In the suburb of Carlisle, near Perth, Roderick Davies and family ended their days, leaving behind six farewell letters that described the killings as a spiritual calling. The family had become consumed by a belief in life after death, with Dorothy writing to her mother in Victoria that she had been ‘writing under spiritual control for months’ and had long known they would all be ‘going on soon.’
The coroner, Mr T. Y. A. Lang, described the motive bluntly: a desire for ‘a short road to an attractive hereafter.’ In his letter to police, Davies wrote that he had taken the lives of his wife and children ‘for reasons it would be impossible for me to explain.’ Dorothy’s final words to her mother were: ‘Life holds nothing; Death promises everything.’
