools 4 autistic kids at home is a dilemma that to me has no solution whatsoever, yet apparently , that 's what she did, to my total admiration and astonishment. Did father help? or the 2nd husband? he is a local builder, so that is possible... .

2nd husband? I think the is the wedding of her bro, not Katrina..

The other factor is if Katrina and Mr C moved in with the in grandparents and then broke up post 2014, thus removing an income placing more pressure onto the family with a divorce/ payout on top. With the NDIS being in some cases vastly inadequate compared to pre NDIS those are other factors to consider.
 
2nd husband? I think the is the wedding of her bro, not Katrina..This is correct.


The other factor is if Katrina and Mr C moved in with the in grandparents and then broke up post 2014, thus removing an income placing more pressure onto the family with a divorce/ payout on top. With the NDIS being in some cases vastly inadequate compared to pre NDIS those are other factors to consider.

She moved there after marriage broke up
 
I'm going to wait on the forensics before leaning either way on this one.

It's a 30 hectare property? - what's to stop someone parking up far from the homestead & walking in through the scrub?

If this person went after mum & the kids first, started threatening to shoot them but didn't actually start killing until the grandparents ran out to the shed to see what was happening, that could explain the 2 victims being found outside & the big gaps heard between the shots.

Mum & the kids could've been cornered in their shed with the shooter in the doorway between them & the grandparents. When the grandparents were killed, everyone else was still trapped in the shed with no escape.

The shooter could try to fool forensics by wiping down the weapons & pressing one of the victim's hands against the guns after they were killed - & unless police knew the grandfather's voice really well, any adult male who knew the victim's names & the address could pretty easily impersonate him.

Murder/suicide is the most obvious explanation, but given the size of the property & a few other details, I'm going to wait til they've done gunshot residue, trajectory etc & can say with more certainty
 
Do you know if the ex was welcome on the property, was it an amicable break and was he involved with the children.


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As was in earlier reports, before it came to light that her dad was the suspect, there was issue with ex stalking her.
 
I'm going to wait on the forensics before leaning either way on this one.

It's a 30 hectare property? - what's to stop someone parking up far from the homestead & walking in through the scrub?

If this person went after mum & the kids first, started threatening to shoot them but didn't actually start killing until the grandparents ran out to the shed to see what was happening, that could explain the 2 victims being found outside & the big gaps heard between the shots.

Mum & the kids could've been cornered in their shed with the shooter in the doorway between them & the grandparents. When the grandparents were killed, everyone else was still trapped in the shed with no escape.

The shooter could try to fool forensics by wiping down the weapons & pressing one of the victim's hands against the guns after they were killed - & unless police knew the grandfather's voice really well, any adult male who knew the victim's names & the address could pretty easily impersonate him.

Murder/suicide is the most obvious explanation, but given the size of the property & a few other details, I'm going to wait til they've done gunshot residue, trajectory etc & can say with more certainty

30 acres, less than 10 hectares so not really a viable farm.
 
I will confirm all seven deceased suffered gunshot wounds,” said Western Australia state Police Commissioner Chris Dawson in a media briefing Saturday. “We are treating this as a matter in which clearly six persons are the subject of a homicide crime scene.”

He continued: “There is a seventh person deceased. It’s far too premature for me to come to any conclusive statement about that.”

One woman was located inside the family’s home and five people — including a woman and all the children — were found in a “converted shed structure,” Dawson confirmed.

https://nypost.com/2018/05/12/grandfather-suspected-of-murder-suicide-in-australia-family-massacre/
 
It is understood Cynda’s body was found inside the family home on a rural hobby farm in Osmington. Katrina and the children were discovered in a nearby two-bedroom flat on the family farm, where they all lived.

