The murder-suicide in a quiet Wangaratta street on Anzac Day has left many in the city devastated, including the mayor.
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Cr Ken Clarke was with emergency service personnel and school children on Tuesday morning for services at the cenotaph, then just hours later he heard the news.
“I was pretty devastated for the whole city,” Cr Clarke said.
“We can do without it, especially on the most important day for the city every year – Anzac Day.”
Wangaratta Council has offered counselling to schools and its own employees who knew the family.
“Because we’re a smaller city, so many people know so many,” Cr Clarke said.
“Even within the rural city staff, we’ve got quite a lot who knew the family and they just don’t understand what happened.”
Tuesday’s incident was the third time a Wangaratta female had been violently killed over the past 18 months, following the deaths of 11-year-old Zoe Buttigieg in October 2015 and Whorouly’s Karen Chetcuti in January 2016.
Cr Clarke said he did not understand how something just clicked inside a perpetrator.
“We’re badly lacking in some really good counselling for people,” he said.
“That obviously is lacking and how we can overcome that I’m not sure.
“It’s a worry to me that we have thing like this happening and not know why.”