Father stabs 4 daughters to death,kills self,in Tasmania
Joe1orbit
Hello,
I feel like I'm playing "beat the clock" as I get ready to leave on my
trip.... Here is another news report on this fascinatin new quadruple
family massacre out of Tasmania.
We learn that our killer, Peter Shoobridge, aged 52, meticulously
planned his own suicide and the murder of his four daughters, writing that
he killed them because he did not want them to live in today's "troubled
world". Peter was certainly right about this world being very troubled
indeed. In a 1992 book of poetry that he wrote, Peter dedicated the book
"To my four beautiful daughters, who provide all the beauty a human being
could ever wish to have". Nice quote, Peter had a way with words, didn't
he? He also had adequate skill in knife thrusting to successfully
slaughter all four of these same daughters.
In describing himself, Peter wrote: "Being a perfectionist, he wanted to
breed the beef, butcher the beef and eat the beef but there were too many
cows". Interesting quote! I don't know if he wrote this quote just prior
to the killings, or a long time ago, the article does not specify.
Take care, JOE
The following appears courtesy of today's Associated Press news wire:
HOBART, Australia (AP) - A poet who described himself as a perfectionist
meticulously planned his own death and the slayings of his four daughters,
police said today.
Peter Shoobridge, 52, was found dead Sunday, along with his daughters
Georgina, 9; Sara, 12; Anna, 14; and Rebecca, 18, at his secluded
sandstone cottage in Tasmania, an island off Australia's southern coast.
Shoobridge wrote suicide notes to relatives, then slashed his daughters'
throats with a knife Sunday morning in Hobart, police said. He then drove
to the nearby town of Cambridge and mailed the letters in blood-stained
envelopes.
Police said he wrote that he did not want his daughters to live in today's
``troubled world.''
Shoobridge returned home and called police to report that a murder-suicide
had taken place. He then walked to the yard outside his carpentry workshop
and chopped off his right hand with an ax before shooting himself in the
head.
The son of a wealthy southern Tasmanian farming family, Shoobridge had
separated some months ago from his wife, Wendy, a Hobart lawyer.
He had dedicated his 1992 book of poetry, ``A Bush Wedding,'' to ``my ever
caring and supportive wife and four beautiful daughters, who provide all
the beauty a human being could ever wish to have.''
Describing himself, he wrote: ``Being a perfectionist, he wanted to breed
the beef, butcher the beef and eat the beef but there were too many
cows.''
AP-NY-06-30-97
Joe1orbit
Hello,
Here is an update on this interesting case out of Tasmania, where a man
slaughtered all four of his daughters, chopped off his own right hand with
an axe, then killed himself with a rifle shot to the head on Saturday, 6
days ago.
Peter Shoobridge is the name of our quadruple daughter slaughterer, and
he was a fairly wealthy and very well-known published author in the
Tasmania/Australia region, who has been published in books and had
appeared on local TV network talk shows. In this update we get a more
detailed portrait of Peter, along with additional quotes from his
writings, and comments from a few of his friends and neighbors. I find
some of writings to be very interesting, when read in hindsight, now that
he has killed his 4 daughters and himself.
Writes Peter, about himself: "He has thought about bunji jumping off
the Tasman Bridge but figures... If he is to fight this battle of life and
win, he would like full military honors at its end rather than AWOL."
Well, Peter certainly did go out raging, rather than quietly ending his
life. Gotta give him credit for that. He may well have felt self-loathing,
right after he killed his four daughters and then proceeded to chop off
his own right hand and then shoot himself in the head. But at least he did
initially direct his violence towards others, in killing his daughters.
We, at least those of us who are dedicated to being true to our realities,
do as our reality deems appropriate, and I honor Peter's choices, just as
I would wish my own choices in life to be honored by others.
