Hannah Clarke was an Australian woman who was born on September 8, 1988 to parents Lloyd & Sue Clarke; she had a younger brother. In 2008 when Hannah was 20-years-old, she met a man, 31-year-old Rowan Baxter, while she was teaching a class at the gym where his son was in her class. Soon, Rowan began working at the gym as a boxing instructor.
Rowan had a tumultuous childhood; his father had been imprisoned for sexually abusing his sisters. He was very fit & healthy, rarely drank alcohol & didn’t take drugs. At the time he met Hannah, he was living with his wife whom he met when he was 18 & she was 16. Rowan was a New Zealand born man who had previously played rugby with the New Zealand Warriors.
At the time, Hannah was still living at home & the moment Hannah’s mom, Sue Clarke, laid eyes on Rowan, she didn’t like him. He told Hannah’s parents that the living arrangement was “purely for his child” & they were separated. In reality, he had told a friend that he was only living with his wife because he couldn’t afford to move out & his wife was aware that he was having an affair which she was very angry about. During his marriage, his wife quickly discovered that Rowan showed signs of controlling behavior & anger issues & by the time their child was two, his wife wanted to end the relationship. At the time that Hannah met Rowan, no one was aware that Rowan had contemplated killing his ex-partner & son in a dramatic murder-suicide. He’d later told his friend that he’d gone to the house, armed with a rope, tape & a knife. He told his wife that he wanted his family back & that he had a hose pipe in the trunk of his car & planned how to “end it” for all three of them. Fearing for her safety & her son’s, she felt no choice but to go back to him. In 2007, the family relocated from New Zealand to Australia.
Four months after meeting Hannah, Rowan moved out of the home where his wife & child lived & in with a friend. Six months after they started dating, Hannah realized that she was pregnant. She wanted to have the baby, but Rowan said she was too young & convinced her to have an abortion.
Despite their initial reservations, Rowan eventually won the Clarke family over & Sue described him as being “lovely” in the early years of the relationship. Rowan proposed to Hannah in 2011 & they were married in Kingscliff, New South Wales in 2012; at the time of the wedding, Hannah was 14 weeks pregnant. The couple welcomed their first daughter, Aaliyah, in 2013, their second daughter, Laianah, in 2014 & their son Trey in 2016. As of 2020, Aaliyah was six, Laianah was four & Trey was three. Each child on their own was said to light up a room; Aaliyah, the oldest, was described as articulate, clever & well-behaved. She was in year two, reading ahead in school & often told stories to her younger siblings. She watched her mother do her CrossFit routines & began copying her & was a strong little girl. Laianah had just started preschool & was described as the spunky one of the trio & did anything she could do to make her family laugh, playing the role of the little dynamo within the hectic family life. Trey was a mommy’s boy through & through & loved running, jumping & playing.
Hannah was a bright & bubbly woman who was full of empathy. She was a selfless person who also had a competitive edge when she worked out at the gym. She had an infectious smile & her soul was said to touch the lives of others. From the outside, the family of four was the picture of perfection. But what was hidden from the surface was an abusive, unhappy marriage. When the children arrived, the relationship began to sour. 31-year-old Hannah was very close with her family & when things were bad, she would always reach out to her mom. As Hannah’s dad Lloyd describes, “It was always Rowan’s way or the highway.”
Hannah & Rowan made the decision to open a gym, Integr8 & CrossFit SMC in Mansfield. Sue helped the couple get on their feet by investing money into the business & she believes that it’s possible that something she said may have made Rowan to feel like he was “owned” by the Clarkes. Rowan began to treat his mother-in-law terribly & made it clear that she never needed to be there. During one exercise at the gym, while supporting Sue, Rowan dropped her, causing her to split her face open. Rather than being concerned, he laughed at her, to the shock & horror of gym members. He told Sue she needed to harden up because it happens all the time when playing football. Not only was he terrible to her, but Rowan also berated paying customers in the gym as being fat & lazy & not working hard enough. His blunt actions often drove members of the gym away. Rowan also found it very difficult to manage the finances of the gym & because of this, the business was not doing well & the couple were regularly behind on rent & bills which Sue & Lloyd often paid.
When Rowan felt that Hannah had misbehaved, he would punish Sue by keeping the grandkids from her. If Sue spoke out against Rowan, Hannah would later call her, crying & begging her to apologize to Rowan. When Hannah returned to work after having the children, Rowan arranged his schedule in order to prevent Sue from watching the kids. Sue remembers that she was never able to voice what she thought & time around Rowan kept everyone walking on eggshells. During family gatherings, Rowan openly criticized sue in front of Hannah & her brother & soon put an end to these weekly barbecues at the Clarke’s home. On Mother’s Day, he only allowed Hannah to spend half the day with Sue & insisted the spend the rest of the day celebrating his deceased mother. On Good Friday, he stopped the family from going to the Clarke’s annual celebration.
