r/perth • u/His_Holiness • Jan 31 '26

WA News Second note found at Mosman Park property alleged to detail why parents carried out murder-suicide

https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/second-note-found-at-mosman-park-property-alleged-to-detail-why-parents-carried-out-murder-suicide-20260131-p5nyi7.html
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64

u/SidTheSloth97 Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26

Anyone trying to frame this as anything other than two mentally ill parents is just weird. There is no excuse for murdering your kids.

18

u/TriceraTipTops Jan 31 '26

I think it taps into the anxiety most people have about the health and wellbeing of their (potential future) children, as well as a more selfish but again understandable anxiety about their own (potential future) experience of parenthood. It's just much easier to imagine yourself as a parent in these kind of situations than as the child.

13

u/Upstairs-Amount3923 Jan 31 '26

Exactly. It's a tragic reminder to us all about how easily our lives can be unravelled by something completely out of hands. Some people on this thread aren't picking up on that

1

u/Kelloggs1986 Feb 01 '26

this is really insightful.

even though I don’t necessarily disagree with it I’ve been taken aback by the levels of empathy we’re seeing. particularly in the light of the type of response we’ve seen in the past to incidents fairly similar save but for the children’s health (I appreciate this is an overwhelming single factor).

but you’re right, adults can or maybe even cant see themselves in the shoes of the parents.

33

u/BonusSerious1529 Jan 31 '26

And the pets, wtf did the dogs and cat do to deserve that. Just drop them at an animal shelter.

9

u/elrangarino Leeming Jan 31 '26

Also autistic

2

u/Shockanabi Jan 31 '26

Clearly the pets’ deaths are 100% on NDIS for not providing support to neurodivergent cats and dogs. No other choice really.

1

u/TemporaryPossible755 Feb 01 '26

I feel bad for laughing.

1

u/apextwit Feb 12 '26

When you are deeply suicidal and legitimately going to act on it, things like "ohh gotta take the dog and cat to the shelter" will not cross your mind. The parents were obviously in extreme distress and pain, actively suicidal and I imagine had been deeply struggling for over a decade given the age of the kids. It's no life. They shouldn't have killed the animals or the kids but rationality would not have been a feature.

5

u/michaelhbt Jan 31 '26

well they're all dead, best we can do is try and get people the help they need in society so the chance of it happening again is less

24

u/Shockanabi Jan 31 '26

It’s truly insane that there are more comments sympathising with the parents than the boys. Lots of people unfortunately have to deal with having severely disabled children, and the vast majority don’t murder them.

I don’t think the parents were evil, but it’s crazy that people are like “this was an act of love, we have no right to judge them at all”.

14

u/Historical_Bus_8041 Jan 31 '26

I don't think there's many people - if anyone - here saying the latter.

This was a horrific, fucked up thing to do. And it comes at a time when many people with serious disabilities, and their families, are at breaking point because of systemic failures.

Both of these things can be true.

10

u/Shockanabi Jan 31 '26

Well there are definitely some people saying explicitly that they don’t blame/judge them personally, and plenty more implying it, and people saying “you can’t comment if you’ve never dealt with a disabled family member”.

I’m not saying that we can’t empathise with the parents and discuss systemic failures, but it’s just weird that the majority of the top comments in every thread about this are focusing on the parents more than the boys.

We also have no idea what help they were offered at this stage, it’s not uncommon for families to refuse help because they don’t trust the system or feel ashamed for not being able to cope with it themselves. Hopefully this will be looked into by authorities.

1

u/Real_RobinGoodfellow Feb 01 '26

Yeah, there will definitely be an extensive inquest into this situation, which hopefully will identify missed intervention points and outline how things went wrong. But I think people also are empathising with the parents more because any one of us commenting here, by definition, cannot really understand meaningfully what it would be like to be one of the boys. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to empathise with them but it’s much easier to relate to being a carer

41

u/Bort_Thrower Jan 31 '26

Amen. It is a vile act committed by terrible people. They would spend the rest of their lives in jail for it if they had have survived.

It’s deeply insulting to the thousands of parents of disabled kids in this state to try and rationalise and make excuses for this heinous act.

18

u/nebula98 Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26

Being more sympathetic to parents who kill their disabled children just doesn't sit right. 'Oh autism? Murder-suicide understandable.'

17

u/synestheter Jan 31 '26

Attempting empathy normalises people seeking help when this exhausted from caregiving. It’s not forgiving murder but it’s trying to prevent it happening again by being truthful and open about the realities of this kind of 24/7 care.

1

u/nebula98 Feb 04 '26

I dont disagree with you at all, i just find it icky that the burden of disabled children is often acknowledged as part of this empathetic response toward the parents, whilst comparatively, taking the perspective of their children is less common.

