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Peter
Shoobridge was a quiet, wealthy man - a published poet who
restored antiques and lived a gentile life on an idyllic
country estate.
But one Sunday, Peter Shoobridge turned into a man who would
be called the "Tasmanian Devil" in the local press in the
following days.
In the quiet pre dawn hours, Shoobridge slit the throats of
his four daughters and left them to die gurgling in a pool
of their own blood. Then he chopped off his own hand with an
axe and blew his brains out.
He was, however, considerate enough to summon the police to
clean up the mess. Shoobridge even mailed explanations for
his shocking deed to relatives before offing himself.
No one expected 52-year-old Shoobridge, the son of a wealthy
farming family and an accomplished poet, to be the next
Tasmaniac. He had no history of mental illness, he gave no
clues that he was planning the quadruple murder and his own
mutilation and suicide.
"He was a
hard working bloke, who didn't smoke or drink,
and he lived by himself. This is just unreal,"
- neighbor Kevin Nykiel.
But the deed was clearly a
well planned orchestration of utter despair. Shoobridge
methodically cut the jugulars of his four daughters - aged
9, 12, 14 and 18 - as they lay sleeping in their beds at
Southernfield, a mansion shaded by gum trees and grape vines
about 9 miles north of Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. Only
the eldest daughter awoke in time to offer resistance, but
her crazed father paid no heed. When found she had slash
marks across both hands, a mark I'm sure most of you would
know means defence wounds.
He then drove to nearby Cambridge, the closest town, and
mailed letters to relatives relating that he did not want
his girls to continue living in this "troubled world."
Upon returning home, Shoobridge called police emergency
services and reported a murder suicide at his own address.
He then went out to his furniture restoration workshop and
chopped his left hand off. No-one really knows why the fuck
he did this, but the most popular theory is that he was
feeling guilty about what that hand had done to his
daughters. It seems a pretty fuckin stupid thing to do to
me. Anyway after chopping his hand off, he must have had a
moment of clarity and realized that he was well fucked once
the cops got there. So he picked up his .22 calibre rifle,
with his right hand i would reckon, and blew his brains
around the backyard.
Police are still baffled as to why Shoobridge went berserk,
but they suspect a recent separation from his wife Wendy --
who retained the custody of his daughters -- had something
to do with the massacre. And I'm sure it took them ages to
figure that one out :-)
INTERESTING
SHIT
Shoobridge 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."
Shoobridge's father is a well know nutcase on a little
island off the coast of Tasmania. It's called Bruny Island,
and his nickname is the "Bruny Island Bomber." This is
because of his love for the Essendon Bombers Football Team.
He has made his own coffin, which he proudly shows anyone
who visits him, and has requested that when he dies he must
have his head facing toward Windy Hill, the home of the
Essendon Football Club.
Some friends of mine who run a local bookshop, in fact it's
the place I purchased my first ever true crime book all
those years ago, remember Shoobridge coming in every now and
then to try and sell them copies of his poems. According to
them he was a real nut. And his poetry was shit. They took
five copies and never sold one. He ended up having to take
them back.
And on the morning following Shoobridge's little family
slaughter we got a picture of his body on the front page of
the local paper (the only time I can remember this happening
ever). It was from a distance, but was still quite clearly
his corpse. No mean feat this one.
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