Warning: This story contains graphic content
Denpasar: The Indonesian wife of Australian child killer Damien John Shaw watched helplessly from Jakarta as a security camera inside the family’s Bali home streamed some of her daughter’s final images and sounds live to her phone.
It was about 8am on Sunday. Only moments earlier, the woman, yet to be identified, had been in what seemed to be an ordinary conversation with 56-year-old Shaw, until the phone captured the sounds of a voice or voices from inside the home.
Then the line went dead.
She tried to call again, but Shaw didn’t answer, so she pulled up the streamed security footage on her phone, noticing the camera had been pointed down, apparently manually, Bali police spokesman Senior Commander Ariasandy said in Denpasar.
Correcting the angle with the controls on her phone, the mother could see the living room of the bungalow and the horrifying scene of an unfolding double murder-suicide.
Ariasandy said Shaw suffered from severe anxiety. “Even helping the children with homework could make him panic,” he said the wife told investigators.
She watched on her phone as Shaw “chased” four-year-old Laura, who was repeatedly crying out in English, “I love you, Daddy”, before he caught her and took her into a bedroom, where investigators believe the couple’s six-year-old son, Archie, had already been strangled to death.
“It looks like he did it first to the son, and because [Laura] saw that, she was trying to escape,” Ariasandy said.
He said the mother first called the owner of the small collection of bungalows in the popular expat and tourist zone of Legian, hoping he could quickly rush inside to help, but the owner was out of town, so he gave her the number of another man employed at the complex.
Finding the door locked, the man enlisted the help of a worker at the under-construction bungalow next door. The worker smashed off the keyhole using one of his tools and swung open the door.
“I did not see the man,” the worker said, referring to Shaw, who by then had taken his own life. “From the entrance, I could see the children in the bedroom.”
The girl was stacked on top of the boy, and it was clear they were dead, the worker, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his privacy, said.
He remembered the TV was still playing cartoons.
The man accompanying the worker called the police. Ariasandy said this was about 10am.
The mother, who had been in Jakarta for several days visiting her mother, immediately flew home to Bali. She was at the bungalow on Tuesday and declined to speak. By Wednesday, it was empty, and crime scene tape had been strung across the door. At the step, a blue toy truck poked out of a shopping bag.
The worker said he had spoken to Shaw several times and never had a problem with him. Sometimes Shaw would wander over and politely ask the construction crew if they could postpone loud drilling or banging for an hour or so while the two children completed their homework.
“When his roof needed some fixing, I helped him,” the worker said. “I don’t understand how he could be so heartless to do that [to his children].”
An Indonesian neighbour said she had seen the children happily playing chasey in the grassed courtyard the night before they were murdered.
“They were good, very kindly, very cute,” she said. She would often say hello to Shaw, who seemed friendly, but did not ever have much interaction with his wife.
“I believed he was a good dad,” she said.
At least two other Australians live at the bungalow complex. Both declined to speak.
Ariasandy said Shaw, a retired oil worker, had previously attempted to take his own life at the bungalow and was stopped by his younger wife. He said they had marital problems and had discussed divorce but the relationship had recently improved.
Shaw had previously threatened self-harm during major quarrels, though this had never extended to the children, Ariasandy said, citing the mother’s interview with investigators.
The couple had lived at the bungalow since 2022 and had a signed lease up to 2029.
The case is unprecedented for Bali police, Ariasandy said. Never had elements of a double murder-suicide been captured on a home security camera, and never had one involved a foreign father.
Lifeline 13 11 14
Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800.
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Zach Hope is South-East Asia correspondent. He is a former reporter at the Brisbane Times.Connect via email.
Karuni Rompies is assistant Indonesia correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X.From our partners
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