Episode 01 Bartholomew and Keane Families - Australia WIWWP True Crime Podcast

Clifford Bartholomew, a 40 year old family man, went on a killing rampage in the quiet rural setting of Hope Forest, South Australia.

His 10 victims were all family members, making him Australia’s worst family mass murderer.

Clifford murdered his wife; his sister-in-law; his 7 children, ranging in age from 4-19 years; and finally, he remembered his 18 month old nephew who slept through the horror. He walked up the hallway to his cot and shot him at point blank range, a dummy in his mouth and his face down in the pillow.

All this was carried out with a .22 single shot rifle. That meant, Clifford had to shoot, empty, reload every time, giving him plenty of time to stop.

Clifford would only be charged with his wife’s murder. A murder conviction was a mandatory death sentence at the time. So how did Clifford get out of jail in only 7.5 years?  

Let me tell you…


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Transcript

What is Wrong with People? Podcast

You are listening to a true crime podcast. The stories explore crimes that real people have perpetrated on real victims. Although I don’t discuss the graphic details of violence, listeners should still be aware that the cases are horrific, and listener discretion is advised.

This episode carries an additional warning for obscene language – a single word from a quote. Please visit the website page in the show notes for a “radio edit” version of this episode.

Hi, thanks for joining “What is wrong with people?” I am your host. This true crime podcast discusses some of the most interesting cases from around the world. Only solved cases are explored so that issues including motive, trial, justice and the after affects of the crime can be uncovered. All in the attempt to answer the Ultimate Question of Life, “What is wrong with people”.

Episode 1: the Bartholomew and Keane Families

When Merlyn Juliet Palmer, or Merle, passed away in 2012 aged 83 her seven children gradually began the hard task of going through her belongings and sorting out her affairs at the family home in Queensland, Australia. Merle had known tragedy, losing her first husband and being left with 7 children to raise alone. Thankfully Merle was able to find support and happiness when she remarried a man named Cliff Palmer in 1983. Cliff, fondly known as “Poppy Cliff” was a much loved father figure to his step-children, and later on a treasured and trusted Grandfather to the Grandkids. One of Cliff’s step-sons, Ralph Gray explained to a local newspaper “He was a gentleman. He loved us, and we all loved him”.

There had been whispers in the family that Cliff had killed his first wife, but it wasn’t until they found Cliff’s prison discharge papers amongst their mothers belongings that they understood that not only was the family rumour true, Cliff was Australia’s worst family mass murderer.

The tragedy of the Bartholomew family takes place in 1971 on a property, just under 40 kilometres south of Adelaide, Australia.  1971 was a progressive time for Adelaide. Ozzy Osborne and his band Black Sabbath flew into the Adelaide airport for the Myponga Festival, Anti-Vietnam War marches and demonstrations were taking place in the streets, fluoride was being added to the South Australian water sources and American children’s TV series, Sesame Street, premiered for the first time on the ABC television station.

And as expected in Australia, there was also plenty of cricket, sun, sea and surf.

Clifford Cecil Bartholomew was born in 1931. He met and married Heather Alice in 1953. Heather came into the marriage with an infant child, Neville, born to her first husband. The couple raised Neville as their own son. 

Clifford and Heathers family soon grew, and they celebrated the arrival of 7 more children, one tragically died in infancy. 

40 year old Clifford worked as a truck driver for an Earth Moving Company and as a casual slaughterer at a local abbatoir. The family rented a remote seven bedroom farmhouse on his employer’s property in Hope Forest, near Willunga.

It is said that they endured continuous financial difficulties, but the marriage was mostly happy all the same. 

Fractures in the relationship started to appear when a young man moved into the farmhouse of the Bartholomew family. The 22 year old soldier, whose name was withheld in court documents, was recovering from wounds he had sustained in the front lines of the Vietnam War. Not much is known about why he was recovering in the Bartholomew house. Perhaps with the tight financial position the family lived, a boarder would alleviate some of the financial stress. 

