The shattered family of murder victim Hannah Clarke have told of the Brisbane mother’s brave final act after being doused in petrol and set alight by her abusive ex-husband.
Hannah’s parents Lloyd and Suzanne Clarke and her brother Nat broke down as they revealed the 31-year-old fitness trainer fought to remain conscious — with burns to 97 per cent of her body — so she could give first responders a detailed report of what her former husband had done. Suzanne Clarke said despite what must have been agony, Hannah was able to tell her story to emergency service workers. She later died in hospital from her injuries.
Rowan Baxter, 41, ambushed Ms Clarke and the couple’s three children — Laianah, 6, Aaliyah, 4, and Trey, 3 — as she drove them to school on Wednesday morning, burning them alive inside the car before stabbing himself to death.
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“She did everything for those kids,’ her father Lloyd told Nine’s A Current Affair.
“To the end she fought to make sure if he survived he got punished for what he did to her babies. She was so brave.”
The Clarke family suspect Baxter may have laid in wait on their property in Brisbane’s Camp Hill before mounting his attack.
The family spoke of Hannah’s shocking treatment at the hands of Baxter, which only escalated when she finally made the decision to leave him late last year.
He had been emotionally and sexually abusive for years, controlling what she wore, isolating her from her family and forcing her to have sex with him daily or he would punish the children.
Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll visits the family of Hannah Clarke, who was incinerated along with her three children by her estranged husband Rowan Baxter at Camp Hill. Video: Elise Williams
On Boxing Day, Mrs Clarke said Hannah had taken the children to visit him to ride their new skateboards but as she went to leave, he snatched four-year-old Aaliyah and threw her into the front seat of his car and drove off.
“Her little face was in the window as he drove off and she was screaming “Mummy!”, Mrs Clarke recalled through tears. “We didn’t see her again for four days.”
He later rang the other children to boast about all the toys he had bought for Aaliyah. “He was evil.”
She said Hannah had been reluctant to take out a domestic violence order against him for fear of “aggravating him” but was encouraged to by her family. He soon breached it by assaulting her as she tried to remove photographs he had printed of Hannah in her underwear that he had been keeping in his car.
“The policewoman warned her that it was just a piece of paper,” brother Nat Clarke told the program of the AVO.
The family shared a heartbreaking final post to social media that Hannah had made, calling herself a “survivor” and vowing that “my girls will grow up being strong women who know their worth.”
Nat Clarke said the horror of what had happened to Hannah and the children was yet to sink in and they family were not sure they would ever be able to fully understand it.
They were speaking out, they said, so that Hannah would be remembered for her kindness and strength and to send a message to anyone experiencing domestic violence to seek support and leave.
“Not all domestic abuse is physical,” Nat Clarke said.
“Mental is probably one of the hardest ones to pick up on.’
“I just want everyone to know how much of a beautiful person my sister was.”
All they had left of her was a necklace, with the names of her children engraved on it, and a footprint given to them by hospital staff after she died.
“My sister was so badly burnt that the only thing they could do for like a memorabilia of her was a footprint,” he said.
“Because the soles of her feet were only part of her body that weren’t burnt. They couldn’t even get a hand print or anything from her.”
Weekend Digital Editor
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