Double murder-suicide driver planted bombs in engine bay
DARREN MILNE, an engineer who killed his pregnant wife and eldest son in a smash at Fountaindale in 2015, had been planning it for months, an inquest heard.
Central Coast
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A SENIOR Ausgrid engineer who killed his pregnant wife and eldest son in a double-murder suicide, fitted his car with petrol bombs that failed to detonate.
The never before released detail was one of several revelations to emerge from the coronial inquest into the deaths of Darren Milne, his pregnant wife Susana and their Liam, 11.
The couple’s youngest son Benjamin, then 7, was critically injured but survived the crash at Fountaindale on February 1 last year.
The inquest at Wyong Local Court heard that the 42-year-old father had planned the murder-suicide for months, identified several “heavily wooded” roads between Sydney and the Central Coast and even filmed “10 practice runs” on his dash cam two days before he deliberately ploughed his Toyota Corolla into a tree on Enterprise Drive.
Leading Senior Constable Peter Mason, of the Forensic Services Group, took the engine bay apart and discovered a sophisticated “circuit” of wiring and plugs that connected three 12volt batteries to two metal flasks, each containing about 500ml of fuel.
Photographs tendered to court showed one of the flasks was fixed to the engine bay behind the right front headlight. Sen-Constable Mason said it appeared the second flask was behind the left headlight but because of the force of the crash “the other one was found in the back seat”. He said the whole system was connected to the car’s battery.
The officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Senior Constable Karen Kennedy, told the inquest an iPad containing a file that amounted to “a suicide note”, dated September 20, was found in the car wreckage.
“From this point on I need to be totally focused, forget everything else,” it read.
“Take DVR (dash camera) out of the car so as to not raise suspicion. Copy work personal stuff to portable disk. Start taking personal stuff home.”
Sen-Constable Kennedy said Mr Milne had been seeing psychiatrist Dr Jason Pace, who diagnosed him with “some kind of depression or ADD”, since 2007. He had been on and off his medication since then.
She said the couple had $30,000 in savings which ruled out “financial difficulty” as a motive. Instead, police formed the view Mr Milne took his own life and attempted to take his family’s lives because of fears for his sons, who were both diagnosed with Fragile X syndrome.
“Darren thought they would not be able to cope.”
AN EXTRACT OF THE CHILLING ‘PLAN’ POLICE FOUND ON HIS IPAD
“It’s not worth it, neither of us have the skills to make it work. We have both given it our best shot over a long period of time.
There is too much conspiring against us.
G got the calculation wrong, it’s that simple.
L & B are both happy, B doesn’t yet know, it is a good time to go.
It is only going to get tougher as time goes on.
We have been completely s’d over, maybe we can stop it happening to someone else.
They are going to have to manage ADD + Diabetes, it is going to be too much. They need to exercise & manage their health, it is going to be hard to see this fail.
Things are going to get progressively harder for Ben. He hasn’t seen any malice or bullying yet, but it is coming.
From this point on I need to be totally focused, forget everything else. Need to source comfort from the fact.
See if (air) bags can be disbanded.
Finalised medical records disk & leave copies.
— letter to HGA
— correspondence
Start cleaning stuff up.
Take DVR (dash cam) out of the car so as to not raise suspicion.
Carry out recon after daylight savings, full day on RDO
— look at old Pacific hwy to Central Coast
— stay until dark, practice at least 10 times
— memorise all road markers, learn the road backwards.
Copy all work personal stuff to portable disk. Start taking personal stuff home.
Leave credit cards well in credit.
Leave enough money in mex (sic) phone.”
FOOTAGE SHOWN TO COURT OF ‘PRACTICE’ RUNS
THREE minutes.
That was how long Darren Milne’s father John, his partner Sandra Tawny and his aunt Delwyn Richards sat in the front row of a Coronial inquest and watched in silence as chilling dash cam footage was played on two large screens on either side of Courtroom 2.
It was recovered from a small memory disk seized in a search of the Milne’s Ryde family home the day after he deliberately drove his Toyota Corolla into a tree on Enterprise Drive.
The footage was one of up to 10 “practice runs” the 42-year-old did two days before the horrific double murder suicide.
Two days earlier on Friday, January 30, 2015, AusGrid records showed the senior engineer was on a rostered day off.
But as far as his pregnant wife Susana Estevez Castillo knew he had gone to work as normal.
He had just dipped into his long service to take his wife and two sons on a six-week holiday, one final chance to spend quality time with them before he would execute his calculated plan that begun months earlier.
In September, he documented “Stage 2” of the plan on his iPad, a crucial piece of evidence he hoped would have been consumed in a fiery wreck.
Colleagues told investigating officers he was meticulous to the point his desk was put away at the end of each shift “so you wouldn’t even know someone had worked there”.
He had organised his affairs, left plenty of money on his credit card and the officer in charge of the investigation said his medical records found at his home of his children’s diagnosis of fragile X syndrome and diabetes were “the best I have ever seen”.
Witness Matthew Winkle, 32, was taking his daughter to school about 9.30am when he noticed “a gentleman standing by the side of the road” in a button-up shirt.
He found it odd because it was not the safest place to be where Enterprise Drive narrows under a canopy of trees.
He didn’t know it at the time but it was Milne identifying the very tree he would aim at two days later about 12pm on Sunday.
But despite his engineering background, the sophisticated homemade explosives he rigged up behind the headlights failed to detonate when he hit a tree so hard his airbag did not even have time to deploy.
Diesel mechanic Colin Cooper, 54, was on his way to check on his factory at Berkeley Vale on what was an otherwise unremarkable day when the car about 200m in front veered “like you would exiting the freeway” and time slowed like it did in the movies.
“Straight away my thought was he’s done that on purpose,” Mr Cooper told an inquest.
“When he hit the tree I thought there was no break lights.
“I remember seeing the battery come out of the car as soon as it hit the tree.”
The entire engine bay wrapped itself around the base of the tree like a big hug.
Mr Milne and his wife died instantly. Paramedics fought to save 11-year-old son Liam but he died at the scene.
Youngest son Benjamin, then 7, was flown to the Children’s Hospital at Westmead with critical injuries.
Detective Senior Constable Karen Kennedy told the inquest he was now “doing well” in the care of an aunty, on his mother’s side, in London.
“Tell them he’s doing well,” she told the Express Advocate after the inquest.
“I still get asked about him and it’s important people know he’s doing well.”
The inquest has finished hearing evidence. The Magistrate will hand down his findings in July.
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