As Hannah Clarke lay dying with her children trapped inside a burning car, her estranged husband Rowan Baxter was still trying to stop people from helping them, an inquest into their deaths has been told.
WARNING: This story contains content that readers may find distressing.
Severely burned, he moved around "growling" and "guarding" the blazing vehicle containing the children while their mother rolled around trying to extinguish the flames engulfing her, the Brisbane inquest heard.
The chilling testimony came from bystanders who were present as the horrific incident unfolded.
Ms Clarke, 31, her daughters Aaliyah, 6, and Laianah, 4, and her son, three-year-old Trey, died after Baxter jumped in their vehicle with a petrol can and set it on fire in a suburban Brisbane street in 2020.
Physiotherapist Michael Zemek had tried to help Ms Clarke after she drove up to him while he was washing his car in Raven Street at Camp Hill in Brisbane's southern suburbs.
Mr Zemek said he could see a man in the front passenger seat holding Ms Clarke in a bear hug with a resigned look on his face.
"His demeanour was controlled ... he didn't engage me," Mr Zemek told the inquest.
Mr Zemek said Ms Clarke was screaming: "Call the police, he's trying to kill me, he's poured petrol on me."
Mr Zemek told the hearing that as he moved towards the car, it exploded.
"I just saw a bang, it just sort of flared straight and … blackness hit my face."
He said despite being on fire, Ms Clarke managed to get out of the car.
"At that point she was saying, 'I didn't save my kids. I couldn't save my kids'," Mr Zemek said.
He told the inquest he didn't realise there were children in the car, and he saw Ms Clarke's estranged husband laying outside the car, seemingly "out of it".
Mr Zemek said he hosed him, but then went back to Ms Clarke.
But the attacker did not stay on the ground for long.
'He was not wanting me to put out the fire'
Another resident who lived around the corner, Kerry Fernandez, came running with a fire extinguisher and immediately noticed a "badly burned" guy standing near the car.
She thought he posed no threat to her, but when she tried to put the fire out, he moved.
Ms Fernandez said she tried to use the extinguisher on him in the car.
"At that point he got out of the car and … in that split second his demeanour had changed. He was not wanting me to put out the fire.
"If I went to the right side, he would follow me there. I felt quite intimidated. He's just proven to me he's got brute strength. I don't know how he's done this," she said she remembered thinking at the time.
"He was growling or something. There were not words coming out to say, 'Stop'. I felt like he was almost guarding the car."
Ms Fernandez said she stopped hosing the car after a neighbour alerted her to the fact the man was armed.
"I dropped the fire extinguisher and I bolted,'' she said.
Ms Clarke, 31, died from her injuries just hours after being set alight, while her children were all killed in the car fire.
'I can't believe he's done this'
The inquest was told two residents asked him to move away from the car, but he ignored them.
While he was blocking the rescuers, Ms Clarke was still trying to tell people of her struggles to protect herself and her children.
Another neighbour, Samantha Covey, said while Ms Clarke was battling her horrific burns, she kept talking about a domestic violence order she had placed on her estranged husband.
While Ms Clarke was being treated, he was seen to have obtained a knife from the vehicle.
Ms Covey said Ms Clarke told her: "I can't believe he's done this, I've got a DVOs [domestic violence orders]".
She said Ms Clarke also asked: "Where are my babies, where are my kids? Someone get my kids."
Student Reece Gourlay said he saw Baxter take a few steps onto the nature strip and then a few more steps past the car before he fell to his knees.
It later emerged he fatally stabbed himself at the scene.
Ms Clarke met Baxter in 2009, they were married in 2012, and separated in early December 2019 when Ms Clarke moved into her parents' home with her children.
Outside court before the inquest, her father Lloyd Clarke said the family was hoping for answers.
"We're just hoping that we can work out where the system let Hannah and her children down," he said.
"And they can put procedures in place and move on, so people won't have to go through this terrible thing."
Her mother Sue Clarke said she was "nervous" to hear the evidence but wanted to be there to "give her a voice".
"It will be hard, and I will cry, I always cry but we will get there," she said.
The inquest continues.