Being that the family home was already occupied by 3 adults and 6 children, the arrival of the new guest took the total under this tight living quarters to 10. 

Heather’s younger sister, Winnis Mary Keane and her family lived in Sydney. Sometime in April, around Easter, Heather decided to have a holiday from her family to visit her sister in Sydney. The soldier decided to join Heather on the journey, taking the opportunity to visit army friends he had made during the war - Winnis was married to a solider and the barracks were where they were headed. As the journey was long, it is easy to believe that Heather would have welcomed the company on the lonely and isolated road.

When Heather and the soldier returned to the farmhouse, Clifford watched them closely, sensing that the relationship had moved from platonic to sexual. His suspicions were confirmed, in his mind, when he intercepted a letter from the soldier to Heather. He felt that the letter exposed the truth about the relationship between them.

Clifford was certain that his wife and the soldier were having an affair.  He confronted Heather about it. She emphatically denied the affair and told him it was all in his imagination and that he was being silly.

The relationship between husband and wife continued to deteriorate as the relationship between the solider and Heather continued to grow. Clifford said that Heather would take extra care of their house guest, but not pay him the same privilege. 

The soldier’s physical limitations as a result of his wounds was unclear, but Clifford recalled in his trial “When she did the washing and ironing, my clothes were left on the bed or the dressing table for me to put away but anything of his she would iron and fold neatly and put away for him.”

The soldier ended up leaving the house but tensions still remained high between Heather and Clifford. 

He decided to leave the family home and moved in with his mom on August 25, about 8 kilometres from the family home. According to court documents, he hoped that a period of separation would remedy the relationship between him and his wife.

The Bartholomew family home would fill up again, as Heather welcomed the arrival of her sister and children from Sydney. 26 year old Winnis Mary Keane and her 18 month old son Daniel were staying at the rural property with the family.  Clifford wasn’t happy about the visit and felt that Winnis was negatively influencing his wife against him.

Clifford had been living away from the family home for just under two weeks. He had arranged with his wife Heather to visit the family on the morning of Father’s Day, but two days before, she changed the time of his visit to the afternoon as she was going to Adelaide on Sunday morning to see a house. Learning that Heather was looking at moving, he knew that he was running out of time to reconcile.  Clifford was annoyed, but decided not to cause waves, hoping to make a good impression when he visited. 

On Father’s Day, Sunday September 6 1971, Clifford purchased some beer, Bacardi, especially for Heather, as well as cold drinks and sweets for the children. 

He arrived at the property around 3:30pm. Those gathered at the house for the Fathers Day celebration were his wife 40 year old Heather, Cliffords 7 children, ranging in age from 4 - 19 years old; 26 year old sister-in-law Winnis, her 2 young children, 18 month old Daniel and an 8 year Noeleen. Noeleen had arrived at the house that day from Adelaide, driven down by her step-brother 22 year old Terry Paltridge. He planned to spend the day at the farmhouse, leaving Noeleen to stay with the family when he drove back to Adelaide that night.  

Clifford entered the home and later said in court that he was met coldly by his wife and sister-in-law. He explained that his children met him unenthusiastically, all except his four year old daughterwho was happy to see him. Sandra kissed her dad and gave him a warm hug, saying “I love you, Pa. When are you coming home?”. Statements taken from the night of the incident say that his eldest son, step-son Neville, drank two bottles of beer with him, the family had dinner, played records and watched television. It can be assumed that the early part of the night was generally normal and maybe even enjoyable for the family. 

