When parents kill: The missed red flags and invisible victims of filicide

With one child killed by a parent every fortnight in Australia, some of the biggest red flags for filicide are being catastrophically missed.

WARNING: This story contains detail that may be distressing for some readers.

The headlines lit up social media feeds that mild January afternoon as newsreaders stumbled over bulletins, their voices quivering: Katie Perinovic and her three little kids, Claire, 7, Anna, 5, and Matthew, 3, had been found dead in their brown brick home in the Melbourne suburb of Tullamarine.

Many assumed it was a case of family violence, another domestic homicide. Early reports said Tomislav Perinovic, Katie’s husband and the children’s father, had called triple-0 and was “assisting police with their enquiries” — he’d…