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Won’t they won’t say is how robert farquharson didn’t call for help from ambulance/fire/police, instead he walked for 3 hours to tell his ex wife the kids are dead
Sure he’s innocent
They just did
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Won’t they won’t say is how robert farquharson didn’t call for help from ambulance/fire/police, instead he walked for 3 hours to tell his ex wife the kids are dead
Sure he’s innocent
Didn't Nine say that he flagged down a car and got a lift?Won’t they won’t say is how robert farquharson didn’t call for help from ambulance/fire/police, instead he walked for 3 hours to tell his ex wife the kids are dead
I'm not saying that his behaviour after the event was normal, but it's not like he would be rocking a waterproof smartphone in 2005. In 2005, some older people and especially those in the country might not have even had one.
First time poster on B.F. I've always felt R.F. was wrongfully convicted especially after the prosecution Medical Officer stating he was unaware of a condition of blacking out after a coughing fit.
Had he have been picked up, why go to his ex-wives house & turn up 3 hrs later... wouldnt the normal thing to do would be to ask the motorist to either call 000 or drive anywhere close to the nearest phone. - even 000 from a payphone worked back then and wouldnt take 3 hours to find one.
His whole story is bizzare, so was his demeanor during the police interviews
Also, it was 3 kilometres from Winchelsea which is tiny, so why **** around trying to find a payphone in the town when he can use his ex's?
'I've just killed my kids,'' were among the first words he said to the two men who stopped. All he could think about was the boys' mother, he recalled, demanding that they take him so he could tell her. ''It's just something I had to do, I can't explain it,'' he said. ''She's the mother of my children and I wanted to tell her I had an accident.''
He refused the men's offer of a mobile phone to call police and told them there was no point in jumping into the dam. It was too late. They're ''already gone'', he said.
Also inexplicable...
Also inexplicable is why his story changed from a wheel bearing to a coughing fit to blacking out and a chest pain, when later speaking to Ms Gambino, police and paramedics at the scene.
Many claimed to have witnessed Farquharson's resentment towards his ex-wife over their separation and her new relationship with Stephen Moules.
Greg King again implicated his long-time mate. The school bus driver detailed a chilling conversation with Farquharson outside a Winchelsea shop three months before the crash that helped first convict him.
It was eight months after their separation and Farquharson was blaming Ms Gambino for his life falling apart. He had complained he'd been left with the ''shit car'', was living at his father's house and paying child maintenance for the children, which was due to increase. ''Nobody does that to me and gets away with it,'' Mr King said Farquharson told him. He then vowed that he was ''going to pay her back big time''.
''I asked, 'What would you do? Would you take them away or something?' And he said: 'No.' He stared me in the eyes and said, 'Kill them,''' a visibly distressed Mr King told the jury.
''I said: 'That's bullshit, Robby. It's your own flesh and blood.' He said:
'So. I hate them.' I said: 'You'd go to jail.' He said: 'No, I'd kill myself before it gets to that.'
''And I asked him how and he said: 'It would be close by.' I said: 'What?' He said: 'An accident by the dam and I survive and the kids don't. It will be on a special day.'
''I asked him what day and he said something like Father's Day so everybody would remember it was Father's Day. 'I was the last one to have them for the last time.' And then I heard: 'And then every Father's Day she would suffer for the rest of her life.' ''
It continued along a grassy area, went down a slope, through a wire fence and narrowly avoided major contact with a tree before plunging into a large dam.
It was my understanding that only the eldest son had his seatbelt undone, and that it appeared he was trying to rescue his brothers.
The Dr who appeared at trial for the defence was the one who raised the coughing syncope, and is quoted that Farquharson told him that he "didnt know what happened".
Also, we are not talking of a criminal mastermind here. Twice it has been found that it was a conscious decision by a father to kill his children, all to get back at his ex because she had moved on (and also because he had to drive the older Commodore and she got the newer car in the split... yes seriously). Sadly it is nothing more than that.
The reason that the alternate theories gain traction is because for almost all of us it is so very hard to comprehend someone doing what Farquharson did.
Dunno about your driving training, but I would suggest that reasonable people would, if faced with an uncontrolable coughing fit would slow down and pull to the left of the road, especially if your 3 kids were in the carI've finished The Age podcast. I've changed my mind on various true crime docos / podcasts over time and am appreciative of the fact that they all have an inherent bias and this one is obviously tilted towards innocence. But on facts, this conviction doesn't pass the pub test for mine.
Guilty Narrative: Farquharson coldly an calculatedly planned to drive his car and children into a dam near Winch, with the knowledge that it was suitably deep enough to sink a car and that at speed he'd plant it in a deep enough section, at pace, whilst avoiding trees with "three steering inputs" that would require the driving skills of a rally driver in a VN Commodore, all in pitch darkness.