Before the night was over, Clifford approached Heather pleading for reconciliation. In his mind, he had given her space, arrived with gifts for the family that day and he must have believed that his proposal would be welcome. But Heather flatly rejected the reunion. It was clear she sought a different life for her family with her already looking at alternative housing, telling Clifford she planned to move back to Port Adelaide where they had lived 10 years earlier. Feeling the growing tension in the home, Winnis’ step-son Terry Paltridge decided to leave and take Winnis’ 8 year old daughter Noeleen back to his families home in Adelaide. He would later say that he just felt like something wasn’t quite right.  Noeleen wouldn’t be in the house as originally planned. This sliding-door, last minute decision, would save her life.

Clifford, feeling the rejection, left the farm in a rage and returned to his mother’s house around 9:30pm. He sat at the kitchen table, had a cup of coffee and went to bed. He would later say that he could not sleep, laying awake for hours with the knowledge that there was no chance of reconciliation. He believed his wife was taking all the family away from him to live in Adelaide. Clifford decided she was incapable of looking after them and the only way he could protect the children was to kill her. In a statement given to the court in his trial Clifford said “It got me that way in the end that it suddenly came in mind to kill her. At least the kiddies would be better off, even in a home or living with somebody else, who would take care of them, even if I couldn’t”.

At 12:30am he got up, got dressed and drove the 8 kilometres to the farmhouse. He parked behind the back gate and went to the shed where he collected a single shot point 22 rifle and a rubber-ended panel beaters mallet. The rifle was a gift Clifford had given his eldest child, Neville, as a birthday present. 

At close to 1:00am he entered the sleeping home. Clifford later explains that he intended to knock Heather unconscious with the mallet, then carry her outside and shoot her. 

Clifford rested his gun in the hallway at the door to his wife’s bedroom. His wife was asleep in a double bed with two of their children. Shining a torch in Heather’s face, Clifford lifted up the rubber mallet and struck down hard on his wife. Heather woke in a state of panic, and began to scream. As she called desperately for her sister Winnis to come to her aid, he struck her again with the mallet.  Winnis raced into the room, and Clifford attacked her with the rubber mallet, hitting her hard. Although startled, she was able to run from the room, grabbing the rifle that was standing in the passageway as Clifford had left it. 

Winnis sprinted from the house and seeing two vehicles parked out the front, jumped inside the Holden Station Wagon.

Still in tremendous shock and with blood running down her face, she felt some relief in having taken the rifle into her possession. Running on adrenaline, she knew she had to drive the car to  get medical help for her sister, who was laying in bed, her face all bloody and smashed. 

She saw Clifford had followed her outside. He was desperately looking for her. She knew that any noise would give her position away, but she had to take the chance. She tried starting the car….but the engine didn’t click over. The night was cold and so was the car. 

The noise alerted Clifford to Winnis’s location. Realising her hiding spot had been uncovered, Winnis desperately tried to get the engine started. She could see him approaching the vehicle from the corner of her eye. The vapour from his breath blowing white clouds in the dark cold night. Clifford trying the doors, finally managed to enter the car through the back door, of the Holden Station Wagon. He climbed in behind Winnis. Her disadvantage of facing away from him make it hard for her to fight back. He struck her for the second time with the mallet.

Winnis fought what must have been horrific injuries and managed to escape the front of vehicle. As she ran from the car towards the house Clifford was able to catch up and hit her on the back of the head, where she finally collapsed on the lawn. 

Clifford went back to his vehicle and found his rifle on the back seat of the car where Winnis had left it. He walked over and shot Winnis in the back of the head. He then re-entered the home where the tidal wave of frenzy that had engulfed the house had woken up many of the other occupants.  Occupants that were his own children ranging in age from 4 to 19.

Neville, his 19 year old step-son, had raced in from where he was sleeping in an outhouse at the back of the home and attempted to intervene the attack by his step-father. Clifford attacked him viciously with the mallet and he fell to the floor. 

Clifford then walked directly into his wife’s bedroom. He had already attempted to knock her out with two mallet blows to the skull. She lay in bed, covered in blood with her face completely smashed in. In front of his children, he shot her twice in the head. 

