Robert Farquharson
| Robert Farquharson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1969 Australia |
| Criminal charge | Three counts of murder |
| Criminal penalty | Sentenced to life imprisonment with a 33-year minimum |
| Criminal status | Found guilty |
| Spouse(s) | Cindy Gambino (divorced) |
| Children | 3 |
Robert Donald William Farquharson (born 1969) is an Australian man charged, tried and convicted of murdering his three sons on Father's Day in 2005 by driving them in his car into a farm dam.
Farquharson was convicted in an earlier trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment with no minimum term. However, he maintained his innocence and appealed his sentence. On 17 December 2009, he won the right to a retrial, due in part to the key witness for the prosecution, Greg King, facing potential criminal charges himself at the time of the original trial. He was released on bail on 21 December, but was again convicted of murder on 22 July 2010.
Farquharson met Cindy Gambino, in February 1990 and the two began a relationship. Gambino had previously been in a relationship with a man who was killed in a car accident. In 1996, Farquharson took a redundancy package from his employer and bought a lawn-mowing franchise servicing his local area, a venture which lost him AU$40,000.
Farquharson married Gambino in 2000 and they had three children by 2002. The pair separated amicably in 2004. Farquharson suffered from avoidant personality disorder and bouts of depression, and sought the assistance of a psychologist and later a psychiatrist to deal with the separation. He was prescribed the antidepressants Zoloft and later Avanza.
About 7 pm on 4 September 2005, as Farquharson was returning his children to their mother after a Father's Day access visit, his white 1989 VN Commodore vehicle veered across the Princes Highway between Winchelsea and Geelong, in Victoria, crashed through a fence and came to rest in a farm dam where it filled with water and submerged. His three children, Jai (10), Tyler (7) and Bailey (2), were unable to free themselves and drowned. Farquharson managed to escape and alerted another driver who took him to nearby Winchelsea. Police divers recovered the boys' bodies about 2 am the next day. They were still inside the vehicle and unrestrained by seatbelts.
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