Life behind bars for triple axe murder grandpa

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-07 13:49

SYDNEY: An Australian judge on Friday sentenced a 70-year-old man to spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering his wife and two grandchildren and attempting to kill his daughter with an ax.

News South Wales state Supreme Court judge Lucy McCallum told the man that he had shown no remorse for his crimes and offered no explanation.

"He intended to kill them and planned their murders with grim attention," McCallum said in sentencing the man to life without parole for each child's murder plus lesser sentences for the other two crimes.

The identities of the defendant and his victims were suppressed to protect minors involved in the case.

The man had pleaded guilty at a previous court appearance to three counts of murder and one charge of attempted murder. Each conviction carried a potential maximum sentence of life in prison.

He and his 52-year-old wife had been baby-sitting their grandson, aged 7, and granddaughter, 5, at the couple's home in the rural New South Wales town of Cowra on June 30 last year while the children's mother, a 31-year-old police officer, was at work.

He admitted bludgeoning and stabbing his wife to death before fatally bludgeoning the boy.

He then drowned the girl and family dog in the bath tub. He was not charged for the dog's death.

When his daughter returned to the house after work and discovered the three bodies, he struck her three times from behind with an ax then fled.

She suffered skull fractures but has since recovered.

"Whilst I can never get my mother or children back, whatever justice is left for them has been done today," she said in a statement.