Man Kills Wife, Children, Babysitter, Motive For Murders Unknown

A man was arrested after he killed his two minor daughters, their babysitter, and his wife in Papua New Guinea on Monday.

Police said the man started his killing spree around 2.30 p.m. local time (12.30 a.m. EDT) Monday. He first asked the babysitter, an unidentified 18-year-old girl, to leave the door before locking the door from inside and strangulating his two daughters, aged six and eight, to death.

When the babysitter came back home after an hour, the suspect, an unemployed man in his 30s, stabbed her to death using a kitchen knife. Stab marks were found all over her body. After killing the three, the man waited for his wife to come back home from work. When she reached home around 6.30 p.m., the suspect locked the main door and attacked her with the kitchen knife before smashing her face with a huge rock.

When the landlord, who heard screams from the residence, rushed to inquire, the suspect told him they were having a family argument.

“When the landlord suspected that something was not right, he called the surrounding community to come for help. They surrounded the house but the suspect already jumped out of the back window and fled,” Assistant Police Commissioner Nema Mondiai said, the Post Courier reported. “The landlord then alerted a traveling police that attended to the scene and found that the entire family was killed and locked inside the house.”

Mondiai added that the police with the help of the villagers were able to locate the suspect, who was found hiding at an under-construction culvert. The kitchen knife was also found near the suspect. The suspect was taken into custody and held at the Mount Hagen police station. Meanwhile, the bodies were sent for an autopsy.

Describing the murder as “animalistic,” Mondiai said the cause behind the killing will be known after interrogating the suspect.

In a similar incident in January, a man in Thailand killed six members of his family including his wife and two young children before killing himself. Sucheep Sornsung was heavily drunk when he returned home to attend a New Year party. He got into an argument with the family members after which he shot all of them before turning the gun on himself.