Riverina farmer and family man Geoff Hunt probably acted on impulse when he gunned down his wife and three children before taking his own life, a NSW forensic psychologist who examined the case says.
Sarah Yule has told the inquest into the deaths of Mr Hunt, his wife Kim Hunt, and their children - Fletcher, 10, Mia, eight, and Phoebe, six - that the grieving town of Lockhart will never know what triggered a loving father with no history of domestic violence to destroy his entire family last September.
"I don't believe we can know that. It could have been something in a conversation that occurred that evening," Dr Yule told a Wagga Wagga courtroom on Thursday.
Under questioning on Thursday, Dr Yule agreed that Mr Hunt's behaviour in the last hours he was seen alive - making lunches for his children to take to school the following day, setting up plans for a tennis game with a friend later in the week - suggested he probably killed his family on impulse.
But she believed Mr Hunt's primary motivation was to take his own life, "with the homicides occurring in his mind as a secondary necessity".
Dr Yule said family destroyers may be motivated by "pseudo-altruistic intent" when they kill their loved ones, "in that they feel they were sparing them from further pain".
"I believe it occurred in the context of a distorted rationale in his own mind. I believe that he presented a face of being able to cope," Dr Yule said.
"Something at that particular time has caused him to lose whatever component of hope he had left that he could fix things ... that it would never get better, and he couldn't fix it."
The inquest has heard the Hunt family had struggled in the two years leading up to their deaths in 2014 after Mrs Hunt was involved in a serious car crash that nearly killed her, and caused brain and spinal injuries and a serious change in personality.
Mrs Hunt's younger sister, Jenny Geppert sobbed as she recalled the last time she had seen Mr and Mrs Hunt with their children.
It was her daughter's fourth birthday party, and the Hunts stayed on after the other guests had left.
There was little sign of the terrible car crash two years earlier that had left Mrs Hunt battling wild mood swings and anger, and forced her to re-learn how to walk and talk.
"My sister and I were as close as they come," Mrs Geppert said.
"I made her promise me once that she would never let anything happen to her because I couldn't imagine how I'd live my life without her. I wish she could have kept this promise."
Mrs Hunt's family also said an urgent re-think of support services for families who have experienced trauma, such as her 2012 car crash, was needed to prevent another tragedy.
Mrs Hunt's cousin, Jane Blake, writing on behalf of her extended family, slammed the "obvious ineffectiveness of the mental health system" in Australia.
"We believe one hour with Kim every now and then was grossly inappropriate to deem her 'better' and no longer needing support," Ms Blake said in a submission.
"To take the word of an individual with a brain injury and significant spinal injury is unacceptable. Equal support for main carers like Geoff is totally unrecognised.
"It is too late for our family, but ultimately it does not have to be for another."
The inquest continues, with Coroner Michael Barnes expected to hand down his findings on Friday.
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