Criminal Minds - Robert Farquharson (The Father's Day Killer)
- 6 years ago
Robert Farquharson: The dad who killed his three sons by driving into Winchelsea dam.
Robert Donald William Farquharson (born 1969) is an Australian man charged, tried and convicted of murdering his three sons on Father's Day in 2005 by driving them in his car into a farm dam.
Farquharson was convicted in an earlier trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment with no minimum term. However, he maintained his innocence and appealed his sentence. On 17 December 2009, he won the right to a retrial, due in part to the key witness for the prosecution, Greg King, facing potential criminal charges himself at the time of the original trial. He was released on bail on 21 December, but was again convicted of murder on 22 July 2010.
Helen Garner published This House of Grief (2014) as a response to the crime and the ensuing trials, in which Furqharson is heavily depicted.
Farquharson met Cindy Gambino, in February 1990 and the two began a relationship. Gambino had previously been in a relationship with a man who was killed in a car accident. In 1996, Farquharson took a redundancy package from his employer and bought a lawn-mowing franchise servicing his local area, a venture which lost him AU$40,000.
Farquharson married Gambino in 2000 and they had three children by 2002. The pair separated amicably in 2004. Farquharson suffered from avoidant personality disorder and bouts of depression, and sought the assistance of a psychologist and later a psychiatrist to deal with the separation. He was prescribed the antidepressants Zoloft and later Avanza.
About 7 pm on 4 September 2005, as Farquharson was returning his children to their mother after a Father's Day access visit, his white 1989 VN Commodore vehicle veered across the Princes Highway between Winchelsea and Geelong, in Victoria, crashed through a fence and came to rest in a farm dam where it filled with water and submerged. His three children, Jai (10), Tyler (7) and Bailey (2), were unable to free themselves and drowned. Farquharson managed to escape and alerted another driver who took him to nearby Wittlesea. Police divers recovered the boys' bodies about 2 am the next day. They were still inside the vehicle and unrestrained by seatbelts.
After a three-month investigation, police prepared murder charges against Farquharson and went to his Winchelsea home on 14 December 2005. He was not there at the time but presented himself at the Geelong police station in the presence of his lawyer. He was arrested and charged with three counts of murder. He had previously requested and undertook a lie detector test, the results of which are inadmissible in court. He later appeared in the Geelong Magistrates Court, where he was remanded in custody and ordered to appear before the court on 7 April 2006.
Gambino told the court that she did not believe Farquharson intended to kill their children deliberately, saying "I believe with all my heart that this was just an accident and that he would not have hurt a hair on their heads. I don't believe this is murder."
Police alleged that Farquharson was in control of the vehicle in the moments before it crashed into the dam and that he earlier told a friend, Greg King, that he had intended to kill his children to get back at his wife. He was later granted bail and released from custody to appear at his trial which was scheduled to begin in August 2007.
Robert Donald William Farquharson (born 1969) is an Australian man charged, tried and convicted of murdering his three sons on Father's Day in 2005 by driving them in his car into a farm dam.
Farquharson was convicted in an earlier trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment with no minimum term. However, he maintained his innocence and appealed his sentence. On 17 December 2009, he won the right to a retrial, due in part to the key witness for the prosecution, Greg King, facing potential criminal charges himself at the time of the original trial. He was released on bail on 21 December, but was again convicted of murder on 22 July 2010.
Helen Garner published This House of Grief (2014) as a response to the crime and the ensuing trials, in which Furqharson is heavily depicted.
Farquharson met Cindy Gambino, in February 1990 and the two began a relationship. Gambino had previously been in a relationship with a man who was killed in a car accident. In 1996, Farquharson took a redundancy package from his employer and bought a lawn-mowing franchise servicing his local area, a venture which lost him AU$40,000.
Farquharson married Gambino in 2000 and they had three children by 2002. The pair separated amicably in 2004. Farquharson suffered from avoidant personality disorder and bouts of depression, and sought the assistance of a psychologist and later a psychiatrist to deal with the separation. He was prescribed the antidepressants Zoloft and later Avanza.
About 7 pm on 4 September 2005, as Farquharson was returning his children to their mother after a Father's Day access visit, his white 1989 VN Commodore vehicle veered across the Princes Highway between Winchelsea and Geelong, in Victoria, crashed through a fence and came to rest in a farm dam where it filled with water and submerged. His three children, Jai (10), Tyler (7) and Bailey (2), were unable to free themselves and drowned. Farquharson managed to escape and alerted another driver who took him to nearby Wittlesea. Police divers recovered the boys' bodies about 2 am the next day. They were still inside the vehicle and unrestrained by seatbelts.
After a three-month investigation, police prepared murder charges against Farquharson and went to his Winchelsea home on 14 December 2005. He was not there at the time but presented himself at the Geelong police station in the presence of his lawyer. He was arrested and charged with three counts of murder. He had previously requested and undertook a lie detector test, the results of which are inadmissible in court. He later appeared in the Geelong Magistrates Court, where he was remanded in custody and ordered to appear before the court on 7 April 2006.
Gambino told the court that she did not believe Farquharson intended to kill their children deliberately, saying "I believe with all my heart that this was just an accident and that he would not have hurt a hair on their heads. I don't believe this is murder."
Police alleged that Farquharson was in control of the vehicle in the moments before it crashed into the dam and that he earlier told a friend, Greg King, that he had intended to kill his children to get back at his wife. He was later granted bail and released from custody to appear at his trial which was scheduled to begin in August 2007.