Violent past of murder-suicide father

By Yuko Narushima,les Kennedy and Jano Gibson
Updated November 5 2012 - 5:49pm, first published June 29 2008 - 11:54am
The crime farmhouse in Pericoe Valley on the Far South Coast. Picture: FAIRFAX
The crime farmhouse in Pericoe Valley on the Far South Coast. Picture: FAIRFAX
The three children who died in the Pericoe murder-suicide enjoy a party with friends. Left is Jack Bell, then 7, with sister Maddie, then 5, and brother Bon, being held by mother Karen Bell. Also pictured is friend Lachlan Wilson, who was with his mother at the crime scene when the bodies were found on Friday, and his brother Saxon.
The three children who died in the Pericoe murder-suicide enjoy a party with friends. Left is Jack Bell, then 7, with sister Maddie, then 5, and brother Bon, being held by mother Karen Bell. Also pictured is friend Lachlan Wilson, who was with his mother at the crime scene when the bodies were found on Friday, and his brother Saxon.

Only in death have the secret lives of Gary Mark Bell come together. The man who last week killed his three children and himself in a four-wheel drive on a property west of Eden on the Far South Coast was actually named Gary Poxon, a moniker he left behind when he abandoned another family with several children.Publicly, Poxon was seen as a family man, adoring father to Jack, 9, Maddie, 7, and Bon, 18 months. Privately, he was prone to drinking heavily, brewing his own spirits and beer on their isolated farmhouse. The Bell family, lost in grief, want him forever disassociated with their name, which he had adopted from his second wife, Karen. The change was an attempt to avoid his responsibilities to his first partner, a woman he referred to as "the bitch from Bega".People close to Ms Bell say Poxon beat her for the length of their 14-year marriage and she made numerous attempts to leave him.Her last attempt was late on the Sunday before last, when her best friend, Tracey Wilson, drove her 45 minutes out of the former hippie commune of Pericoe to her mum's house in Bega. Poxon had kicked her out of the house after another fight. "He's done that to her three times," Ms Wilson said. "Karen always knew she could come to me and that she was safe. Gary was a very jealous man. He wouldn't let her have many friends and he was cranky at me for helping her twice before."Bell always had a trump card to keep Ms Bell returning. "He'd always keep the kids so she'd come back to him," Ms Wilson said.Mitchell Heffernan, Poxon's former boss at Wilton Engineering, said Poxon arrived in Picton from Bega and had taken up work at General Engineering Phoenix at nearby Wilton between 1990 and 1994. He returned to Bega, but moved back to Picton soon after in 1995, working as a welder for three years with Mr Heffernan's firm in the township."They were his second family," he said."When he came here in 1995 he arrived in Picton unannounced and I understand he was running away from four or five kids to a woman he kept calling the bitch from Bega," Mr Heffernan said."He was a good Aussie rules player and played for Bargo, but as a person he was an aggressive little bloke in his attitude. He stood about five foot six, had a chiselled jaw and was not very pleasant - very uptight, a little bloke with little bloke syndrome."Mr Heffernan said he understood that Poxon was on the run from responsibilities to his other family. "I remember it was pretty drama filled at the time," he said. "That is why he left us in 1998 - he didn't want to pay a cent."According to his own CV, Poxon lived near the Queensland town of Bells Bridge before returning to Bega with Ms Bell.It's understood the relationship with his parents was strained. His son from the first marriage once came down to stay in 2004 for a few months."Gary was aggro," Ms Wilson said. "I got along with him but I told him he was an arsehole when he needed it."Poxon did not hit the children, reserving that aggression for his wife, she said. Poxon kept up a friendly persona when he went into town, but rubbed some locals up the wrong way. He big-noted himself in front of the other men at Pericoe and boasted about places he'd been and things he'd done."He was a motor-mouth legend, you know? I never liked him," said Ms Wilson's partner, who did not want to be named.On Thursday, Ms Bell rang police in Merimbula to ask if they would check on the kids. According to Ms Wilson, they wouldn't, so Ms Bell asked for her help instead.Ms Wilson rang the police, again asking them to go out."The police said to me they didn't want to upset Gary," she said.So on Friday morning, she called in at the property with her fiance and her son, Lachlan, 4."I couldn't find them anywhere. I went through the house. I didn't think to look in the car," she said.But her partner did and screamed at her: "Get the f... back in my car.""I said, 'they're dead, aren't they'. All I could do was scream. I screamed for an hour. Into the sky, just screaming."I wanted to rip the door off the car and just cuddle the kids. I let those babies down," she said, crying and shaking again yesterday. "I was too late. I got there too late."Ms Wilson then had to give Ms Bell the news."She was waiting for me to ring her and say the kids are alive. I had to tell her they were all dead. This is the type of woman she is: she said sorry to me for asking me to go out there and check on the kids. I don't want her to feel guilt for that."The children were already being missed in the broader Towamba community, whose schoolchildren had made a heart shape out of rocks on a sandy island in the creek, with the initials J, M and B, with the word "love" spelled out underneath. Ms Bell's brother-in-law spent Saturday night comforting her."Those three babies will go to heaven and that bastard will rot in hell forever," said Alister, who asked that his surname not be published. "Those babies will be protected and looked after now. Simple as that.""(We were) there to support her and comfort her. It was a very surreal environment. Everybody was just very quiet and shocked. The grief was there. It was a very surreal atmosphere. There wasn't too many conversations - just a lot of silence."

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