UK NEWS

AXE VICTIMS’ FATHER TELLS OF AGONY AT LOSING ‘BEST LITTLE KIDS’

WALSH: Charged with murder

Wednesday July 2,2008

By Kevin Turner

THE distraught dad of two children killed by their axe-wielding Scots grandfather paid an emotional tribute to them last night.

Darrell Hodges fought back tears as he spoke lovingly of his son Kevin, seven, and daughter Jaime, five, after John Walsh appeared in an Australian court charged with their murder.

Former naval officer Walsh, 69, is also alleged to have killed his wife Mabel, 52, at the couple’s home in Cowra, New South Wales, on Monday. He has also been charged with attempting to murder his daughter Shelly, 31, who was seriously injured by a blow to the head.

Off-duty senior police constable Shelly wrestled the axe from her father and fled screaming to her next-door neighbour.

Yesterday, Mr Hodges, Shelly’s estranged partner and the dead children’s father, admitted the triple murder “feels like somebody else’s bad movie”. Mr Hodges said dementia sufferer Walsh was making tea when Shelly returned to her parents’ house at 2pm.

After allegedly being told by her father he had used the axe for some jobs, Shelly found the bodies of Kevin, Jaime and her mother Mabel in the house.

Former policeman Mr Hodges kept in contact with the children despite the breakdown of his relationship with their mother in 2003. He said Shelly called him on Monday when Walsh was on the run, and warned: “He’s heading up to get you, so get out of there.”

Mr Hodges said Kevin and Jaime were very close. He added: “They were just the best little kids, the best. They adored each other.”

Walsh was arrested at 8pm on Monday after booking into a motel in the Riverina town of Hay.

The motel’s owner, John Whitehead, alerted police after seeing his photograph on the TV news. Walsh covered his face as he entered Deniliquin Local Court yesterday to face three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.

Walsh, who is thought to have emigrated from Scotland before raising his family, was refused bail and remanded to appear in Wagga Wagga Local Court on Monday.

After her marriage break-up, Shelly had taken her then infant children to live with their grandparents in August 2003.

She wanted her first taste of rural life and to help her mother care for her dad in the onset of his dementia. She underwent surgery last night at Nepean Hospital in Penrith, but her injuries were not life-threatening.

Barber John Simunic, who has cut Walsh’s hair for close to 10 years, said the allegations were in stark contrast to the “happy-go-lucky, joking” man he knew.

Mr Simunic said: “I have never known him to be aggressive, he was always joking – you couldn’t understand him half the time because he’d be laughing so hard before he got to the punchline.”

But others said Walsh had struggled to deal with his son Scott’s suicide six years ago. The pensioner was left devastated after his 24-year-old son committed suicide on December 15, 2002.

Monday’s triple murder came just weeks after what would have been Scott’s 30th birthday.

Like his father, Scott joined the military and had become an investigator in the military police when he killed himself. He served in East Timor as a peacekeeper in 2001 and received a full military funeral.

Scott’s grave at Cowra cemetery was covered in flowers yesterday.