A Melbourne dad who murdered his wife and six-year-old daughter has been jailed for at least 19 years.
He cannot be identified in order to protect his brave older daughter, who tried to protect her mum and sister, while in danger herself.
She saw as he stabbed her mother and followed closely behind as her mum fled the house and ran toward a neighbour's home while screaming for help.
The girl, now nearly 12, tried to sneak back into the front of the house to check on her little sister but her dad spotted her.
He chased her back down the driveway but tripped on the curb, giving her a chance to get across the street away from him.
"I need to kill you," he screamed while swinging the knife in the air.
She ran to a nearby home and called emergency services.
Supreme Court Justice Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth called out the young girl's bravery while jailing her dad for 27 years on Tuesday, with a non-parole period of 19 years.
"There's nothing more she could have done to help her mother or little sister," she said.
The man was in a drug-induced psychosis, triggered by his use of ice. The 40-year-old later revealed he believed he had reacted in anger when his wife tried to stop him harming himself.
After his daughter fled he turned his attention back on his wife, yelling over and over: "I kill you and I love you."
He attacked her a second time, walked back to his front yard with the weapon and returned to the neighbour's porch and attacked her a third time.
Police arrived and disarmed the man. They found his 38-year-old wife of 13 years gravely injured. She died at the scene.
She was stabbed eight times and suffered multiple defensive injuries.
His six-year-old daughter was found in a front room of the house with two stab wounds to her back and one to her chest. She was taken to hospital and underwent surgery but died the following day.
The man pleaded guilty to two charges of murder.
His wife called police earlier in the day about his drug use. He was paranoid and kept talking about his family being kidnapped.
Police found him to be "pleasant and polite" and mildly drug affected. He told paramedics he was anxious and just wanted to sleep.
Justice Hollingworth said the man was not motivated by ill will toward his family.
"On the contrary - you loved them and wanted to protect them from what you believed in your irrational psychotic state to a threat of kidnapping or murder by someone else," she said.
The man had been hospitalised in April 2021 after displaying increasingly erratic behaviour in the context of methamphetamine use, and diagnosed with drug-induced psychosis.
He has previously apologised in a letter to the court and asked for forgiveness from his his wife's parents, his parents and his daughter.
"I have done wrong to you and your mum and sister. Please forgive me," he wrote.
"Your dad is still a good man and loves you loads. Be always a good girl, the way you always were."
His lawyer had previously called for a sentence allowing him to live some of the rest of his life outside jail.
"His greatest punishment is his own, self-inflicted loss, of his cherished family," the lawyer said.
He will be eligible for parole after serving 19 years.
