Wednesday 16 November 2022 12:32 AM Katie Perinovic inquest: Dad's Tomislav's anguish at kids' deaths and treatment ... trends now
A mother's descent into madness before she murdered her three children then killed herself while her husband was out buying a new family TV has been horrifically detailed by the Victorian Coroner.
The findings into the suicide by Katie Perinovic, 42, and her fatal stabbing of children Claire, seven, Anna, five, Matthew, three, in the north-western Melbourne suburb of Tullamarine, in January 2021, have been handed down by Coroner Audrey Jamieson.
They come after grieving father and husband Tom Perinovic gave a gut-wrenching victim impact statement about how he came home from shopping at a Melbourne Good Guys outlet to find his family slaughtered.
After discovering his toddler son in a pool of blood, calling paramedics, and then his wife and daughters and saying, 'they're all dead', Mr Perinovic was immediately handcuffed when police arrived.
A female police officer yelled at him as he was arrested and then grilled on the nature strip in front of his neighbours. The 48-year-old was hauled off to Broadmeadows Police Station, where he was interviewed by Homicide Squad detectives.
Mother Katie Perinovic (centre) and her children (left to right) Matthew, three, Anna, five, and Claire, seven, were found dead at their Tullamarine home in Melbourne's North in January 2021
Father Tomislav Perinovic (left), with his children and Ms Perinovic, was initially suspected of carrying out the gruesome murders of his children, but police released him after concluding it was a murder suicide by the children's mother
Police outside the Perinovic family home after the devastating tragedy which saw Katie Perinovic murder her three children and then take her own life after suffering a psychotic episode
Police would examine CCTV footage, phone records, Triple-0 calls, bank records and interview 77 witnesses and held him without charged overnight.
Police ultimately released him and apologised the next day.
However, he now wants a formal apology, and told the inquest into the deaths that the children had been excited when he left, and that within two hours he returned and they were dead.
'I went out that day to buy my family a TV ... the kids were so excited,' he told the inquest.
'I came home to find my family all deceased.'
Coroner Jamieson has laid out the deterioration of Katie Perinovic's mental health leading up to a
