A loving father's decision to kill his wife and three children on their Riverina farm in cold blood was unfathomable, unforeseeable - and inexcusable.
NSW State Coroner Michael Barnes confirmed on Friday what investigators have long suspected: that Geoff Hunt shot dead his wife Kim and their kids - Fletcher, 10, Mia, eight, and Phoebe, six, at their homestead in September last year.
"What Geoffrey Hunt did was inexcusable. The absolute worst of crimes," Mr Barnes said at Wagga Wagga courthouse after a week of hearings into the Hunt family deaths.
"It wasn't premeditated, it wasn't motivated by malice or to cover up other wrongs ... it was the result of an egocentric delusion that his wife and children would be better off dying than living without him."
After shooting his wife at the property near Lockhart, Mr Hunt then went from bedroom to bedroom and fired a single shot into each of his children's heads, before driving down to a dam and turning the double-barrelled shotgun on himself.
Mr Barnes said he accepted expert evidence that Mr Hunt was driven primarily by a desire to end his own life.
He said a devastating 2012 car crash that left Mrs Hunt with stark differences in personality and physical limitations may have played a role in the killings, but that it was not the start of the tensions within the Hunt household.
It appeared Mr Hunt had long been prone to depression, and a psychiatrist who treated Mrs Hunt following her accident said she believed the mother-of three, and former ICU nurse, might have suffered undiagnosed bipolar disorder, he said.
After the crash, Mrs Hunt was prone to angry outbursts and rages: "viperish criticism" is how one doctor described it.
But Mr Barnes said he did not believe anyone - not friends, family, nor the mental health workers who saw the Hunts over the months and years before they died - had "failed to see signs of impending doom they should have detected".
No one but Mr Hunt saw this coming; and given the likely impulsiveness of his decision, even he may not have had much notice.
While there was no evidence of any violence within the marital home before September 2014, Mr Barnes said the Hunt marriage was marked by "deep-seated tensions" and "differing aspirations".
Mr Hunt felt trapped by his view of his role as head of the family and his dependence on Mrs Hunt, Mr Barnes found.
Mr Hunt had told a counsellor his greatest fear was being on his own, the inquest heard.
"For some reason, that night Geoff came to act on the view that he could not go on, that his life was not going to improve and that he was better off dead," Mr Barnes said.
"Because of his emotional dependence on his wife and essential self-image of his position as the head of a family that he believed was dependent upon him, his distorted logic led him to conclude that the children and his wife could not cope without him."
Members of the Hunt's extended family wept in the jury box and in the public gallery as Mr Barnes spoke of the holes the deaths had left in the tight-knit Lockhart community, which has a population of 900.
But he countered any suggestion that the four-day inquest risked reopening wounds.
"Massacres must not be swept under the carpet merely because they occur in the home of the deceased at the hands of a family member," Mr Barnes said.
