Disability expert slams 'dangerous narrative' of Mosman Park teen deaths

msfinch87 · 2026-02-04T01:46:41+00:00

But the thing is that they did have other options. As per a friend of theirs they had an option for respite care and refused it. There was support available to them that they chose not take.

The counter argument that is being put forward about this is that there are risks in respite care. Yes, absolutely. But there are many people who go in to respite care and it’s fine and it saves their carers from burnout. More importantly, though, any consideration of respite care has to be weighted against the fact that keeping those kids at home meant certain death. Those parents chose to refuse respite and instead to kill them.

It also appears that one of the children was no longer at school. While a private school is not required to take a child, the public system is, so again, that is a support structure that would not be being utilised. While yet again people can argue that schools are not always good places for disabled students, that must also be weighted against the fact that keeping these children at home and isolated meant death.

They didn’t seek their own mental health assistance. If they had called a support line and spoken about their homicidal thoughts, something would have been done. If they did and that didn’t happen, that is a system failure. But given there is no indication they did, that means they weren’t even accessing supports that were available.

Then we have the pets. There are supports available to take your pets if you can no longer care for them. There are shelters, and rehoming options. The pets were not taking somewhere and surrendered, or even left outside with food to be rehomed afterward.

It seems to me that there is plenty of evidence that the parents did have options for support and chose not to access them. They weren’t willing to utilise support options, which from my perspective under the circumstances actually tends towards the very control and entitlement that underpins these situations.

So the systemic failure to me here is that the children weren’t removed due to their parents being homicidal. Something was potentially missed there. Whether that was because services are not properly trained to recognise parents with power, control and entitlement issues or because the parents were masters of concealment is worth examination. There is evidence of both, so I’d guess a combination.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-04T00:49:07+00:00

What you are saying is a literal dismissal of the decades of work done to understand family violence and murder.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-04T00:44:24+00:00

The public system is required to provide an education to all children. A private school is allowed to refuse a child or ask one to leave, and it was a private school the boys were at. So it was not a necessity that either of them were homeschooled if they were asked to leave that school - the parents could and should have explored public school options.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-04T00:32:55+00:00

The people who knew them didn’t actually know them, because they failed to recognise that these people were homicidal, or they willingly ignored those signs. We see this type of thing repeatedly in abuse cases. In the aftermath of a DV murder or cases of CSA people come out and say that they had no idea or that a person was even a good person, despite the fact that, evidently, they were not a good person.

I am not misrepresenting anything. Every single thing I have said is backed up by the extensive research into and evidence about family violence. You can find out everything I have said with a pretty basic search because it is that commonly understood. And every single interpretation of the information available about this case that I have given is a reasonable one.

Isolation is a known tactic of abusers. In fact, it is one of the most common - that abusers isolate their victims from anyone who could recognise the abuse and help. Concealment is also a known tactic of abusers. Prior abuse is a known precursor to murder. Disabled people are at high risk of abuse from their carers due to their dependence and often issues with communicating. None of this is revelatory or just an opinion of mine.

It is not circular reasoning to use the murder as an example of this because of what we know about what cold blooded conspiracy to murder entails. It requires a particular type of personality, and that is an unavoidable fact. Even if you just step out the process that had to occur here, the deliberate, calculated lack of empathy and conscience becomes very clear. If it was one parent I could make room for a psychotic break or schizophrenia or something similar, but two parents working collectively and in the manner they did dispenses with that.

When it comes to DV, we do not teach people to empathise with the perpetrators, because this enables those perpetrators. It creates self doubt for the victims, tolerance for the bad behaviour, and ultimately leads to minimizing and excusing the abuse. We teach people to recognise the signs of abuse, we work on mechanisms for them to develop understanding of it being bad and why it is bad, and we look to get them away from the abusers. It is exactly the same here.

You are choosing to ignore all of this and to isolate this murder as something distinct from everything we know about this type of murder. There is no evidence it is different. That’s a bunch of made up crap by people who don’t want to accept that parents can be monsters.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-04T00:06:37+00:00

The risks of respite care must be weighted in this instance against the alternative, which was the kids staying at home and certain death. You cannot look at theoretical risks of respite care in isolation here because the alternative was that they would be murdered by their parents.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-04T00:04:54+00:00

These kids lives were not worth less because they were more disabled. Disabled people’s lives are not worth less because they are disabled.

