On a Sunday morning in Kuta, Bali, a mother in Jakarta heard her young daughter's voice through a phone call — small, frightened, pleading — and set into motion a chain of events that would confirm her deepest fears. By the time hotel staff forced open the door on Three Brothers Street, 56-year-old Damien John Shaw and his two children, aged six and four, were gone. Police are investigating the deaths as a suspected murder-suicide, and the case now stands as a reminder of how swiftly the private world of a family can collapse beyond reach, and how little distance separates the ordinary from th
Australian father and two children found dead in Bali in suspected murder-suicide
Three family members—a 56-year-old Australian father and his two young children aged 6 and 4—were killed in the incident.
stop daddy—four words that sent a wife racing to call for help
Mark
So the wife heard her daughter say 'stop daddy' during a phone call. That's the detail that triggered everything?
Mimi
Yes. She was in Jakarta, the children were at the hotel in Kuta with their father. She called to check in, heard them crying, and then heard that specific phrase. That's what made her contact the hotel and ask staff to check on them.
Luke
But we don't actually know what that phrase meant in context, do we? I mean, it could indicate many things. The police are calling it a suspected murder-suicide, but that's their working theory, not a confirmed fact yet.
Mark
The autopsies will presumably clarify that.
Mimi
That's the idea. The bodies were taken to Ngoerah Hospital for autopsy, which will be part of the police investigation. But yes, right now it's still suspected, not confirmed.
Luke
And we don't have any background on Shaw himself, or the marriage, or whether there were prior incidents. The reporting is quite thin on motive or context.
Mark
What do we know about the children?
Mimi
Both were born in Indonesia. The boy was six, the girl was four. They were with their father at the hotel.
Luke
And the wife had recently left for Jakarta. We don't know if that was a separation, a work transfer, or something else.
Mark
So there's a lot still unknown.
Mimi
There is. The police investigation is ongoing. What we have is the sequence of events and the discovery. The deeper questions—why this happened, what the family situation was—those are still being worked out.
Der Puls
- A mother thousands of kilometres away heard her daughter cry 'stop daddy' through a phone line — and that single plea became the alarm that brought authorities to the room.
- Hotel staff on Three Brothers Street in Kuta forced entry Sunday morning and discovered three members of the same family dead, the youngest only four years old.
- Police transported the bodies to Ngoerah Hospital, where autopsies are now underway to establish the manner and sequence of each death.
- Investigators are treating the case as a suspected murder-suicide, though the full circumstances — the pressures, the timeline, the warning signs — remain publicly unknown.
- The Australian expatriate community in Bali is absorbing a loss that raises urgent questions about what went unseen before a family's ordinary hotel stay became a crime scene.
On a Sunday morning in Kuta, Bali, a mother in Jakarta heard her young daughter's voice through a phone call — small, frightened, pleading — and set into motion a chain of events that would confirm her deepest fears. By the time hotel staff forced open the door on Three Brothers Street, 56-year-old Damien John Shaw and his two children, aged six and four, were gone. Police are investigating the deaths as a suspected murder-suicide, and the case now stands as a reminder of how swiftly the private world of a family can collapse beyond reach, and how little distance separates the ordinary from the irreversible.
A wife in Jakarta called to speak with her children and heard them crying. Then came her daughter's voice — four words, quiet and desperate — that sent her reaching for the phone to call the hotel. She asked staff to check on her family. What they found when they broke through the door on Three Brothers Street in Kuta on Sunday morning was irreversible.
Damien John Shaw, 56, and his two young children — a boy of six and a girl of four, both born in Indonesia — were discovered dead in their hotel room around 8:30 in the morning. Their bodies were taken to Ngoerah Hospital, where autopsies began the work of piecing together what had happened inside that room.
Shaw's wife had recently relocated to Jakarta, leaving the children in his care. The phone call she made was routine until it wasn't. The specificity of what she heard — not just distress, but a child's direct plea — was enough. She did not hesitate. Her decision to alert the hotel immediately is the reason the timeline of events is as clear as it is.
Police are investigating the deaths as a suspected murder-suicide, though the full circumstances have not been made public. The autopsies will be central to understanding the sequence and manner of each death. For now, the case rests in that difficult space between discovery and explanation — the facts of what happened are established, but the why remains the subject of ongoing investigation, and the loss itself cannot be undone.
A wife in Jakarta heard her children crying over the phone. Then she heard her daughter's voice, small and frightened, saying the words that would send her racing to call for help: stop daddy. By the time police arrived at the hotel on Three Brothers Street in Kuta on Sunday morning, it was too late.
Hotel staff had forced their way into the room after the woman asked them to check on her family. Inside, they found 56-year-old Damien John Shaw and his two children—a boy of six and a girl of four, both born in Indonesia—dead. The discovery came around 8:30 in the morning local time. Police were called immediately, and the bodies were transported to Ngoerah Hospital, where autopsies would begin the work of understanding what had happened in that room.
The sequence of events that led to the discovery is spare but devastating in its clarity. Shaw's wife had recently moved to Jakarta for work or other reasons not yet detailed in available accounts. While she was away, she called home to speak with her children. On that call, she heard them crying. As she listened, her daughter's voice came through the phone, uttering those four words that would haunt the investigation: stop daddy. The specificity of what she heard—not just distress, but a child's plea—was enough to trigger alarm. She did not wait. She contacted the hotel and asked staff to go to the room and check on her family.
What the staff found when they broke through the door remains under investigation. Police are treating the deaths as a suspected murder-suicide, though the full circumstances have not yet been made public. The autopsies at Ngoerah Hospital will form a crucial part of the investigation, potentially clarifying the sequence of events and the manner of death for each family member. For now, the case sits in that difficult space between discovery and understanding—the facts of what happened are known, but the why and how remain subjects of ongoing police work.
The incident has sent ripples through the Australian expatriate community in Bali and beyond. A family that existed in the ordinary rhythms of hotel life—a father and two young children in a room on a street in Kuta—is now at the center of a tragedy that raises immediate questions about what warning signs may have been missed, what pressures or circumstances led to this moment, and how a wife's worst fears, heard through a phone line, became a reality. The investigation continues, and with it, the slow process of documenting a loss that cannot be undone.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
The wife told police she heard her daughter saying 'stop daddy' in the background of the call— Police account of the wife's statement
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