Manrique-Lutz murders: First moments on the scene where a father gassed his family
The domestic violence gassing of Maria Lutz and her two primary-school aged children by their deranged father Fernando Manrique horrified those first on the scene.
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A spider-web of police tape zig-zagged across the leafy suburban road in Sydney’s northern beaches.
It was springtime but rain drizzled from the grey skies above.
The Davidson street was no longer a thoroughfare, a place where families strolled and children played but a crime scene and no one was getting in or out – least of all Maria Lutz, her husband Fernando Manrique and their two primary-school aged children, Elisa and Martin.
All had died a horrible death at the hands of Manrique on Monday, October 17, 2016, when he deliberately gassed them using an elaborate mechanism, channelling deadly gas from the garden shed, through the roof and into the house.
The last indication neighbours had of unrest was at approximately 2.30am that day, when the family dog – which also now lay dead – had been heard barking.
Crime reporter Ava Benny-Morrison had received a tip “something was going on at Davidson” and had been told to go at check it out. But details were scarce.
“It was quite a steep street up to the house and there were police everywhere, but it was really difficult to sort of figure out what was going on,” Benny-Morrison said.
“There were conflicting reports about how they could have died, how many people had died, and then the police did a press conference and revealed that it was a family Fernando and Lutz and their two children who have died at the family dog as well.
“There can be so much speculation, especially in the early stages of your reporting when major crimes happen. So I remember just calling around madly trying to figure out what had happened if anyone had heard anything and things sort of just unraveled from there.”
Police investigations and an inquest confirmed the tragic murder-suicide was planned and executed by Manrique,44, and that Lutz, 43, had no knowledge of her macabre intentions.
The couple, who were once high-school sweethearts in their home country of Colombia, had immigrated to Australia and married, giving birth to two children -- Eliza, 12, and Martin, 11 – who were both autistic.
But the marriage between Manrique and Lutz and the family came under considerable financial strain. Lutz had abandoned her former career as a lawyer to raise her children and after Manrique was made redundant the family fell into debt.
He began making repeat trips to the Phillipines to establish a business venture however in the process established a teenage lover, who he wired several thousand dollars, despite his own family’s financial woes.
Although Manrique had left the family home, he returned the month before the murder-suicide while he supposedly found somewhere else to live.
Strangely in the month before he murder, Lutz commented on her husband’s improved attitude towards family life to friends, going so far as to say had he shown such behavior previously she wouldn’t have asked him to leave and even referred to as ‘Father-of-The-Year’.
But the act was a ruse – in the background he was already planning his family’s demise.
In a nation overrun by domestic violence murders, this is one that stands out as particularly horrific and deceptive.
“Over a few months I got to know Maria’s beautiful friends -- they were like family to her -- and they very bravely spoke up about what Maria was going through at that time, what their relationship was like, that she had planned to leave Fernando and set up a life with her and her children. And they were the circumstances that led up to obviously him setting up this elaborate gas system inside the house that essentially killed them all while they were sleeping,” Benny-Morrison said.
“I think by having her friends speak up and be able to provide a very deep and clear, concise insight into what was going on in their lives beforehand really helped people understand that this that was domestic violence. There was no pacts. There was no agreement. She would never have done anything at all to hurt her children at all.”
This article deals with distressing content.
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