Zip ties, some cleaning fluid and a fuel can — in the power and garden aisle — it was Hannah Clarke's estranged husband shopping to kill his family.
WARNING: This story contains content that readers may find distressing.
A chilling video showing Rowan Baxter strolling the aisles of his local hardware store has been shown to the inquest investigating his murders of his wife Hannan Clarke and their three children in a suburban Brisbane street in February 2020.
It was among audio and visual material that was collated by police as they gathered evidence of Baxter's last actions in the days before he jumped in Ms Clarke's car, threw petrol from the fuel can around the vehicle and set it on fire.
Audio from a phone call to a help line for a men's behaviour program, along with records for the purchase of 4.6 litres of petrol and three chocolate treats were also obtained by police and played to the Coroner's Court — but the most-disturbing imagery was his visit to the hardware store.
Clad in his trademark muscle singlet, the former gym owner can be seen calmly strolling the aisle, pausing for 10 seconds with a bag of zip ties in his hands before he reaches in, grabs a fuel can and goes to pay.
Inquest hears disturbing call to men's helpline
Also played to the inquest was Baxter's phone call to a helpline at 4.41pm the day before the murders.
The 42-year-old told the responder he felt like he was "in a game" and complained that his wife was trying to get him "to breach" his orders.
"I just about need to wear a spy cam on me 24/7," he told the men's helpline.
Earlier, evidence was presented to the inquest that Baxter had actually been surveilling his wife by leaving an old iPhone in her car, listening in to her phone conversations and, at one stage, he spied on her from a tree.
He told the responder that, after he moved to Australia from New Zealand, "he met a lovely lady at the time and had children but, unfortunately, it's gone sour in the past two months".
He complained of being "put through the ringer" and implied that his wife had left him because of having feelings for a gym customer.
The inquest has previously been told that any claim of Ms Clarke having an affair was false and, even if there had been any truth to this claim, it was "nobody's business".
The phone call also shed light on his obsession with his children.
He told the responder he was 42 years old and "shouldn't have to ask for my kids", downplaying his role in abducting their middle child Laianah, 4.
He claimed Ms Clarke had "kicked up a stink and the next thing I know I get home and the police come and take her off me and put a domestic violence order [on me]".
"It's just gone worse to worse,'' he told the responder.
Baxter told the operator it was "very scary" and that he "never ever, ever thought my wife was capable of doing anything like this".
He also claimed he tried to get into a men's behaviour program at Anglicare but there was a 12-month wait.
Counsel assisting the coroner, Jacoba Brasch, QC, said there was no evidence of him contacting the service.
The final security camera vision obtained of Baxter showed him just a few hours before the attack, calmly filling up his vehicle with 18 litres of fuel at the local service station.
Baxter given breathing exercises days before he penned 'death note'
Following the playing of the audio-visual material, Coroner Jane Bentley heard evidence from psychologist Vivian Jarrett who — just four weeks before the murders — wrote a letter, stating Baxter was "coping remarkably well" and should have contact with his children.
In the letter, which was partly read to the court, Ms Jarrett stated her client "had been open and sincere in sessions".
Dr Brasch queried Ms Jarrett's assessment, telling the inquest that five days after the letter was written, Baxter had started penning "a death note" which stated: "You can't f**k with someone's life like this and expect them to just take it."
Ms Jarrett confirmed that she sought to help Baxter by giving him strategies in the form of breathing exercises as a relaxation mechanism for his "depressive symptoms".
Dr Brasch noted a search warrant had been served on Ms Jarrett for her documents relating to Baxter's sessions but not all of these had been produced to police nor to the coroner.
She queried why Ms Jarrett had not taken handwritten notes of the sessions and asked whether she had typed up notes of the sessions after the fact.
However, Ms Jarrett said she had typed in the notes straight after the sessions.
"I can't help that they read that way,'' she told the inquest.
Strangulations don't always get police response, social worker tells inquest
Earlier, the inquest had also been told Ms Clarke was choked against her will during sex with her husband in the months before he killed her and their three children, but a social worker had not passed on this "significant" information to police.
Coroner Jane Bentley suppressed the names of social workers, due to the sensitivity of their work in domestic and family violence victims' services.
A social worker who completed a risk assessment for Ms Clarke in January 2020 confirmed that she had told her of the choking, which was considered high-risk behaviour.
The social worker confirmed that she did not pass this information on to police.
Asked why she did not draw it to the attention of police, the worker said she had assumed police already knew.
She also said that most women who completed a risk assessment reported being strangled.
"I think it's really hard to put into context. Most women would have completed a RASA [risk assessment] would be strangled, so, unfortunately, this sort of information, I would not share with police,'' she told the inquiry.
"I think the way we do a RASA is, if there is strangulation, it is not information as an intake worker I would directly share with the police.
"I think it gets sort of complicated here. I think a lot of the time it comes down to our police response depends on the situation. So, in Hannah's situation, she was working with police quite closely already.
The worker agreed that strangulation of a partner was a "really serious risk indicator" that greatly elevated fears the victim could later be killed.
Risk assessment delayed due to social worker's high workload
The inquest was told the information about the strangulation had come to light on January 15 or 16, 2020.
That social worker confirmed she had first met Ms Clarke in 2019 and had taken about six weeks to complete the risk assessment due to her workload, which involved dealing with about 40 victims.
"We get a range of high-risk situations. We might get a call where someone has been strangled that day and the RASA needs to be completed. So, unfortunately, I think it was a situation where we didn't have the manpower to complete it in that week when I initially wanted to complete it,'' she said.
The social worker also confirmed there was no training about sharing such information with the police.
Another social worker told the inquest that she had visited Ms Clarke with two police officers on January 8 and found her to be calm, despite the fact Baxter had abducted their daughter, Laianah, about two weeks before.
She said that Baxter taking Laianah was a "red flag".
The head of the domestic violence service also gave evidence that social workers did not get access to criminal records, which made it hard to assess a potential victim's risk level.
"There needed to be a conversation about this,'' she said.
Strangulation, dousing cases rise 50pc amid thousands of referrals
The social worker said strangulation and dousing of women with fuel had gone up by 50 per cent after Ms Clarke's death.
"It's becoming a much more active way of putting terror over women. They don't just necessarily use intimidation with it and there have been some cases where there have been more people injured through fires,'' she said.
The social worker revealed their service received "4,000-plus" referrals a year as thousands of women were on waiting lists to get access to some form of alternative housing.
"Women are ringing us from their cars saying they have left a violent partner and … don't want to return to a violent partner. [The say], 'Where can I change accommodation immediately?'" she told the inquest.
The social worker said there also needed to be a change of attitude in the way violent men were being counselled, so they were challenged when they claimed to have having mental health issues due to the way they were being treated by their female partner.
Baxter died by fatally stabbing himself after attacking his former partner and their three children.