Despite his cunning plan, he told a mate exactly what he was going to do months beforehand, including nominating Father's Day specifically.
He was seen driving by a "witness" who came forward 4 years after the event, who drove passed him and saw him veer off, without rendering assistance and despite the fact that the witness had kept a receipt for her #23 noodles purchased in Colac at 7.15pm, about the same time as the crash.
As a part of his elaborate ruse, he visited a mate and invited him for a bite. After a Zinger, he bought the boys a cricket ball and video from Kmart. Then he visited his sister. Didn't appear nervous at any point to the people he encountered, despite the fact that he was just about to potentially kill himself in order kill his kids.
After his stellar ditching of the car in the dam, he then watched his VN slowly sink over an 8 minute period, because that's how long it takes to sink if you don't open a door or window and lower it onto a dam with a pully system. In this time, the older boys didn't manage to free themselves and Farquharson knew that they wouldn't or couldn't.
For the record, all three boys were recovered out of their seatbelts. Farquharson has subsequently kept up this elaborate ruse by crying on the phone to his sister (prison recorded call) and in the dock at a trial when he found out about the fact that his kids had their seatbelts undone.
Despite not having access to the internet (bearing in mind that it was 2005 and he lived in the country) and having never visited a library, he ingeniously found out that cough syncope/fainting was a verifiable medical issue that he could fall back on as an excuse. He then feigned a cold for a week beforehand. He didn't bank on the majority of people thinking that fainting due to coughing was complete bullshit, despite the fact that it has been recorded since 1876 and the fact that a doctor in Geelong verified that this is what happened and had extensive experience with cough syncope.
His motive was obvious; he wanted to get back at his ex and did so by callously killing her/his own kids. He did so with malice to get back at her, despite the fact that he never admitted to it.
Putting aside the fact that Farquharson apparently told a mate in the street of his intentions to the day, his plan was absolute genius, with the cough syncope excuse locked and loaded and the rally driving between trees executed to a perfect standard, he then failed to carry on the ruse post the event in watching on from the dam and smoking darts, instead of swimming in the dam pretending to try to find kids that he knew were already dead (guilty or not guilty, this is a fact).
Having watched from the dam edge for 8 minutes to ensure that the kids died, with none of them having escaped from the car despite releasing their seatbelts, he then flagged a car down and hitched a ride to Winchelsea (just a couple of minutes away) to see his ex and to bask in her pain. Despite the elaborate ruse, he continued to deny that it was anything other than an accident and dropped "grieving father" act to dare ask "what's going to happen to me".
Farquharson failed to act in the way a grieving father should. He is therefore guilty by demeanour, which is fair enough, because this has never lead to a incorrect verdict in Australian history.
Not-Guilty Narrative: Farquharson had a medical episode.
Dunno about your driving training...
Have you been to the scene of the crime?Many years off misspent youth with sick handbrake slides and donuts!My general stupidity as a teenager is also why I think the 'intentionally ditching a car through a heap of trees in the dark just after the rail overpass, over embankments, avoiding rocks or trees and landing it perfectly in the drink' argument is moronic. There are way too many things that can go wrong in that scenario.
Have you been to the scene of the crime?
Do they think there was any accelerator use from the road to the dam?
''He lost consciousness as a result of a coughing fit, which on any view is a very unusual and rare thing to happen to any person,'' Mr Tinney said. ''He's told you on oath that's the first time it ever happened to him in his life. So that's pretty unlucky. Such an event would never occur even once in the lives of the vast majority of human beings and yet it happened to the accused so that's an unlucky sort of start.''
Mr Tinney said it was ''bad luck'' for Farquharson to have had this coughing fit and lost consciousness while he was driving his car with all three of his children with him along an open highway. And was also unlucky his foot did not come off the accelerator, or that he had left the Princes Highway at a dam.
Was there sufficient time for any of the kids to grab the wheel? One turn could have made a big difference.
Any thoughts this could be a family suicide attempt that RF bailed on?
As a part of his elaborate ruse, he visited a mate and invited him for a bite. After a Zinger, he bought the boys a cricket ball and video from Kmart. Then he visited his sister. Didn't appear nervous at any point to the people he encountered, despite the fact that he was just about to potentially kill himself in order kill his kids.
Does the ex wife think he is guilty? I tend to think her opinion would carry a lot of weight knowing him well, but of course grief could impair judgement.
He was seen driving by a "witness" who came forward 4 years after the event, who drove passed him and saw him veer off, without rendering assistance and despite the fact that the witness had kept a receipt for her #23 noodles purchased in Colac at 7.15pm, about the same time as the crash.
I found Dawn Waite totally ridiculous. Perhaps it’s the way the pod presented her but she just came forward, four years after the event, gave some story about something she saw on the night, and her only backup was “oh I’ve always had a really good memory.” Honestly, she sounded like a moron.