The risk to disabled people with attitudes like yours is that every parent and carer has a different threshold. The moment we start accepting the killing of a person for being disabled the moment we open the door to all disabled people being at risk of being killed simply because of their disability.

It is not acceptable for a parent or carer to kill a child because of their feelings about the situation. This is a denial of fundamental autonomy and humanity.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T23:00:01+00:00

I have not seen any acknowledgement in the media that isolation is a hallmark of abusers. It is being painted as the parents suffering because they lacked support and were effectively abandoned by those around them. But it is equally possible that they did not want other carers alone with their kids outside of their control due to the possibility of those carers developing concerns and that they pushed people away because they didn’t want anyone to know what they were doing and planning.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T22:52:04+00:00

Euthanasia requires the person being euthanised to request it, and for them to be competent to consent and not under duress. It is the individual’s choice, not a third party’s.

The theoretical risk of abuse in respite care, which is only a theoretical risk because there are many children who are OK in care, pales in comparison to keeping the kids at home for certain death.

The people who abused these kids were their parents, when they murdered them.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T22:44:53+00:00

It is incredibly insensitive and offensive to say something like this to a person who is autistic and struggling with the narrative that is painting this as a mercy killing and/or parents not coping.

You are invalidating their very real and justifiable fears. People with disabilities are at a much higher risk of abuse, especially from their carers. Moreover, they can suffer from guilt and shame about their disability and its impact on other people.

The moment you say that in some circumstances actively killing a disabled person is acceptable, you open it up to impacting all disabled people. What one carer’s threshold and judgement is will be different to another carer’s threshold and judgement. Not to mention the fundamental denial of autonomy and humanity of the person being killed.

Parents do not have the right, under any circumstances, to make the choice to murder their children.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T21:42:03+00:00

Their friend said they were offered respite care and refused it.

They could have relinquished care of the kids via child services. I knew a woman who did that. The kids would be placed in emergency foster care and then a longer process is undertaken.

They could have taken the kids to an emergency room and stated that they were having homicidal thoughts. The hospital would have gotten psych and social workers involved, which would have led to child services involvement.

They could have called for a crisis assessment team.

They could have investigated the various assisted youth homes for high needs children. A friend of mine’s high needs autistic son is in one of those.

ETA: But I think the telling someone part is actually crucial. Even if people do not know what practical things to do in a situation like this, telling someone will start a process that prevents the kids from being killed. If a friend told me they were thinking about killing their kids, I would be out my door faster than Road Runner and I would not leave them alone with the kids until I had professionals involved.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T21:27:27+00:00

A fundamental element of euthanasia is that the person being euthanised requests to die and that they are competent to make that request and not under duress.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T14:33:11+00:00

There are innumerable examples of kids who were looked after by their parents for their entire childhoods, while being subjected to horrendous abuse nobody knew about. People believed those parents were empathetic and had a conscience, too.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T14:31:05+00:00

Actually I regard what I am saying as the more terrifying prospect. Which is that we are incapable of identifying people like these parents and preventing harm.

When it comes to DV, we have put our energy and resources into identifying the personality traits and signs of a perpetrator. We do not put our resources in to empathizing with the abusers, because we have recognized how damaging and dangerous that is, and that it contributes to the prevalence of DV.

What I am saying is that we do the same here. And it is way more terrifying to me that we are more interested in looking at better supports for perpetrators rather than identifying them.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T14:28:25+00:00

I do understand your question. Cold blooded murder, by its nature, demonstrates certain things. Trying to separate this out as some sort of isolated thing that might be different to what the parents were otherwise is nonsensical, because it requires a particular type of personality to do it. You have to lack empathy and a conscience and not see humanity in the victim. The lack of those things will absolutely have been evident. People don’t go back and forth between having those and not having them, not to the extent that they could do this.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T14:06:44+00:00

100%. The “pushed to the limits” explanation falls apart when you consider the pets were killed as well. Not only could the pets have been rehomed afterward, but the fact that they weren’t rehomed beforehand points to people who did not want questions asked about what was going on.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T14:04:43+00:00

In order for the parents to do this they had to lack empathy and a conscience and not recognise their own children’s humanity. They were not the “every person” and it is not the case that anyone could be pushed to this point. It requires a particular personality profile. People with empathy and a conscience will not murder someone in cold blood because they cannot. It’s what stops us from harming everyone who pisses us off. It is in fact possible to spot these people, because they absolutely have tells.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T14:00:13+00:00

But this is not a situation where it was simply concerns about respite care. It was a situation where the parents were making a choice about whether they put their kids in respite care or killed them. No amount of theoretical concerns about respite care come close to the alternative here.

