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Paperback: Anthony Waterlow left his decrepit room in a run-down boarding house at 4.45pm on Monday 9 November 2009. By 6pm, the 42-year-old was seen leaving another home: his sister Chloe's in Randwick in the eastern suburbs of Sydney in the state of New South Wales in Australia.
He left behind her slaughtered body and that of their father - celebrated art curator Nick Waterlow.
The pair had been stabbed multiple times, in front of Chloe's three young children.
Not only does the The Waterlow Killings (2012) paint a picture of a sad and terrible family murder but more importantly, delves beneath the public face of a successful and affluent family, to reveal private suffering that even their closest friends could not have guessed.
The story takes us deep into the world of musical, literary and visual artists who defy conventionality, push boundaries and become international celebrities. But, behind that apparently glamorous life of the Waterlows - with British aristocratic blood lines and Nick's art world fame - lay a story of love, despair and torment.
Anthony Waterlow's descent into the pits of a mental darkness began at a young age. Like too many of those who suffer from a serious mental illness, he fell through the cracks. The Waterlow Killings ultimately highlights the issues that confront families coping with mental illness and the failings of the health systems in times of need.
"The respect held for Nick Waterlow and for his remarkable contribution to Australian culture has, in death, empowered him and his daughter, Chloe, to deliver a strong social message: it is society's responsibility to properly care for those with serious mental illness - at a minimum, to ensure that the same level of care and access to medical and other appropriate interventions is provided as for other illnesses. Politicians, social policy advisers, medical professionals, and those working in the areas of mental health and the law know what changes have to be made; they're all there in the many reports and expert recommendations that lie around on public servants' desks waiting for the social and political will necessary to implement them," wrote Pamela Burton.
"Anthony was alone and lost in a world that he could not control; a world that had chosen to leave him without proper care; a world that respected his liberty and privacy more than his right to be helped, or that simply believed that helping people like Anthony was not economical. So Anthony, no longer in control of his own actions, was in no one else's control either, and would not be till he emerged as an insane killer, when the police, in great numbers, would contain him, irrespective of the cost. There is no waiting list for a bed in a cell, and consent is not required before a person is confined in a prison. What were the courts and the health system waiting for before either would take stronger action?"
Anthony Waterlow was found not guilty of their murder by reason of mental illness, following a short trial in April 2011. The NSW Supreme Court accepted psychiatric evidence that he had suffered from untreated paranoid schizophrenia and had been delusional at the time of the killings. Anthony continues to be detained in a NSW forensic hospital.
About the author: Pamela Burton is a Canberra lawyer and writer. She studied Law at the Australian National University. Her Master’s thesis was a study of the radical High Court Justice, Henry Bournes Higgins. She founded her own law firm in 1976 and later practised as a barrister at the Canberra Bar. She has held various positions, including Senior Member, Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal, member of the ACT Parole Board, and ACT Mental Health Official Visitor. She is the author of From Moree to Mabo: the Mary Gaudron Story, published by University of Western Australia Publishing (2010), a biography of the first female justice of the High Court of Australia. The Waterlow Killings was winner of Sisters in Crime 13th Davitt Best True Crime Award.
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