Details are slowly unfolding of a suspected murder suicide of a Western Australian man and his two young children at the Arca Bungalow on Jalan Three Brothers in Legian, Bali, on Sunday morning, 13 September 2026
Indonesian police arrived at the location at 10:15 am, where they witnessed the horrific scene of the dead bodies of 56-year-old Damien John Shaw and his six-year-old son and four-year-old daughter, whose bodies were sprawled across the floor of the rented Kuta villa in what is being investigated by police as a murder-suicide.
Damien John Shaw
Shaw was born in Fremantle, Western Australia.
Police were alerted after receiving a frantic telephone request for a welfare check from a friend of Shaw’s wife who called from Jakarta. The wife and mother reportedly called a neighbor for urgent assistance after a tearful telephone call was cut off, with her daughter pleading for help. Attempts to restore the interrupted connection with her family were unsuccessful.
The child’s mother said that during the telephone call with her daughter, she heard the girl say “stop daddy” in the background.
Subsequently, the neighbor contacted others and then, along with the community head, forced open the door to the Kuta bungalow at around 8:30 am on Sunday, discovering the bodies of the children and Mr. Shaw sprawled on the bungalow’s floor.
The Shaw family reportedly held a long-term lease on the bungalow dating from 2022.
Badung Regency Police said Mr Shaw was born in Fremantle, in Western Australia.
Quoted in the Australian press, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook described the news of the three deaths in Bali as a “horrific situation”. Adding: “We know there is a very confronting situation there. This is a very sad situation; our hearts go out to everyone involved. We hope we can get to the bottom of what’s gone on as soon as possible.”
The three bodies were removed from the bungalow and taken to the morgue of the Ngoerah Hospital in Denpasar, where an autopsy and a forensic examination are being conducted as part of an investigation into the deaths.
Police in Indonesia are investigating the deaths of Damien John Shaw and his two children.
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