Hannah was a busy mom of three young children & Rowan demanded sex from her on a daily basis, at times, choking her during the act. Hannah’s friends said that per his orders, she wasn’t allowed to wear shorts or the color pink. He decided who she was allowed to spend time with & they shared a Facebook page since Rowan didn’t allow her to have her own. During training sessions at the gym, if Hannah performed better than him, Rowan would lash out & try to undermine her achievements, accusing her of cheating or not doing her routines correctly. Behind closed doors, Rowan would call Hannah fat & tell her that she needed to lose weight & get back into shape. He showed clear signs of coercive control which is an act or pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation & intimidation that is used to scare, punish or harm the victim. It’s designed to isolate a person from support, making them dependent on the abuser who is controlling their everyday behavior.
It wasn’t just Hannah on the receiving end of Rowan’s abuse, but also their three children. He viewed them as his “possessions” & was unnecessarily rough with them. Hannah’s friend Nicole recalled a time when Aaliyah & Rowan were play-fighting & he knocked her into a door frame, splitting her head open. Another time, he forced the kids to get into a post-workout ice bath with him. Trey screamed, his eyes bulging with fear as he was forced into the tub. Oddly enough, Rowan would film some of these instances & post them on the business’ Facebook page. If he & Hannah had a disagreement, he would punish the children by canceling outings that they had been looking forward to or confiscating their toys.
Aaliyah was extremely fearful of her father but at the same time, would boldly stand up to him. After a fight with Hannah, Rowan would storm from the house & Aaliyah would slam the door behind him & shout, “And don’t come back!” If he acted childishly & gave Hannah the silent treatment, Aaliyah would confront him & say, “Daddy, mummy said sorry, can’t you talk to her?” Of his three children, he was said to dislike Aaliyah because she stood up to him. When her brother & sister spoke with their dad on FaceTime, Aaliyah would sometimes refuse to participate.
After Trey was born, Rowan was working at the gym three days a week & resting on the other days. Meanwhile, Hannah was taking care of the kids, fitting in workouts & taking an online marketing course. Rowan would yell at her, calling the house a pigsty, asking what she was doing all day. He told her that they needed money & demanded that she get a second job; she began working at a shoe store on Mondays & Fridays & worked at the gym on the other days.
By late 2019 Rowan’s controlling behavior began to escalate; he placed listening devices in the house & car, checking Hannah’s phone during the night while she slept. When Hannah caught him in the act & asked him what he was doing, he threw her phone across the room, breaking the screen.
On December 5, 2019 Hannah was at a breaking point; she took a few items from the home & took Aaliyah out of school.. With the help of her friend, they hid her car & left her cellphone inside in case he had a tracking device on it. The next day, Hannah & the kids moved in with her parents. That day, she also went to the Carina police station & met with Senior Constable Kirsten Kent who told her she could obtain a domestic violence order (DVO), but Hannah was scared that this would anger Rowan, making the already terrible situation even worse. She got a new phone & a new number. Aaliyah became very anxious about spending time with her father to the point that Hannah purchased her a watch that had texting capabilities so that she could go to the restroom & text her mom if need be. Hannah was sure to remind her not to let her father know about the watch or he would throw it away.
Days later, Constable Kent saw Hannah working at The Athlete’s Foot store in Carindale & noted that she looked so fearful & worried terribly about the kids spending time with him. On Christmas, Hannah allowed Rowan to come to her parent’s house so he could give them their presents. He stayed for fifteen minutes & gave them each gift cards. When Sue & Lloyd later took the children shopping, they realized that the gift cards had no funds on them.
On December 26, 2019, Boxing Day, Rowan asked if he could take the kids to a park to use their new skateboards that their grandparents bought them. She agreed until he mentioned that he wanted to take the kids home with him to spend the night. When she refused this idea, he grabbed Laianah & threw her in the front seat of his car, hitting her head against the car as he did so, driving away with the child unrestrained. Before he drove off he told Hannah, “You have caused all of this, it’s your fault.” The other two children stood by, watching in horror. The police became involved, but because there were no Family Court orders in place, he was allowed to take her. When he later FaceTimed Hannah & showed her that Laianah was okay, he accused her of having an affair & told her she needed to “fix that” before he would bring her home. He kept Laianah for three days after he fled to New South Wales which prompted Hannah to obtain a DVO. She was deemed “high risk” because of the history she reported with Rowan.
