Hope Forest shooting

Last updated

Hope Forest shooting
LocationHope Forest, South Australia
Date6 September 1971 (1971-09-06)
1:00 p.m. [a]
Attack type
Familicide, mass shooting
Deaths10
PerpetratorClifford Bartholomew

The Hope Forest shooting was a familicide in Hope Forest, South Australia on 6 September 1971, in which Clifford Bartholomew shot dead his wife, their seven children, his wife's sister-in-law and her son with a .22-calibre rifle. [1] It is the deadliest familicide in Australian history.

Contents

Background

Hope Forest is locality 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Adelaide, settled in the 1930s, [2] where Bartholomew, a 40 year old truck driver, [b] lived in a seven-room rented farmhouse with his wife and seven children. Heather's sister-in-law Winnis Mary Keane and her two-year-old son Samuel were holidaying with them. Bartholomew had relationship problems with his wife, Heather, suspecting her of having an affair with another man. [3]

Incident

All of the victims were asleep up to the time of the shooting. [a] Bartholomew struck his wife in the head with a mallet, then shot her in the head with his .22 calibre rifle. [4] His other victims were shot in the head with the same rifle, some being first hit with a mallet in order to subdue them. Three of the children tried to escape, however they were both shot in the hallway. Keane fled the farmhouse but Bartholomew shot her in the back of the head before she could escape. [1] Bartholomew was arrested at 8pm.

List of deaths
    • Heather Alice Bartholomew, 40
    • Neville Kenneth Bartholomew, 19
    • Christine Heather Bartholomew, 17
    • Sharon Anne Bartholomew, 15
    • Helen Joy Bartholomew, 13
    • Gregory Kym Bartholomew, 10
    • Roger Clifford Bartholomew, 7
    • Sandra June Bartholomew, 4
    • Winnis Mary Keane, 23
    • Daniel Brian Sean Keane, 2

Aftermath

Bartholomew was charged for the murder of his wife and pleaded guilty to the court and was initially sentenced to death, [3] but was later changed to a life sentence and was then released on parole after serving eight years. He changed his name to Clifford Palmer, remarried, and raised a family of seven stepchildren, who had no knowledge of his crimes. It was not until years after his death the family learned about his actions. [5] [6]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 The Age news report cited has 1 p.m., which may be a typographical error
  2. Bartholomew had recently lost his truck-driving job and was now working nightshift at an abattoir. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">D.C. sniper attacks</span> 2002 series of coordinated shootings in the Washington, D.C. area

The D.C. sniper attacks were a series of coordinated shootings that occurred during three weeks in October 2002 throughout the Washington metropolitan area, consisting of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, and preliminary shootings, that consisted of murders and robberies in several states, and lasted for six months starting in February 2002. Seven people were killed, and seven others were injured in the preliminary shootings, and ten people were killed and three others were critically wounded in the October shootings. In total, the snipers killed 17 people and wounded 10 others in a 10-month span.

Wilbert Colin Thatcher is a Canadian politician who was convicted for the murder of his ex-wife, JoAnn Wilson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matricide</span> Act of killing ones own mother

Matricide is the act of killing one's own mother.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chai Vang</span> American convicted of murder in 2005

Chai Soua Vang, more commonly known as Chai Vang, is an American man who was convicted of first degree intentional homicide, having pleaded self-defense after allegedly being fired upon. Vang, a six-year veteran of the California National Guard, shot eight people while he was trespassing upon a hunting group in northern Wisconsin on November 21, 2004; six were killed and two were wounded.

The Hoddle Street massacre was a mass shooting that occurred on the evening of Sunday, 9 August 1987, in Hoddle Street, Clifton Hill, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, in Australia. The shootings resulted in the deaths of seven people, and serious injury to 19 others. After a police chase lasting more than 30 minutes, 19-year-old former Australian Army officer cadet Julian Knight was caught in nearby Fitzroy North and arrested for the shootings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aramoana massacre</span> 1990 mass shooting in Aramoana, New Zealand

The Aramoana massacre was a mass shooting that occurred on 13 November 1990 in the small seaside township of Aramoana, northeast of Dunedin, New Zealand. Resident David Gray killed 13 people, including local police Sergeant Stewart Guthrie, one of the first responders to the reports of a shooting, after a verbal dispute between Gray and his next-door neighbour. After a careful house-to-house search the next day, police officers led by the Anti-Terrorist Squad located Gray, and shot and injured him as he came out of a house firing from the hip. He died in an ambulance while being transported to hospital.

