Hannah Clarke inquest: Was killer’s original plan foiled as she fought back?

The macabre shopping list of Hannah Clarke’s killer suggests he might have had a more elaborate plan in mind. Did she derail it with her courageous fightback?

Rowan Baxter stepped into his nice-guy shroud and dialled the phone number of a men’s helpline.

“I was just trying to find a program,” he told the operator.

“I’ve been told just to try and look for a 10-week men’s behavioural change one?”

Baxter acted vaguely embarrassed as he explained to the operator that he didn’t need to change – but his wife had turned his life upside down and now he needed to show the Family Court how proactive he could be.

Throughout the 14-minute conversation, Baxter bashfully carved out a fantasy in which he played the much-maligned victim.

“I’ve been through the wringer in the last two months. It’s unbelievable,” he said.

His wife, Baxter lied, had left him for another man.

Now she was stopping him from seeing his children.

She had even “put a DVO” on him.

“It is very, very scary,” Baxter said.

“I never, ever, ever thought my wife was capable of doing anything like this.”

That was late on the afternoon of February 18, 2020.

But Baxter’s lies spread further than painting himself as a victim.

The entire call was a fallacy, a scam.

Rowan Baxter purchasing a jerry can and zip ties at Bunnings Mansfield

Baxter had no intention of doing an anger management course.

Somewhere – in his house or in his car – were the spoils of his Bunnings shopping trip the day before.

A five-litre petrol can, a bottle of surface cleaner, a packet of zip ties: Baxter’s shopping list of abduction and murder, paid for by card at the checkout of the hardware chain’s store at Mansfield in Brisbane’s south.

So what was Baxter’s real plan for Hannah Clarke, the wife who had dared defy him by leaving the controlling and abusive marriage he had inflicted on her for more than a decade?

During the final day of the inquest into the murders of Hannah and her children Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, 4, and Trey, 3, counsel assisting the coroner Jacoba Brasch drew some conclusions based on Baxter’s movements in the days leading up to one of the worst acts of domestic violence in Australia.

She told the court that on January 26 Baxter took his phone and began typing what she called his “death note”.

“I’m sorry Hannah,” he wrote.

“I’m finishing your game. I don’t want to play any more.”

And: “I have told the kids that you loved them and they will miss you, I’m sure.”

Rowan Baxter fills his car before murdering Hannah Clarke and their children.

Dr Brasch told the inquest that the morning after his trip to Bunnings, Baxter drove to a service station and bought 4.8 litres of fuel for his new petrol can.

The next day was February 19. Baxter got up early and filled his car with petrol.

“And bought three Kinder Surprises,” Dr Brasch said.

“Three children’s chocolates. Three children here.

“Filling up the car in the morning – not an act of someone who is just going to drive close by and do what he did.

“Perhaps his ‘plan A’ was to take Hannah and the children, drive them somewhere – because we’ve filled the car up – use the zip ties to restrain Hannah, burn her. And give the children Kinder Surprises and we’d be happy families.

“He’d be the primary carer, as he told people, the police and child support, dishonestly.”

But plan A did not pan out.

Baxter had not considered that his estranged wife might not do what she was told.

Despite filling the borrowed car with fuel, Baxter drove only a short distance to lie in wait at the home of Hannah’s parents, where she and the children were living.

Hannah Clarke and her children

As Hannah pulled out for the morning school run, Baxter jumped into the passenger seat with the petrol can and a knife and told her to “just drive”.

She did, but just a short distance down the road Hannah spotted a man washing his car.

She swung the car towards the footpath, hit the brakes and screamed for help.

“It was perhaps when Baxter saw Hannah’s strength, saw that she would not yield to yet another command, that he moved to Plan B,” Dr Brasch said.

“To commit the ultimate act in power and control.

“To obliterate the very physical presence and manifestations of his estranged wife and his own children.”

Baxter, having been rejected, had responded by creating a meticulous plan to murder Hannah, and perhaps his own children.

Hannah would die trying to save them.

His call to a men’s support service, Dr Brasch said, was “far from a cry for help”.

“What he was doing was having one last-ditch effort at laying down his version of events. His image. There was nothing in that call that showed any insight, introspection, or regret,” she said.

“Indeed, to the very last moment, he was blaming Hannah, (saying) ‘I am not the one who has the problem’.”