To be terrified by the Australian rugby coach setting his family on fire?

[SeasonallySnowyPeasant]

In brief: earlier today an Australian ex-rugby player was in the car with his wife and their three children, poured petrol over her and set her alight. She, he and the children all died. The parents were ending their marriage and disputing custody over the children.

It’s absolutely horrific and I just wonder why there seem to be no depths to which some men - and it almost always is men - will sink when it comes to asserting their dominance over women and children. Throwing acid over them seems to be the newest ‘thing’ over the past 3 years. Assault, rape, stalking, harassment, murder are so common as to be un-newsworthy.

It scares me. My exH was abusive and I have a non-molestation order to prevent him from continuing the abuse. At the back of my mind I worry about him taking something I do/say as pushing him too far and being seriously hurt or killed. What if he decides one day to kill our DC?

Why won’t men sort their lives out and put an end to this horrific violence?

I hate the phrase “murder-suicide” as well. I’m struggling to articulate really why though? It just seems to make it sound less serious than just “murder”.

I think it's because we talk about "suicide victims". The phrase victimises the murderer.

Yes, that’s probably exactly it @GCAcademic.

IMO anyone who kills themselves and their children is the lowest of the low.

I do however think there is a double standard in that if a man does so he’s branded a family annihilator but if a woman does it we must have sympathy because “it’s so rare and she must have been suffering from mental illness.”

We do need to look at why domestic violence is able to get as far as to resort in these kinds of crimes and it is a fact that men are more guilty of it than women.

But murder is murder, regardless of whether you’re male or female.

The point is to narrow down the characteristics in order to find the salient one.

There are researchers, statisticians, and psychologists who know rather more about it than people blabbing on the internet.

We can listen to them. If they have a body of evidence that suggests, this is the demographic, this is the motivation we can examine their claims as best we can and make our minds based on the robustness of the evidence.

What uninformed people say is worth nothing really.

I do however think there is a double standard in that if a man does so he’s branded a family annihilator but if a woman does it we must have sympathy because “it’s so rare and she must have been suffering from mental illness.”

Andrea Yates didn't get much sympathy and she truly was psychotically unwell. Rusty kept her pregnant and off her medication (for all the pregnancies - after drs told them to stop) until she quite inevitably cracked. Yet he received plenty of sympathy and IIRC, remarried.

Occasionally women are wilful family annihilators and those women are absolutely ripped apart for it. No one ever says "oh, but she was such a great lass, she really loved those kids, let's try to understand her pain". No. People, rightly, cannot distance themselves fast enough. Not so for the much more common male version.

Obviously PP psychosis/severe PPD women are in a different position, one which me will not find themselves due to biology. Interestingly, despite hormones and biology, men still do most of the child killing 🤷‍♀️. Funny that.

Now it turns out that he didn't burn himself to death.

Of course not.

He poured petrol on the kids and his ex and set them on fire then basically circled the car with a knife stopping onlookers from saving them, before eventually giving himself a more pleasant death with the knife.

An early start at the in-laws, armed with petrol can and a nice big knife. Awful lot of planning there for a fella who snapped eh.

When will the media start reporting these violent murders as violent murders?

Struggling to think of a case where a woman murdered her kids to get back at her ex

www.thesun.co.uk/news/10416545/samantha-ford-mum-drowned-twins-letter

I think there’s another angle here, besides the male violence one.

Some parents do not see their children as separate human beings. So they feel entitled to kill them to get back at their partners or because they will lose them in a custody battle. Or because they feel unable to provide care, etc etc. It’s horrifying 😥

To be clear, this isn’t a ‘women too’ argument. Family annihilators are men who see their wives and children as possessions.

So women are endangered by their close male relatives/family while children are endangered by their parents, full stop.

Stats are tricky and we should look for good sources, which are limited. Family annihilators are mainly men.

There a lot of stupid people who reveal themselves in these threads. They draw equivalence between any death, howsoever it happened, irrespective of the motivations and intent of killers.

To you, congratulate yourself on you moronic point of view. You raise children with these kind of views. You are part of the problem with how violence is perceived and the seriousness of it. You down play the real sadism and cruelty of people who do such severe crimes. And it allows you to witter about the family and how the conduct of victims must be relevant. You are morally repugnant in your “whataboutery”.

Fortunately the law thinks you are wrong too. But your horrible views are replicated in the media as effective excuses for horrific crimes.

The rpeoting was awful. They made it sound like an accident or natural disaster, not a murder ad then suicide.

I'm sure some people will still find room for benefit of the doubt/ reason the poor chap was driven to do this.

How was it not reported as a violent murder? If anything, they were almost gleefully graphic in how they described the murder.

I think if you watch the video of him playing with the kids, the one where he pretends to get them in a chokehold etc, the warning signs of him being an abuser are there to see. He is exerting his power and dominance in a faux playful manner. It's a horrible video in my opinion.

When people say though, that men should condemn these acts, have you actually spoken to any man who has not condemned this crime? I find it hard to believe that the reaction from any man I know would be anything other than disgusted.

The news report I heard were onething along the lines of he had been found in his car with his family, petrol etc. Then further into the story it became clear he was responsible.

Fair enough then, that's obviously completely wrong. That doesn't tally with the ones I saw. What do you think the motivation for that is though? To protect men by sanitising the crime?

It is wrong in principle to set these kind of incidents as a sort of inevitable family tragedy to drink from as if it could not have been stopped or prevented. The coverage is revolting.

A better response is how do you protect the most vulnerable in society from such violence and entitlement. The passivity of discussing the mental health of the perpetrator is just a way of mentally avoiding the bigger implications.

PicsInRed

Well as we suspected . She wasn’t keeping the kids because she was a psycho child stealing cheat . She had a DVO and he was abusive . Surprise surprise . At least the
DM for their many failing reported the truth here

‘Loved his kids ‘ ‘great dad’

Fuck me

Her family
My heart breaks for them

Could somebody link to an article or comment that doesn't view this as awful, violent and unforgivable.

Siring - it's the emphasis on him, not her. She was an award-winning trampolinist. Where is that in most of the articles?

The BBC's headline is: Rowan Baxter: Ex-rugby player, wife and children die after 'horrific' car fire

That sounds like there was a terrible accident. We know that isn't what happened. There were witnesses. And why does he get the headline? He isn't well known. Why isn't it 'Trampolinist Hannah Clarke and her 3 children die after her ex, who also died at the scene, allegedly set them alight?'

The BBC are SHIT at reporting family murders. Have complained to them about their reporting of previous cases and might well do so again on that headline.

Tell me that at first glance this doesn't look like a tragic accident and a death of a loving father and his family?