This is a timeline of major crimes in Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shootout</span> Combat between two parties using firearms

A shootout, also called a firefight, gunfight, or gun battle, is an armed confrontation entailing firearms between armed parties using guns, always entailing one or more intense disagreements between the involved parties. The term can be used to describe any such fight, though it is typically used in a non-military context or to describe combat situations primarily using firearms.

A familicide is a type of murder or murder-suicide in which an individual kills multiple close family members in quick succession, most often children, spouses, siblings, or parents. In half the cases, the killer lastly kills themselves in a murder-suicide. If only the parents are killed, the case may also be referred to as a parricide. Where all members of a family are killed, the crime may be referred to as family annihilation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cumbria shootings</span> 2010 shooting spree in Cumbria, England

The Cumbria shootings were a shooting spree that occurred on 2 June 2010 when a lone gunman, taxi driver Derrick Bird, killed twelve people and injured eleven others in Cumbria, England, United Kingdom. Along with the 1987 Hungerford massacre and the 1996 Dunblane school massacre, it is one of the worst criminal acts involving firearms in British history. The shootings ended when Bird killed himself in a wooded area after abandoning his car in the village of Boot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ivan Milat</span> Australian serial killer (1944–2019)

Ivan Robert Marko Milat, commonly referred to in media as the Backpacker Murderer, was an Australian serial killer who abducted, assaulted, robbed and murdered two men and five women in New South Wales between 1989 and 1992. His modus operandi was to approach backpackers along the Hume Highway under the guise of providing them transport to areas of southern New South Wales, then take his victims into the Belanglo State Forest where he would incapacitate and murder them. Milat is also suspected of having committed many other similar offences around Australia.

On August 8, 2015, a mass shooting occurred inside a home in northern Harris County, Texas, near Houston. David Ray Conley III, 48, broke into his former home and held hostage Valerie and Dwayne Jackson, Sr., along with six children, including his own 13-year-old son. Over the course of nine hours, he shot and killed the entire family. He then engaged in a shootout with responding police before surrendering.

The Arms Offences Act 1973 is a statute of the Parliament of Singapore that criminalizes the illegal possession of arms and ammunition and the carrying, trafficking, and usage of arms. The law is designed specifically to make acts of ownership, knowingly receiving payment in connection with the trade of a trafficked armaments and ammunition, as well as the unlawful usage of arms and ammunition a criminal offence.

The Osmington shooting was a familicide in Osmington, Western Australia, on 11 May 2018, in which Peter Miles, a 61-year-old retired high school farm manager, shot dead his wife, daughter, and four grandchildren, before calling police and then committing suicide. It was the worst shooting incident in Australia since the Port Arthur massacre of 1996.

Vernon Henry is an American murder suspect in the familicide killings in August 1996 of his wife and daughter in the Athol, Idaho residence they shared. Though he hasn't been arrested as of 2022, he is still wanted by local and Idaho State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to police, Henry was an anti-government type survivalist who somehow generated money for funding his escape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rock Road massacre</span> 1982 murder Michigan, United States

The Rock Road massacre, also known as the Farwell murders or Clare County murders, was a 1982 mass murder in which seven members of the George W. Post family, four adults and three children, were killed with a shotgun, a rifle, and a handgun at a farmhouse on Rock Road in Garfield Township just west of Farwell, Michigan, United States.

On June 15, 2023, in Monroe Township, Ohio, U.S., Clayton, Hunter, and Chase Doerman were shot and killed at their home. The 34-year-old wife of the perpetrator was injured in the attack, and her daughter was held at gunpoint but escaped.

On 22 September 1976, a mass shooting and hostage crisis occurred on Boundary Street in Spring Hill, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. 36-year-old William Robert Wilson killed two people and wounded four others at random before taking five hostages. He surrendered to police after an hours-long standoff and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1980.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Father charged after 10 killed". The Age. 7 September 1971. Retrieved 25 June 2023 via news.google.com.
  2. "Manning placenames: Hope Forest" . Retrieved 25 June 2023.
  3. 1 2 "Court Reports: Death sentence for wife killer". Canberra Times. 24 November 1971. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
  4. "The Margaret River shooting shows that we must stay vigilant about gun access | Denise Cullen". the Guardian. 15 May 2018. Retrieved 4 January 2023.
  5. "Mass murderer who killed his seven biological kids remembered as a 'gentleman' by adopted children | Express Digest". 2 June 2018. Retrieved 4 January 2023.
  6. "Court Reports: Death sentence for wife killer". Canberra Times. 24 November 1971. Retrieved 4 January 2023.