His 17 year old daughter Christine, believed to be his favourite child, was standing near his wife’s bedroom door. She begged her father to stop saying “Don’t daddy, don’t”, before being shot at close range. 

Clifford would later say his children 13 year old Helen, 10 year old Gregory and 4 year old Sandra were too scared to move. He shot his four year old daughter Sandra, as she lay in a camp bed beside her dead mother. 

He yelled at 10 year old Gregory to get dressed. He then walked past him, put the gun to his ear and pulled the trigger. 

He systematically attacked each one, shooting them all, some he shot twice. His daughter, 15 year old Sharon, ran screaming down the hallway. Clifford shot her in the cheek but she was still able bodied despite her wounds. She tried desperately to hide under a bed. Clifford walked over. Tore her out from her hiding place and shot her dead.

After hunting down and killing his last living biological child, 7 year old Roger, he walked over to Neville, his 19-year old stepson. He was still knocked out as a result of the attack with the mallet, but was starting to make moaning noises. Clifford would later say “I put the rifle up close to his head. I did it with all of them.”.  

Clifford then went outside to the back lawn to cover his sister-in-law Winnis’s body with some bags. She had regained some form of consciousness and when he heard her moaning, he shot her dead. Clifford would later say that he partly blamed her for the problems he was having with his wife.

Clifford then sat down in the kitchen of the farmhouse and opened a can of beer. He was flustered from the screaming noises that he later described as “splitting his head wide open”, but now the noise had ceased. He felt himself calming and sat there for 20 minutes. That was until he remembered that his nephew Daniel, an 18 month old toddler was still alive and sleeping in his cot. He put down his beer and reloaded his gun.

Daniel was found shot through the head at point-blank range. Daniel died sucking a dummy, with his face down in a pillow.

Clifford said in a statement in court, “All of a sudden things seemed to be dead quite. By this time I was in the kitchen with a rifle in my hand and I wondered what I was doing there with it”.

He sat down, wrote a letter to police and then telephoned them to confess his gruesome crime. He then called his mother, telling her about the unimaginable act he had just committed. He would later say he was “trembling all over”. He said goodbye to his mother, saying that he was going to kill himself.

It was a cold, wet, miserable morning when police officers received a call at the station from a clearly intoxicated Clifford who said he had killed his entire family. Detective Senior Constable Arthur was called to the property and when he was told that it was possibly the crime scence of 10 deaths, he thought it was a joke of bad taste by his colleagues. He was 14 years into his policing career and he hadn’t known anything as horrific as this.

 When first responders arrived at the family home, there were bicycles leaning up against the house, toys lying in the grass, mid play, waiting to be picked up and played with again. The only initial sign that something wasn’t right were the family dogs wandering around looking lost. Looking for the children who would normally be outside playing with them.  

Detective Senior Constable Arthur who responded to the call out would later say “There was a body of a woman lying in the open outside so we knew we were going to find nine other bodies inside.” We went to enter through the back door but the odour of death was just so overwhelming. Walking around inside the house, you couldn’t walk two steps without having to avoid a body”. In the bedroom where Heather, and her two children had been sleeping only the night before,  four year old Sandra lay in the camp-bed beside her mothers bed. Detectives said she looked peaceful with her hand resting on her teddy. Only dried blood that had formed around her mouth gave any clue that she wasn’t just asleep. 

Detective Arthurs partner, Detective Senior-Constable Bill Richter, was overwhelmed and unnerved by the crime scence. At 6 foot three, the strong, confident detective wasn’t shocked by much, but said to his partner “What the hell have we got here?”

Slumped over the kitchen table, Clifford had not killed himself as he had told his mother was his intention, but had instead fallen asleep, passed out from excessive alcohol consumption

Clifford stood with his head bowed as police handcuffed him, completely without incident. He wasn’t interviewed until 8 hours after being arrested as it was clear he was heavily intoxicated at the crime scene.