Take care, JOE
The following appears courtesy of the 7/1/97 online edition of The
Melbourne Age (Australia) newspaper:
Tuesday 1 July 1997
A poet and family man who fell apart
By ANDREW DARBY,
Hobart
Peter Shoobridge didn't just love his family, he adored them. He wasn't
just good at cabinet work, he was fanatical about it. He didn't only build
a house, he constructed the perfect homestead. Now this order has crashed.
Last Saturday night, he became a person who could kill his four daughters
and destroy the life he had made. The only explanation that came from the
letters he left was his claim that he did not want to expose his children
to the troubles of a cruel world.
There were signs of these troubles in the closure of his antique shop a
year ago, his separation from his wife and, earlier this year, when he
lost a valued job managing a neighbor's vineyard.
``I've felt for a couple months that he had been depressed about
something,'' said Mr Rick Reynolds, an antique dealer and a friend of 20
years. ``That disagreement over the vineyard; he came to see me to say he
felt he had done the wrong thing. He had a lot of regret about things he
said to them.''
Yet there was no outward sign he would not carry on. Only last Thursday,
Mr Shoobridge poked a handful of cards under the door of another dealer,
advertising his antiques restoration service. The same day, he visited Mr
Reynolds, who was moving shop. ``I was busy at the time. He seemed a bit
withdrawn.''
According to Mr Shoobridge's poetry, the foundation of his existence was
his family. He dedicated his 1992 self-published book to: ``My ever caring
and supportive wife and four beautiful daughters, who provide all the
beauty a human could ever wish to have.''
The whimsical verse in the book showed a man who had overcome early
failings. Born a twin in the country town Ouse, he recalled: ``At school
my nickname was Wooden/ Named not for wood-working abilities/ . . . I look
back when I open up memory's lid/ to my parents and their wooden-headed
kid.''
Years later at Southernfield, he stood proud: ``I am a superhuman in my
Multi Function Polis/ Living on a hobby farm we bought from Reverend
Wallace/ I took the fifty acres on to please me wife and kids/ but the 50
acre run was tons of volcanic lids.''
Even the rocks were bettered. He picked them by hand to build drystone
walls around the sandstone home fitted with his cabinet work.
The years before his family had been those of a young rural man on
walkabout. He went to wool school in Melbourne, worked as a jackaroo in
New South Wales, Britain, Europe and the United States.
He came home but tossed in farming, which failed to satisfy him. He
married his solicitor wife Wendy and set up business as a ``wood doctor''
and later antique dealer.
A fellow dealer Mr Michael Hobden, recalled that Mr Shoobridge was a
self-taught cabinet maker who was very particular about the sort of
furniture he restored and sold; turn-of-the-century items mainly of
blackwood that were very well made. ``I liked Peter,'' said Mr Hobden.
``He was a straightforward, no-nonsense type. He worked hard and he was a
perfectionist.''
Mr Reynolds believed that beneath the jolly public persona, there was
someone who kept his antique life entirely separate from his family. ``You
could say that he was eccentric, but that covers a multitude of sins,''
said Mr Reynolds. ``He was easygoing but there was an aspect I don't know
how to describe. Most people are satisfied calling it eccentric because
they can't put their finger on it.''
Mr Shoobridge's difference showed up in verse, which he might declaim in
the midst of an antique auction, ramble on with at special dinners, or
spout energetically on a local daytime television show.
Mainly these poems are the unsophisticated words of one of life's keen
observers. A poem called Hallucinate is about giving up cigarettes;
another called The Chooks' Last Walk to the Woodheap is about the
perennial poultry owners' threat to non-laying birds.
But in his book, the autobiographical notes end jarringly. ``He has
thought about bunji (sic) jumping off the Tasman Bridge but figures . . .
if he is to fight this battle of life and win, he would like full military
honors at its end rather than AWOL.''
In fact, he has left himself no honors and people like Mr Reynolds can do
no more than wonder why. ``My feeling is at some point in the past few
months, his ordered existence has just come apart.''