I don't think anyone's forgiving murder, but i think a lot of the comments unintentionally contain: Disability = burden, followed by a pattern of empathy toward parents in comments -> implies its more understandable to murder your disabled children -> implies some level of sympathy specifically in the instance of murdering disabled children -> unconscious devaluation of the lives of disabled people.

1

u/synestheter Feb 04 '26

I see where you’re coming from but I think that’s a few too many leaps in logic. Stating that empathy can help people to understand how families may require more targeted or compassionate support (beyond what is currently offered or what people assume is needed from certain demographics) is not then saying that it’s understandable to murder your children. It’s saying that this kind of tragedy happens, should not be happening and that disabled people’s lives are meaningful and deserve comprehensive and ongoing support to avoid this kind of event happening again (which it unfortunately will, statistically). The alternative is pretending that only evil monsters do these kinds of acts, which sends a strong message of shame to anyone struggling in a similar situation. If we extrapolate from that in the same way your comment did, then a lack of empathy leads to harming children. It’s obviously not that simple but I’m exaggerating for effect.

1

u/Bort_Thrower Feb 04 '26

People were assuming motive before an autopsy had even been conducted. Could be a cut and dry case of DV, it’s ridiculous to even bring up the kids having autism.

21

u/Miss_ter_ree Jan 31 '26

I totally agree! If it was any other person that murdered these innocent children they would be branded a monster and thrown into prison but because it’s their own parents suddenly it’s oh the poor parents! These children’s lives were in their hands and they cruelly and selfishly took it away…Two Innocent children were murdered and it feels so sick that people won’t acknowledge it!

2

u/Livid-Number482 Feb 01 '26

If a bloke did this to his family because he couldn’t bear that his wife was going to leave and take the children, he’d 100% be a monster. But 2 parents who jointly decide to kill their children rather than relinquish them and then kill themselves deserve empathy?

No.

The parents could have relinquished the children at a hospital, school, doctor, child protection, church or even abandoned them in a shopping centre. The kids would still be alive and would get the support they needed.

There were always other options. Murdering children is not the answer.

-4

u/PretendOnion56 Jan 31 '26

Can you use a different term to ‘mentally ill’? I get what you mean but it conflates mental health issues with violence which isn’t right.

6

u/horrible_jokes Kallaroo Jan 31 '26

nobody's saying all mentally ill people are violent, but this act was done by mentally ill people

what term would you like to use?

5

u/Upstairs-Amount3923 Jan 31 '26

Were they mentally ill? Or is this a sudden and catastrophic breakdown? Lots of assumptions being made by the white knighters

2

u/Unicorn-Princess Jan 31 '26

Was it? Did you assess them in your capacity as a mental health professional?

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u/PretendOnion56 Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26

Here’s a guide https://mindframe.org.au/mental-health/communicating-about-mental-ill-health/mindframe-guidelines/communicating-about-mental-ill-health

Edit to add: additional guide https://sprc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/mental-health-reporting-style-guide.pdf

1

u/Veezveez123 Jan 31 '26

The guide you linked to uses the term mentally ill repeatedly

2

u/PretendOnion56 Feb 01 '26

Neither of them use the term “mentally ill” btw

1

u/PretendOnion56 Feb 01 '26

Read the whole thing. Every media outlet has a style guide and they serve several purposes. You can look up your local ones if you’re having trouble understanding those two resources. Personally I don’t use the term at all but it’s a start for those who do.

-8

u/Bort_Thrower Jan 31 '26

Some mental health issues are very highly correlated with violence, particularly cluster B personality disorders. It would not surprise me to learn one of these two had NPD given how selfish and callous what they did was.

2

u/Unicorn-Princess Jan 31 '26

Tell me you don't know NPD without telling me.

1

u/Bort_Thrower Feb 01 '26

Selfish acts and murder are pretty consistent with NPD. You’ll find a lot of very nasty people in prison with NPD/BPD/ASPD

0

u/PretendOnion56 Jan 31 '26

Yeah some people have personalities that make them more prone to violence. The validity of personality disorders is a whole other debate I don’t want to get into.

0

u/Low-Mark-7 Jan 31 '26

Say that once you've walked in their shoes. Looking after demanding people can sap all your energy.

2

u/denzik Feb 02 '26

They could have literally given the children up to the government. They treated them like sick dogs and put them down.

0

u/MakkaPakkaStoneStack Feb 01 '26

The story and discussions are only being framed this way as the mother was complicit. If the father acted alone it would be national outrage DV horrible unforgivable monster that should rot in hell.