Over 250 mourners were at the funeral of the victims. Ten coffins, mostly small coffins, sat at the front of the Centennial Park Cemmetery chapel while men and women, sobbed for the senseless loss of these individuals, and what would have been a confronting sight of the family all lined up. “Operation Respect” was a public appeal fund that paid for the funerals.  

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 Now sit back, as I take you through the rest of the episode. 

Clifford was forthcoming with details of his crime, and additionally Police had his scribblings and ramblings from the letters he wrote post his killing spree. In them, Clifford wrote in detail about the crime, even writing about his arrival at the Fathers day celebration when his 4 year old daughter welcomed him with the words “I love you, Pa. When are you coming home?” when he arrived at the Fathers day celebration, about his 17 year old daughter Christing begging for her life saying “Don’t daddy, dont”, about yelling at his 10 yearl old son Gregory, to get dressed and then shooting him at point blank range as he did so.  Detective Arthur would later say “I couldn’t understand why he would even want to reveal the horror of that confrontation.”

Police would uncover that when Heather told him she would moving back to Rosewater near Port Adelaide it confirmed to Clifford she was still having the affair he had suspected with the soldier, knowing the soldier lived nearby in Taperoo. He wrote in his letters ““I had to kill my wife, there was no other way out but to stop her from ever seeing him again”

To get an idea of what the justice system was like in Australia at the time, Clifford was first seen in the Adelaide Magistrate’s Court on October 3, less than a month after the killings. His case was ordered to be tried in the Supreme Court in November where it was to be resided over by Australia’s first female Supreme Court Judge, Justice Roma Flinders Mitchell. 

Prosectors believed that the most easily proven offence against Clifford, was the murder of his Wife, being able to prove his premeditation through the letter he had scribbled post murder. As such, he was only prosecuted for the death of his wife. If he pleaded guilty to this offence, which was expected he would, the crime carried a mandatory death sentence, so the prosecutor was satisfied that justice would be done.

Clifford was described in the local newspapers as being a slightly-built, clean dressed man. His defence counsel, Mr M Reilly, explained that in 19 years of marriage Heather and Clifford had enjoyed a good family life until recent months. Quote “They had lived happily despite her poor housekeeping and the continuous financial problems that produced.”

The court was told that Clifford had felt his wife had rejected him as a husband and father. He truly believed that his wife was having an affair with the returned soldier, and that she would take the family away from him. Quote: “These sort of things made me very jealous. I had a right to be. But nevertheless, I was that mad with her that I got out of bed, got dressed, went to the shed and got a rifle. My mind was in a state of madness and it seemed as though I couldn’t stop myself from doing what I intended to do.

Mr Reilly argued that the murders were completely contrary to his character. He explained that the tragedy was a result of the depression and emotional disturbance Clifford was suffering and argued that he was legally insane at the time of the murders. Quote “He has accepted our advice to plead guilty, willingly, with the declaration that he acted in such a state of turmoil that he was not responsible”.

When posed the question “Why did you kill all of your children”, Clifford replied “Once I had shot Christine (his 17 year old daughter) I realised I had to kill all of them. I couldn’t leave any behind. I loved my children that much, I couldn’t leave any of them behind, I had to kill them.” 

Clifford continued “When my wife screamed I lost all control. I just went on and killed until everything was quiet. I had no intentions of hurting anybody else.”

Clifford was sentenced to death by hanging in November 23 1971, less than three months from the day the crime was committed. Justice Mitchell said: “You will be taken and hung from the neck until you die and may God have mercy on your soul.”  

“Detective Richter, who attended the trial would later say quote: “He looked as if he had been hit by a hammer and I thought “I hope it hurts”. 

Justice Mitchell was doubtful that the hanging would proceed, with the Dunston Labor Government who was in power at the time, opposed to capital punishment. She told Cliffords that all of the court papers and the plea would be forwarded to Cabinet for consideration. 

