SYDNEY – The daughter of a man who killed his British wife and their two grandchildren said “justice has been done” yesterday after he was jailed for life in Australia.
John Walsh (70), who is originally from Northern Ireland, was given two life sentences for the triple murder at his family home in New South Wales in June last year, as well as a concurrent 12-year term for the attempted murder of his daughter.
Jean Walsh moved to Australia from Aberdeen when she was 16 years old. She had three children with Walsh, whom she met in Sydney, and the couple moved west to Cowra 10 years ago.
New South Wales supreme court heard that Walsh killed his wife by hitting her head with a hammer shaft, stabbing her and then hitting her head with a lump hammer, as the couple babysat their two grandchildren.
The court heard he regarded the murder as a “mercy killing”, telling police his wife was in “poor health”. He had planned to kill his son-in-law and daughter, Shelly, before killing himself, but decided to “add his grandchildren to the list” after realising no one would be able to look after them following the killings.
Walsh lured the two children – five-year-old Jaime and seven-year old Kevin – out of bed before drowning his granddaughter in the bath and battering his grandson around the head with the same hammer shaft he used to kill his wife.
He also drowned the family dog, wrapped it in plastic and put it under the children’s bed, later telling police he was worried that there would be no one left to look after it.
Walsh then waited for his daughter to return to the house to collect the children and attacked her with an axe blade, telling her “we are all better off this way”.
Ms Walsh survived the attack, but was left with severe lacerations to her head, a fractured skull and torn brain linings.
When she arrived at her parents’ house, she found her mother lying on the bedroom floor but was told by Walsh that the 52-year-old was “sick”.
When she went into the children’s bedroom, she discovered their cold corpses tucked up in a bunk bed. As she made the grim discovery, Walsh crept into the bedroom and attacked her from behind with the axe.
The court was told that Walsh was “not in a normal state of mind” when he committed the murders, but there was no evidence of an underlying psychiatric disorder that would explain his actions.
At an earlier hearing, Walsh pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and the attempted murder of his daughter.
Ms Justice Lucy McCallum of the supreme court said Walsh’s acts were “wicked in the extreme”.
“The offender killed his young grandchildren when they had been entrusted to his care,” she said.
“He intended to kill them and planned their murders with grim attention. He killed the children knowing that he had already killed the only person who might have come to their defence.
“He knew their mother was many miles away, trusting that her children were in safe hands. He abused the children’s trust in him by coaxing them out of their beds,” Ms Justice Lucy McCallum added.
“There was a high degree of violence in the murder of Kevin Hodges. The murder of Jaime Hodges involved a struggle, during which she must have experienced a degree of terror no child should know.”
Outside court, Shelly Walsh spoke of her “relief” that the case had finally ended. “Whilst I can never get my mother or children back, whatever justice is left for them has been done today,” she said. “I now plan to move forward with my life in a manner that, to the best of my ability, will be one that my mother and my babies would have been proud of.
“I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of my family, as well as myself, to thank everyone for their support. This support has come from people I know as well as many people who I have never even met.
“The generosity and sympathy people have demonstrated has been overwhelming, to say the least. It has been one of the main things that has enabled me to make it through to this point and is much appreciated.” – (PA)