Clifford Bartholomew - Mass Murderer

It never ceases to astound me what depths people will lower themselves to, for money or affairs of the heart.  What is much more astounding, is the complete lack of guts of courts to properly punish the worst offenders.  The case of Cliff Bartholomew is an outstanding example.  He massacred his family, because his wife was more comfortable with a soldier.  He could have looked at the situation in two ways.  If he still wanted his wife, he could have played a waiting game, to see just what exactly she wanted or forced the issue and asked her to decide.   Both Bartholomew and his wife were 40 years old, and living on a farm at Hope Forest, by Willunga, near Adelaide, Australia.

    The soldier also lived on the farm.  Bartholomew had moved out of the home due to the circumstances but returned for a big family dinner, in September 1971, but he gotten hold of a letter from the soldier to his wife.  He left and came back in the early hours.  He brought with him, two rifles and a mallet.  First off, he struck his wife over the head with the mallet then he shot her dead.  The noise awoke all the people in the house.  He systematically slaughtered his seven children, plus his sister in law.  He sat down to drink beer then he realised his little nephew was still alive.  He calmly reloaded his gun and went to finish him off....

    After he had finished, he called his doctor and told him what he had done.  The doctor called Police who raced to the remote farmhouse, and found him sat in his kitchen having drank a bottle of spirits.  He said that he had to kill them all, as he loved them too much!  Oh really!!!!!   Makes you wonder what he would have done if he hated them!  Convicted of mass murder, he was originally sentenced to death but this was commuted to life.  But in an incredible example of pissing and dancing on the graves of all the victims, HE WAS PAROLED AFTER JUST EIGHT YEARS!!!!!!!!   He returned to Adelaide under a new identity, no doubt provided by the complicit authorities.  It makes you wonder if killers in Australia think that not really much is going to happen to them if caught.  They certainly do not lock them away like they do in the States.