Justice Mitchell was right. Clifford’s sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, he avoided the death sentence originally handed down to him. This was a hard outcome for family to accept, but it was likely considered a reasonable alternative to the original sentence of death, if death was not a sentence that would be carried out.

There were whispers that Clifford was in for a hard time in prison. The inmates hearing of the atrocious, cowardly crime had arranged for him to QUOTE “get a good going over”. The danger to Clifford was such, that he was put into solitary confinement for his own protection.

But what would happen next is beyond belief. Clifford Bartholomew, who killed 10 people in a massacre on his property, 7 children and 3 adults, was released on parole on December 10 1979 after serving 7 and a half year in prison. The decision was heavily criticized and was a very controversial outcome both at the time, and since.  The decision to release Clifford after only seven and a half years, was never adequately explained by the Parole Board. 

When Detective Richter heard he was being let out of jail early, he was in total shock and had to sit down. He responded to the call “Which fucking idiot came to that conclusion!” In the 1970’s life in jail was at least 20 years. For Clifford to be released in only 7 and a half years was just shocking.  Not even a year for each murder committed. 

But Clifford had only been prosecuted for the murder of his wife. The murder charges for the 9 other victims were not persued at the time of the crime. Right up until the time of his death, Clifford could have been prosecuted for the other crimes he committed – the gruesome murder of 9 family members, but justice for the other victims was never persued.

After only 7 and a half years in prison, not even a year for each murder committeed, Clifford was released from prison into the community. 

He assumed a new identity, provided by the state, changing his name from Clifford Bartholomew to Clifford Palmer. He reinvented  himself as a Godly man. Clifford met his second wife Merle at a country and western dance in Victoria. His new image was appealing to this devoutly religious woman who believed in the “power of forgiveness”.

Merle was a widow, her first husband dying in their native Sri Lanka. Mele had followed her eldest son Derrick in emigrating to Australia. 

Not long after meeting, Clifford married Merle in 1983 and lived together with her for 22 years, adopting her seven children. Ironically, the seven children falling around the same ages as the children he had massacred in Hope Forest just 12 years earlier. The family lived a happy life and Clifford and Merle welcomed grand-children. He was a trusted member of the family, often taking care of his young family members. 

It isn’t confirmed that his second wife knew of Clifford’s crimes, but it can be assumed she did because his court papers were amongst her belongings. Their family believe that Merle, being the type of person she was, would have thought him worth forgiveness and a second chance. Merle was religious and could have seen her giving him a chance as a way to “save” a lost soul.

Described by his second family as a mild-mannered man, they found it hard believing that the man that had been in their lives for over 22 years was the same man that had committed this gruesome crime. His step-son explains “He never disrespected our mother and they hardly had a raised voice in more than 20 years together. I couldn’t believe it. None of us could.”

Clifford Bartholomew died aged 71 in 2002, having lived over 20 years with his large second family. His second wife would die 10 years later.

Noeleen Paltridge, the 8 year old girl who was at the family’s Fathers’ Day gathering just hours before the murder, was lucky to escape with her life.  Her stepbrother, Terry, listening to his instincts, drove her away from the farmhouse taking the little girl to stay the night back at the family home in Adelaide. Terry had originally driven Noeleen down to the Family’s Fathers Day gathering so she could see her mother, brother, aunt and cousins. Noeleen had been staying with Terry’s parents, due to the erratic lifestyle she had experienced living with her mum, but she was looking forward to spending some time at the farmhouse. The intention was that she would visit for a while at the farmhouse with the family. Terry feeling the tension building between the adults, felt it unsafe to leave her. He no-doubt saved her life. 

In an article in Australian newspaper The Sunday Mail, Noeleen said she was shocked to learn that Clifford had remarried but was relieved he had passed away “I’m glad he’s dead but there are a lot of questions I’d have liked to have asked him, face-to-face.”  Noeleen explained that she had lived in fear ever since Clifford was realeased, worried that her uncle would come after her to complete his crime. Quote, “I just hope he died a horrible death like my family did.” Although Noeleen is grateful she wasn’t killed that night, the trauma and affect the crime had on her life haunts her to this day. 

