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A 24-year-old man killed his wife, three children and mother-in-law in their suburban home, where he stayed for several days before surrendering, the Australian police said on Monday.
The alleged killings is the third such family tragedy that has hit the state of Western Australia in recent months.
Police have accused Anthony Robert Harvey of the murders of his two-year-old twins, Alice and Beatrix, his three-year-old daughter, Charlotte, and his 41-year-old wife, Mara, in Perth.
Harvey, who lived at home, also reportedly killed 73-year-old mother-in-law Beverley Quinn after arriving at the same address the next day.
West Australian Police Commissioner Chris Dawson told reporters that no firearms were used during the attacks because the police believe they were manipulated with several weapons, including "one blunt instrument and knives ".
"We claim that the murders took place over two days," he said.
"Mother Mara and her three children were all murdered for a period of time on September 3 (September) and Ms. Quinn was murdered the next morning."
Dawson said the two women were allegedly attacked in the kitchen while the children were being killed "in other rooms of the house".
"We are alleging that Mr. Harvey stayed home for a few days" before heading north, he added.
Police found the bodies of the five victims in the detached family home after Harvey entered a police station in an isolated mining area, some 1,500 kilometers north of the city, a week after their deaths.
A Facebook profile, which is believed to be Mara, showed her hugging a newborn in her arms, with a man who would be Harvey by her side and said she was was engaged in August 2014.
A real estate listing shows a modest three bedroom house and an independent garage.
– "His daughters were his world" –
Mara Harvey's sister, Taryn, also Quinn's daughter and children's aunt, wrote about her sorrow at the killings.
"There are no words to explain the emptiness and loss we feel," she wrote in a statement released Monday by the police, adding that the young children of Mara were "his world".
"This world is a sad place with the loss of these five beautiful people, but Heaven has won five new angels."
Earlier, a friend of Mara had told Fairfax Media that she was "very unlucky in love before meeting her … so (when they met) it was" yay, now she can found a family ".
A neighbor told the national broadcaster ABC that he had returned from vacation to "silence in the street".
"We noticed that the next house was quite quiet, which was unusual," said Richard Fairbrother, who lives next door to the family home.
"We could hear and see the kids playing in the yard quite often."
Other neighbors spoke of a shocked community that had been close, calm and peaceful.
Dawson said it was the third tragedy involving multiple deaths in a family home in his state since May.
In July, a man reportedly killed his mother and two siblings. A grandfather shot dead his wife, daughter, and four children in May.
Harvey is expected to return to court on September 19.
Multiple murders in a quiet suburb of Perth shocked Australia
