Grandad’s Heartache Blamed for Unspeakable Violence
Grieving father speaks
Aaron Cockman has seen firsthand the emotional anguish Peter Miles had gone through in recent years. That is why he believes there was a twisted rationale going through the mind of his former father-inlaw when he shot dead his family of seven, including Mr Cockman’s four children.
As Police continued to piece together what drove Mr Miles to shoot dead his wife Cynda, daughter Katrina and children Taye, 13, Rylan, 12, Ayre, 10, and 8-year-old Kayden on their Osmington Road property near the West Australian holiday town of Margaret River, Mr Cockman staged an impromptu press conference, baring his soul to the media just 48 hours after his world was torn apart.
The grieving father was certain the 61-year-old murdered his family before taking his own life, and believed it was his own heartbreak over the plight of two of his children that culminated in the explosive act of violence.
The pain of two sons struck down
Mr Cockman said Mr Miles had struggled for years to recover from the shock after one of his sons took his own life.
He said when he recently learnt another of his sons was seriously ill with kidney problems, it tipped him over the edge.
“I thought, ‘There’s no way possible he could lose another son, he’ll kill himself ’.
“But I thought, ‘No he won’t do that either because he’s so close to my kids that he would not leave the kids upset for the rest of their lives about it’.”
Mr Cockman said that through Mr Miles’s emotional turmoil, the slaying of his family may have emerged in his mind as a way to “fix” his pain.
“He’s thought this through, he’s not snapped,” he said.
A methodical crime
In a candid address that came as a shock to Police, Mr Cockman described in detail what he had been told by the investigating officers about how the mass shooting unfolded.
He said he had been told Mr Miles first shot his daughter and four grandchildren while they slept in their beds, in a shed that had been converted to a second house on the property.
He then turned the gun on his wife in the living room of their house, before placing a triple-0 call to Police alerting them to his crimes.
When they arrived, Mr Miles was also found dead from a gunshot wound.