In a rented home in southern Bali, a family's ordinary day collapsed into irreversible tragedy when an Australian father, burdened by financial ruin and untreated despair, took the lives of his two young children before ending his own. A mother, separated from her family by distance, heard her daughter's voice on a phone call and then watched through a security camera as the worst unfolded — present enough to witness, too far away to intervene. The case joins a long and sorrowful record of what happens when private suffering goes unmet by the people and systems around it, and leaves behind a g
Australian Father Kills Two Children, Himself in Bali Home While Mother Watches Via CCTV
Two children, ages 4 and 6, were killed by their father, who also died by suicide, while their mother witnessed the attack remotely.
I love you, Daddy, she called out as she ran
Mark
What made the mother check the CCTV in the first place? Was there something specific in the call that alarmed her?
Mimi
She heard her daughter crying while on the phone with Shaw, and then the call cut off abruptly. That combination—the distress, the sudden disconnection—was enough to trigger her concern.
Luke
So we know she heard crying and the call ended. Do we know if Shaw hung up, or if the line just dropped? That's different.
Mimi
The reporting doesn't specify. We know the call was cut, but not the mechanism.
Mark
And she immediately checked the cameras?
Mimi
She asked a worker to check on them physically, but yes, she also pulled up the CCTV feed herself. That's when she saw Shaw chasing Laura.
Luke
How much time elapsed between the call ending and her checking the footage? Minutes? Hours?
Mimi
That's not reported. We know the sequence but not the timeline.
Mark
The police theory about Archie being dead first—how confident are they in that?
Luke
It's speculation based on what they saw in the footage. The spokesman said "it looks like," which is an interpretation, not a certainty.
Mimi
Right. They're reading the sequence of events from the video, but they can't know for certain what happened in what order without more forensic detail.
Mark
And the friend who mentioned Shaw's mental struggle—did that person have any sense this was coming?
Luke
No indication of that in the reporting. The friend knew Shaw was struggling and knew about the money loss and suicidal ideation, but there's no suggestion anyone saw this specific act as imminent.
Mimi
Which raises the question of whether Shaw's crisis was visible to people around him, or whether he was hiding it.
The Pulse
- A mother's instinct was triggered by the sound of her four-year-old crying through a phone call — seconds later, the line went dead and she turned to a security camera feed in desperation.
- The CCTV footage showed her husband chasing their daughter through the house as the girl called out 'I love you, Daddy' — a detail that transforms the horror into something almost unbearable to hold.
- Friends had known Shaw was struggling: he had lost $140,000 in a failed business venture and had spoken openly about wanting to die, yet no intervention came in time.
- Bali police reconstructed the sequence — the six-year-old boy killed first, the four-year-old girl fleeing after witnessing it — a timeline that the mother now carries as a permanent memory.
- Three bodies were found when a household worker finally reached the home, and the case now sits formally in the category of filicide and murder-suicide, with a surviving mother at its center.
In a rented home in southern Bali, a family's ordinary day collapsed into irreversible tragedy when an Australian father, burdened by financial ruin and untreated despair, took the lives of his two young children before ending his own. A mother, separated from her family by distance, heard her daughter's voice on a phone call and then watched through a security camera as the worst unfolded — present enough to witness, too far away to intervene. The case joins a long and sorrowful record of what happens when private suffering goes unmet by the people and systems around it, and leaves behind a grief that no distance or time will fully absorb.
A mother was on the phone with her family in southern Bali when she heard her four-year-old daughter crying. Then the call disconnected. Unable to reach her husband, Damien John Shaw, she asked a household worker to go to the house — and pulled up the security camera feed on her phone.
What she saw on that footage will not leave her. Shaw was chasing their daughter, Laura, through the rooms of the house. The girl was calling out to him as she ran. Police would later conclude that their six-year-old son, Archie, was already dead by then — that Laura was running because she had seen what happened to her brother.
By the time anyone could reach the home, Shaw, fifty-six, had killed both children and himself. The mother had watched it happen through a screen, powerless to do anything but witness.
In the aftermath, a picture of Shaw's mental state emerged. A friend told reporters that Shaw had been in serious distress, having recently lost $140,000 in a failed business venture and having spoken about wanting to end his life. The financial collapse appears to have been the breaking point — though the warning signs had been present in conversations that, in retrospect, were closer to cries for help than anyone recognized in time.
The house in Bali, with its cameras that recorded everything, became both a crime scene and a kind of monument to what goes wrong when suffering is left to run its course unchecked. Two children did not survive the day. A mother heard her daughter's voice and will carry that sound forward into every day that follows.
A mother in Bali received a phone call that would become unbearable to witness. Her husband, Damien John Shaw, was home with their two children—Laura, four years old, and Archie, six. She heard her daughter crying through the phone. Then the line went dead.
Worried and unable to reach Shaw again, the mother asked a household worker to check on the family at their southern Bali residence. She did what any parent separated from their children might do: she pulled up the security camera feed on her phone. What she saw next would define the rest of her life.
On the CCTV footage, Shaw was chasing Laura through the house. The girl was calling out to him—"I love you, Daddy"—as she ran. Police later theorized that Archie was already dead by this point, that Shaw had killed his son first, and that Laura's flight was an attempt to escape after witnessing what had happened to her brother.
By the time the mother could act, it was over. Shaw, fifty-six, had killed both children and then himself. The three bodies were discovered in the home after the mother's desperate request for someone to check on them. The sequence of events—the cry, the disconnected call, the footage, the discovery—unfolded in a way that left the mother as a helpless observer to the worst moment of her family's existence.
In the days after, details emerged about Shaw's state of mind. A friend told Perth Now that Shaw had been struggling mentally during their last conversation. He had recently lost $140,000 in a business venture and had spoken about wanting to end his own life. The financial collapse and the despair that followed appear to have been the pressure points in the hours before the killings.
Bali police spokesman Senior Commander Ariasandy offered a reconstruction based on the evidence: Shaw acted first against his son, then pursued his daughter as she tried to flee. The mother, watching from a distance through a screen, was powerless to intervene. She could see it happening. She could not stop it.
The case sits now in the category of filicide and murder-suicide—a family tragedy with roots in untreated mental illness and financial catastrophe. Two children who were alive at the start of an ordinary day were not alive by its end. A mother who heard her daughter's voice on a phone call will carry that sound forward. The house in Bali, with its security cameras that captured everything, became a crime scene and a monument to a failure—whether of intervention, of support, of recognition of how close to the edge Shaw had come.
Notable Quotes
It looks like he did it first to the son, and because she saw that, she was trying to escape.— Bali police spokesman Senior Commander Ariasandy, theorizing the sequence of events
Shaw was struggling mentally and had mentioned wanting to kill himself after losing $140,000 in a recent venture.— Shaw's friend, speaking to Perth Now
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