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Pictures of two smiling boys on their parents’ social media accounts are hard to reconcile with the events that unfolded on Friday in their Mosman Park home.
The online presences of Maiwenna Goasdoue, 49, and Jarrod Clune, 50, does not paint a picture of a family struggling or on the brink.
Both parents’ pages are littered with photos of their sons, Leon and Otis, going back years to when they were babies; smiling, enjoying the beach, cuddling their parents.
It was a stark contrast to the scene first responders arrived to when they screamed down an otherwise quiet street early on Friday morning.
A carer had found a note on the door urging them to phone police, while another note inside the home is believed to have led police to determine the tragedy was likely a double murder-suicide.
An investigation into the tragedy remains ongoing, and a report is being prepared for the coroner.
According to their friends, the Clunes were a close and loving family.
“Mai was such a beautiful person,” a friend of the family, who asked not to be named, told this masthead.
“She loved those kids so much, her whole life revolved around them.”
The friend had connected with Goasdoue through Perth’s autism community. They shared stories about what they faced as full-time carers of children with extreme behaviours, and offered each other support.
“Like many, many families in their situation, you tend to run inwards after a while,” the friend said.
“You reach out to other people who are in similar situations. We talked about our respective challenges.
“But the people who understand you the best are in the least position to give you support.
“We’re all in the trenches trying to survive. And that tends to lead to increasing isolation.”
Leon, 16, and Otis, 14, had severe autism. Otis was non-verbal. They were previously enrolled at the prestigious private Christ Church Grammar School, where fees per student are in the tens of thousands of dollars. It was the school their father also attended, graduating in 1992.
Christ Church principal Alan Jones released a statement to parents saying the boys were both enrolled in the school’s dedicated special needs department, the Peter Moyes Centre. Enrolment in the centre is highly sought-after and places are limited.
But the boys left Christ Church in recent years, reportedly after one brother was asked to leave, although the school would not confirm that.
“There’s no doubt that their behaviour would have been extremely challenging,” the family friend said.
“You’re talking about violence, meltdowns, vicious behaviour that could leave you with injuries.
“And these kids with these extreme behaviours are let down the most.
“There really isn’t support for families like ours. There is nothing meaningful.
“There’s carers, but the hurdles you have to jump through to get it is impossible to navigate. What you need most is respite, but they won’t take complex children.
“Where does that leave you?”
The boys were understood to later be enrolled in a specialist special needs school, but the family friend said many people in their situation turned to homeschooling as a last resort, as even designated schools were unable to cope with extreme behaviour including violence and aggression.
Goasdoue, who is originally from a small western French town called Morlaix, appeared to have no family in Australia.
While it has been reported the family’s NDIS funding had recently been cut, Goasdoue’s friend did not believe that was the case.
However, she said, “it’s not about the funding”.
“I need a break – I can’t get a break – it’s not about the lack of funding, it’s the support that is not there,” she said.
“Not just anyone can cope with a child with complex, extreme and serious behaviour problems. The carers out there that are good at what they do, they are in high demand, they’re not available.
“Getting the NDIS is just the start, and then managing it all is a part-time job, and you have to be accountable to them for everything you do.
“I’m grateful for it, but it’s exhausting to navigate. The system is groaning and under a huge demand and lack of resources.”
Goasdoue was a stay-at-home mum to the boys, which her friend said was “absolutely necessary” for families like theirs, but would have taken a huge toll.
The friend believed trouble finding – and trusting – somewhere to take their children could have contributed Friday’s tragedy.
“If your children have severe problems it’s terrifying to put them in with strangers,” she said.
“And you know you can handle them better than anyone else, you have learnt to over time, so just keep them with you all of the time.
“Then it comes full circle back around to when you care about your children so much you work yourself into the ground doing everything for them yourself, and you just end up completely burnt out.”
Goasdoue’s friend said she had reached out with some suggestions for hiking adventures and support services, she knew their problems ran far deeper.
On Tuesday, federal Disability Minister Mark Butler described the suspected double murder-suicide as an “unspeakable tragedy”.
However, legal restrictions prevented the minister from commenting on the NDIS packages the children were on.
“All I want to say is that this is just an awful tragedy, just an unspeakable tragedy for this family, but for the broader community, and I know the [National Disability Insurance Agency] will do everything it can to assist the police in its inquiries,” Butler said.
Lifeline 13 11 14
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