Father asked if son ‘wanted to be red’ before murder

Paranoid beliefs about secret police surveillance and fear that his son would be taken away led a drug-addicted father to brutally murder his three-year-old child.

The 48-year-old man took the child to the bathroom of his aunt’s Sydney flat in May 2023, an hour and a half after learning his wife had filed a domestic violence complaint against him with the police.

Her aunt, who had to open the bathroom door with a butter knife, found the couple lying in a pool of blood, attempting murder-suicide.

The child, who was 3 years and 9 months old, could not be brought back to life.

In a phone call from prison following his arrest, the man first told his partner that “he did it himself” and then asked his son what color he saw.

The boy said red, he said.

“Do you want to be red too? (He) said ‘yes’ and so I did,” he asked his partner.

The 48-year-old man also told prison officers that he killed his son because he wanted him to turn into two ghosts.

The man, who AAP chose not to name to protect the identity of the victim, was sentenced to up to 28-and-a-half years in prison in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday after pleading guilty to murder.

Judge Paul McGuire imposed a non-parole period of 18 and a half years, which will end on November 30, 2041.

“By killing her own baby, the criminal perversely and horribly violated the trust, protection and love that (the child) deserved,” she said in a statement Friday.

The child’s biological mother died of natural causes in April 2021.

Six months later, the father resumed his relationship with his ex-girlfriend and soon began using methylamphetamine.

The couple previously split in 2014 due to his violent behavior and drug use.

Days before the murder, he had accused his partner of infidelity, destroyed her phone and attacked her in the bathroom of his home.

He also testified to his misconceptions that police were watching him, including thinking two loss prevention officers at a supermarket were police in disguise.

Unable to contact his mother, he left his home in Sydney’s west and took his partner and son to his aunt’s flat.

While he was looking for a place to live, his girlfriend packed her bags and left and called the police to file a domestic violence complaint.

After he was arrested while in the hospital, he told staff he knew he would be arrested but had no family members to care for his son.

He said he tried to kill himself and his son so that the Department of Family and Community Services would not place the child in foster care.

On Friday, Judge McGuire found the man was suffering from strange beliefs triggered by paranoia that his son was better off dead than being cared for by someone else.

The man had expressed only very limited remorse and contrition.

The judge said recent claims by a forensic psychiatrist that he heard voices telling him to “kill everything he loved” at the time of the murder were inconsistent with statements given to police and hospital staff shortly afterwards.

But Judge McGuire shortened the man’s non-parole period after finding that time in custody would be more burdensome due to his mental illness.

It was also likely that he would spend this time in protective custody due to the nature of his crime.

The judge noted the impact of the murder and expressed his condolences to the child’s family.

While the boy’s grandparents described the man’s behavior as terrible and selfish, his sister could not understand his cruel and heartless actions.

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