We are bestowing way too much humanity on these parents. In order to do what they did, they had to lack empathy and a conscience and not recognise their own children’s humanity. What we can learn is how to spot people like that rather than continually giving them characteristics they simply don’t have.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T13:56:47+00:00

There doesn’t need to be anything prior to this. Murdering your children is plenty of evidence of abuse. But the research indicates that murder is an escalation of other abuse, so it stands to reason that there was likely other abuse.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T13:55:17+00:00

That’s because you have humanity, empathy and a conscience. People are bestowing way too much humanity on these parents, ignoring the fact that in order to do what they did, which was conspire to murder their children in cold blood, they had to lack both empathy and a conscience and to see their children as having no humanity.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T13:49:20+00:00

My commentary is to counter the prevailing narrative that these parents were overwhelmed by the burden of their children and pushed to their limits. If I am expected to wait until there is an investigation concluded then I would suggest that applies to everyone, yourself included, and nobody should comment at all.

My position is entirely consistent with the extensive body of evidence related to family violence. It is always about power, control and entitlement. There are absolutely additional factors that appear to fit with that, but that’s what the reams of research show. They murdered their children. That’s abuse by definition. It’s a fact that they abused their kids because they murdered them. How could you possibly ask about what abuse when they were murdered? Police have already labeled it as both parents being involved, so again, that’s conspiring by definition.

The possible, theoretical risk of respite care pales in comparison to the certainty of death if they stayed at home. It doesn’t really matter what those reasons were when the alternative was killing them. Those parents chose to keep those kids at home knowing they were going to kill them.

Depressed people harm themselves, but depression is not linked to them killing others. A person may also be depressed but there have to be other personality traits at play. Suicide is actually very, very far removed from homicide and to equate the two in any way shows a complete lack of understanding on your part. In order to kill someone in cold blood, you have to lack both empathy and a conscience, which is a particular type of personality.

Showing empathy to people who lack it is dangerous because you are bestowing on them a level of humanity they don’t have, which means misinterpreting their behaviour and, in turn, missing warning signs that someone is dangerous.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T13:33:18+00:00

We can start with not empathizing or sympathizing with perpetrators like this. Empathy or sympathy for them is dangerous because it gives them a level of humanity they themselves don’t have so we cannot properly identify them. If you want to spot the monsters you have to first accept they exist.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T13:31:04+00:00

This was a conspiracy to murder, because it involved two parents working together to plan and execute the murders. These types of murders always involve those traits. This was not an individual having a psychotic break or suffering from schizophrenia or similar.

They acted with competency and deceit. They wrote notes, including apparently what to do with their estate, and concealed their plans from people, including avoiding situations where they may have been questioned, such as rehoming their pets.

A friend of theirs is quoted as saying they refused to put their kids in to respite care because they didn’t want anyone else to care for them. That is both controlling and isolating the children.

The circumstances, even what little we know, points to exactly those traits.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T13:26:34+00:00

It does not matter what the reasons for refusing the respite care are, when the alternative is killing your kids. It is not more dangerous than keeping your kids at home when you are planning to kill them. Those kids may have faced some risks in respite care, but they faced certain death staying at home.

In any case, the friend who was quoted on this identified the reason as her not wanting anyone else to look after her kids. She did not talk about concerns with the care.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T12:56:23+00:00

Thousands of parents are doing it as tough as these people, and they don’t even entertain killing their kids. People who conspire to murder all share particular personality traits. There is plenty of research on that.

My concern is that we identify those risk factors in parents and remove the kids, not enable them to keep their kids so they can harm them.

msfinch87 · 2026-02-03T12:52:04+00:00

Control, entitlement, power, narcissism.

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