Mr Miles was found slumped in a chair on the veranda with a firearm between his legs and head wounds. Yesterday, the bodies of the seven family members were removed from the farm.

https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/so...beautiful-wa-family-gunned-down-ng-b88834383z

Snip

THE Miles’ son Shawn took his own life about 15 years ago at a rural property in nearby Warner Glen;

Neighbour Felicity Haynes said Mr Miles had recently completed maintenance work at her property, doing a top job.

But she acknowledged the family had “known tragedy and were dealing with tragedy”.
 
30 acres, less than 10 hectares so not really a viable farm.

Yeah it definitely wasn't a working station, you're usually looking thousands of hectares for that.

It should've been obvious to me that it was acres, not hectares considering their occupations & where the property is located, but either way, even if it was only 5 acres it'd be big enough for someone to park up on a road some distance away from neighbour's homes & walk in & out without anyone knowing.

& maybe WApol are just being especially cautious & waiting on forensics before they confirm anything (maybe because this is WA's worst family killing since Greenough?) but considering how many days have passed, they seem to be unusually cagey over whether it was a murder/suicide & who made that 5.15 am ph call
 
<modsnip>

TBH I didn't really get the feel for financial hardships in that family..Having that acreage in that area with a pool and off road buggy seems a bit of a luxury but maybe I missed something. Certainly the disability could be trying and with changes to NDIS lately a final straw. Really don't know, but I still wonder about where Katrina's ex comes into this tragedy, if at all.

2nd husband? I think the is the wedding of her bro, not Katrina..

The other factor is if Katrina and Mr C moved in with the in grandparents and then broke up post 2014, thus removing an income placing more pressure onto the family with a divorce/ payout on top. With the NDIS being in some cases vastly inadequate compared to pre NDIS those are other factors to consider.

The NDIS rollout was a bit different in WA from what I recall, however I think it was swapping over this year. But at least for people without physical disabilities (an area I don't have personal experience with) the NDIS really just changes how funding for things like therapy is delivered. For kids older than 7 (and most diagnosed kids under 7) it actually means more access to funded therapy than was available before. Until the NDIS your autism therapy package funds stopped when your kids turned 7. Now it's available until retirement age. The NDIS doesn't fund things like education because that's the responsibility of parents, schools and education departments and always has been. Opting to homeschool 4 ASD kids is ... brave. But it has nothing to do with the NDIS or with any funding packages available pre-NDIS. We're getting more money for therapy under the NDIS than we have under the prior FAHCSIA "helping children with autism" package.

[FONT=&amp]On Margaret River&#8217;s main street, a cafe worker said, &#8220;they have got it wrong. It wasn&#8217;t the grandfather&#8221;.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/aust...garet-river-deaths/ar-AAx9dMN?ocid=spartandhp


[/FONT]

Meh (not at you, they'll get you - meh at the cafe worker). People always say stuff like that. It's pretty meaningless. "I don't believe they'd commit suicide, they seemed happy" - hear it all the time. Look at the many people still convinced the Harts wouldn't murder-suicide their family too.
 
The NDIS rollout was a bit different in WA from what I recall, however I think it was swapping over this year. But at least for people without physical disabilities (an area I don't have personal experience with) the NDIS really just changes how funding for things like therapy is delivered. For kids older than 7 (and most diagnosed kids under 7) it actually means more access to funded therapy than was available before. Until the NDIS your autism therapy package funds stopped when your kids turned 7. Now it's available until retirement age. The NDIS doesn't fund things like education because that's the responsibility of parents, schools and education departments and always has been. Opting to homeschool 4 ASD kids is ... brave. But it has nothing to do with the NDIS or with any funding packages available pre-NDIS. We're getting more money for therapy under the NDIS than we have under the prior FAHCSIA "helping children with autism" package.

I guess it depends who you talk to really. For our family it has been decimating (the NDIS). So much so it has wiped out the school bus meaning parents need to do all the transport. Also they want the carers to have access to our car.
I guess I was speaking from a personal viewpoint in that the NDIS is not all sunshine and rainbows for everyone.
 

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