Clifford’s killings of 10 family members, are the worst recorded mass family killing in Australia. He slaughtered his entire family gruesomely – using a rubber mallet and a single-shot rifle. He had to reload his gun between every shot. The killing of his own immediate family is bad enough, but then to remember, seek out and kill his 18 month old nephew as he slept in the cot, is beyond imagining. 

In the letters he wrote just after the murders, Clifford claimed he killed his wife because he was filled with a jealous rage, a result of the love affair he believed Heather was having with the Vietnam War Veteran. 

Detectives would also uncover that Heather was telling the truth. There was no sexual love affair between Heather and the Vietnam Veteran as Clifford had suspected, and based his entire motive for killing against. The soldier not only confirmed this, but even more telling was the wound the soldier had sustained in the war. He had been hit by machine-gunner, friendly fire. Four bullets had lodged into his groin making him unable to have an erection.

Detective Arthur would say in regards to the letter intercepted by Clifford from the Soldier to Heather, “If you were super-jealous you might conclude there was something in it but, I thought it was more a mother son-type relationship.” Heather’s eldest son being only 3 years the soldiers junior.

The case raises so many questions about justice, parole, second-chances, rehabilitation and community protection.  Wanting to focus on the lives of the victims, it was hard to find information on the people that they really were. When you wipe out an entire family, there is nobody left to talk about the memories made, the dreams shared and the loss of each special person. This is something that must have made life for Noeleen Paltridge, Winnis’s daughter who left the house that day, very difficult. Left to grieve alone and without the relief from grief that sometimes comes from sharing stories of lost loved ones. 

What was wrong with Clifford Bartholomew? In the confession letter he scribbled just after the killings he wrote he was in a quote “state of madness”. This was something that his defence would later argue, with the support of Psychologists who confirmed this state of emotional disturbance was to blame. Detective Senior Constable Arthur who responded and investigated the crime doesn’t agree with the defences argument that it was a crime of passion. He was quoted as saying “That doesn’t fit with me – he went from one end of the house to the other shooting everyone in site. And he did it with a single shot rifle. With a single shot, you have to reload every time, empty the barrel and put in another bullet. He could have stopped at any time. We may not be able to answer what is “What is wrong with Clifford” but we can bear witness to the atrocities of his crime and ensure that the 10 people he stole precious life from are remembered. 

Clifford went on to live a happy life, with a new family, until his death 22 years later.  Memories made, with a family that literally replaced the family he had slaughtered – a wife and seven children. The family he had completely wiped out, as if they never existed.

His second family described him as a larikin and bushman, who loved camping, fishing and shooting. The family he murdered was chillingly replaced with a wife and seven children, just as he had enjoyed in Hope Forest all those years before. 

Cliffords gravestone which sits beside his wifes in a double-plot in Nerang, Queensland reads “Dearly loved husband of Merlyn. Devoted to and sadly missed by children and grandchildren. Rest in Peace”. 

Domestic and family violence is a major health and welfare issue not only in Australia, but globally. It is often a hidden crime and occurs across all ages, socioeconomic and demographic groups. It mainly affects women and children. The impacts of domestic and family violence are long-lasting and affect the wellbeing, health, education, relationships and housing outcomes of victims. The impact can also be fatal, as is the case for the Bartholomew and Keane family.

In Australia, around 52 women and 12 children lose their lives to domestic violence each year. 

Thankfully there is a global active fight to stop violence against women and children. It is driven by survivors, families, individuals, organisations and governments to  violence against women and children. Should you feel like you need help, or you know of someone that does, please contact your local crisis centre, who can offer professional support. 

In Australia, call the national hotline, 1800 RESPECT or 1800 737 732. 

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