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Under questioning on Thursday, Dr Yule agreed that Mr Hunt's behaviour in the last hours he was seen alive - making lunches for his children to take to school the following day, setting up plans for a tennis game with a friend later in the week - suggested he probably killed his family on impulse.*
But she believed Mr Hunt's primary motivation was to take his own life, 'with the homicides occurring in his mind as a secondary necessity'.*
Dr Yule said family destroyers may be motivated by 'pseudo-altruistic intent' when they kill their loved ones, 'in that they feel they were sparing them from further pain'.*
'I believe it occurred in the context of a distorted rationale in his own mind. I believe that he presented a face of being able to cope,' Dr Yule said.*
'Something at that particular time has caused him to lose whatever component of hope he had left that he could fix things ... that it would never get better, and he couldn't fix it.'*
Relatives of Riverina couple Geoff and Kim Hunt, whose bodies were found along with those of their children at the family's Lockhart property, have also spoken of their pain and regret that they never saw the tragedy coming.
Mr Hunt's brother and sister-in-law, Allen and Renae Hunt said they would 'never be rid of the gut-wrenching heartache' that enveloped them when they learned that Geoff, Kim, 10-year-old Fletcher, eight-year-old Mia, and the baby of the family, six-year-old Phoebe, were dead.
A statement from the couple, who ran the Lockhart farm with Geoff, says they struggle with their regret, wishing they had done more to help Geoff at his time of need
We could only imagine the depths of despair, pain and isolation that Geoff must have felt,' they wrote in a statement read to the court.
'We now live with the pain of regret that maybe we could have done more to help him.'
Kim Hunt's younger sister, Jenny Geppert sobbed as she recalled the last time she had seen Mr and Mrs Hunt with their children.
It was her daughter's fourth birthday party, and the Hunts stayed on after the other guests had left.
There was little sign of the terrible car crash two years earlier that had left Mrs Hunt battling wild mood swings and anger, and forced her to re-learn how to walk and talk.
'My sister and I were as close as they come,' Mrs Geppert said.
'I made her promise me once that she would never let anything happen to her because I couldn't imagine how I'd live my life without her. I wish she could have kept this promise.'
Mrs Hunt's family also said an urgent re-think of support services for families who have experienced trauma, such as her 2012 car crash, was needed to prevent another tragedy.
Mrs Hunt's cousin, Jane Blake, writing on behalf of her extended family, slammed the 'obvious ineffectiveness of the mental health system' in Australia.
'We believe one hour with Kim every now and then was grossly inappropriate to deem her 'better' and no longer needing support,' Ms Blake said in a submission.
'To take the word of an individual with a brain injury and significant spinal injury is unacceptable. Equal support for main carers like Geoff is totally unrecognised