Australian police find seven dead in rural town, guns seized

By Colin Packham and Jonathan Barrett

 

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian police found seven dead people on Friday, including four children, in a rural town in the Margaret River wine-growing region, and said guns were involved in the killings.

 

The bodies of four children and three adults were found at or near a property in Osmington near the southwestern tip of Australia, Western Australia's Commissioner of Police Chris Dawson told a news conference.

 

Dawson said firearms were found at the scene. He said there appeared to be gunshot wounds.

 

"I can only describe it as a horrific situation," Dawson said.

 

"We have no information to raise concern about wider public safety issues at this point in time."

 

Gun crime in Australia fell sharply after strict controls were introduced in response to a mass shooting in 1996, when a lone gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania.

 

That prompted the government to buy back or confiscate a million firearms and make it harder to buy new ones.

 

Australia has banned all semi-automatic rifles and all semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns, and has a restrictive system of licensing and ownership controls.

 

While there have been some mass killings since Port Arthur, the latest killings could prove to be the single biggest incident of gun-related deaths since 1996.

 

Police said they went to the property after getting a telephone call.

 

"The reason police went to the property was from a telephone call which we've recorded," said Dawson, who would not comment on the identity of the caller.

 

He said homicide detectives were helping police.

 

(Reporting by Colin Packham and Jonathan Barrett in SYDNEY; Editing by Robert Birsel)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-05-11

Terribly cruel with the murder of four children. Currently being treated as murder - suicide. Sadly there have been a number of family murder suicides in Australia in recent years. RIP the innocents.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-11/seven-people-found-dead-in-margaret-river-murder-suicide/9751482

 

 

Have passed through that area many times over the years.

Three "longarm" firearms licensed to Peter Miles, who was found dead — along with six others — in a suspected murder-suicide near Margaret River, have been recovered at the crime scene, police said.

 

West Australian Police Commissioner Chris Dawson would not confirm if police believed the 61-year-old was the shooter, only saying the investigation at the scene would take several more days.

"This is a complex criminal investigation … clearly six people are subject of a homicide crime scene. There is a 7th person deceased," he said.

"It's far too premature for me to come to any conclusive statement about that."

Sad story in Oz, I have Australia on my bucket list for a visit.    Hope to see the southern skies and scenery of a few places along the East to South shores.

Geezer