Margaret River Massacre: Father Of Dead Children Speaks, Says ‘Kids Died Peacefully’

Aaron Cockman, the father of the four children slain in the brutal mass shooting that killed three generations of a family, spoke out Sunday as more details emerged of the horrific tragedy that occurred on a farm in the Margaret River wine-growing region in the Australia ’s rural south-west.

Cockman admitted he had been filled with anger following the fact that his children’s grandparents Peter Miles, 61, and Cynda Miles, 58, who were also found dead on the farm, had cut Cockman off from seeing his kids.

Cockman told a press conference Sunday: “The anger towards them now is completely gone. Completely gone. I don’t feel angry. I feel tremendous sadness for my kids.”

“I’m tremendously sad but I’ll get through this,” the father said, Reuters reported. “All the kids died peacefully in their beds,” he added referring to the police telling him the children had died peacefully with the youngest in mother Katrina Miles’ bed.

Police found the bodies of the four young children, Taye, 13, Rylan, 12, Ayre, 10, and Kadyn Cockman, 8, along with the bodies of grand parents Peter and Cynda and their daughter Katrina, 35, in the farm Friday, in what is the worst mass shooting in the country since the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996 when a gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania.

An investigation is under way and Western Australia Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said in a press conference Saturday, they are treating the tragic incident as a murder-suicide.

At the scene were found three “longarm” firearms licensed to Peter. “Longarm” weapons refer to firearms shot from the shoulder like shotguns and rifles. Such weaponry are not uncommon on farms.

"I still love who Peter was," Cockman told reporters Sunday. "If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have Katrina, I wouldn't have her kids.”

"It's not some random guy off the street who's taken them away from me — he gave them to me and now he's taken them away,” the father said according to 7 News. "If it had to happen, there is no better person than that.”

"Kat's mum said to me once 'You'll see. Kat will make sure you and your parents never see those kids again.’ And I'm thinking 'wow, how the hell did I get on the wrong side of these people?' and it just got worse and worse," the emotional father said. "But this is not how I would want to get back at them. This is a whole new level."

Despite the past, Cockman says he still loves Cynda. "She's a nice lady. She was my friend. Anger will destroy you. I'm sad but I'll get through this."

The farm is located in Osmington, a little town of 135 people in Western Australia.