On December 29, 2019, officers served Rowan with a police protection order (PPN) & DVO application after he was confronted at his home. He held Laianah on his shoulders, having abducted her from Hannah just days before. He was immediately upset when he was told that he would not be allowed to go within 100 meters of Hannah or his children after the court issued a Temporary Protection Order.
In January, a warrant was issued after he assaulted Hannah while dropping the kids off at her home. Hannah noticed a number of photos in the back of Rowan’s car that featured her in her underwear. When she tried to take the photos, he grabbed her roughly & twisted her arm, leaving a large red mark behind. It was Hannah’s belief that Rowan intended to use the photos as a defense against her claim in court, saying, “Look, my wife is sending me these pictures, she obviously wants to have sex with me.”
There was another disturbing revelation when Hannah found a note on Rowan’s phone from January 26, 2020 that started off by saying:
“Hannah, I have so much to say to you but now that you are reading this it’s come too late, you have turned my life upside down so fast that it has destroyed me, without you thinking of any implications of what you are doing or saying is just pure evil. I have done nothing but love & care for you & the children to the best of my ability. I wasn’t perfect but I certainly have not deserved what you are putting me through. I never in my entire life thought you could be capable of anything like this & I just can’t take it anymore, the stress & pressure of what you have done has broken me down & I have no fight left.” He went on to write, “the game that you are playing is disgraceful & I’m ending it.” He continued on by accusing Hannah of erasing him & said that she had developed feelings & gotten emotionally attached to someone else.
He was convinced that Hannah was having an affair with a male friend of hers but there is no indication that this was actually the case.
It was clear that he blamed Hannah for their marriage crumbling, “You can’t f**k with someone’s life like this & expect them to just take it. I’m not going to take it anymore, Hannah. Do you know how hard it is to go to bed every night without your children? I wish you had just tried. You destroyed my life & I cannot move on. I hope all this was worth it for you & your family. I’m finishing your game. I don’t want to play anymore. This was never my intention.”
Rowan began to unravel as he was cut off from the illusion of his picture-perfect family & he began to feel the pressure of the police & the courts closing in on him. He became increasingly paranoid, began running out of money & closed the gym after he & Hannah separated. Through it all, he maintained that he held no fault.
Officers were unaware of the fact that Rowan had a criminal history in New Zealand over a road rage incident where he ruthlessly attacked a cyclist. Former friends & associates could see that he was spiraling out of control. He had bragged to a friend that he’d left a “tape recording device” in an old iPad in the Clarke’s family home while he was visiting the kids. This device picked up a conversation between Hannah & her mother & they could be heard calling him a narcissist, amongst other unflattering names.
Church pastor Christopher Ensbey recalled a tearful conversation where Rowan confided that his marriage was crumbling & pastor Ensbey described him as having an ‘alpha male’ personality who exhibited ‘controlling & paranoid’ behaviors. Ensbey met Hannah & Rowan at the gym which was close to his church. He said that Rowan would train people until they would vomit.
On February 17, 2020, Rowan could be seen on surveillance video, wandering the aisles of Bunnings Warehouse, looking for various items, including motor fuel. He came to the checkout counter with a gas can, zip ties & cleaner.
The next day, February 18, he left his house before 7 am & went to a service station where he purchased 4.6L of gas for the can. He also purchased two bags of lollies & three “Kinder Surprise” chocolates. Later that afternoon, he called a men’s help line & told the operator that he wanted to start a 10-week behavioral change program. He complained about his predicament & blamed Hannah for all of their issues, saying, “It’s not my idea, but apparently I have to do it.” He said that it had gotten to the point that Hannah was dictating when he could see his children. He brought up the Boxing Day incident & again lied, saying that his daughter had wanted to come with him in defiance of her mother. He said that his wife had issued a DVO & things were getting worse & worse, “So much of my life has been turned around in five minutes, it’s just scary. I never thought my wife was capable of doing this.” The operator provided him with other support services that he could contact & when he called them, the calls went unanswered due to the operators being busy. The service has a 24-hour call back requirement & returned Rowan’s call the next day at 12:01 pm.
That night, he FaceTimed the kids & didn’t speak, he just cried. Hannah told them that if he wasn’t talking to them, they could hang up. She later told her mom how bad she felt about the situation but Sue reminded her daughter that this was Rowan’s doing & Hannah voiced her worries about him potentially killing himself. Sue knew that Rowan was always manipulating the system & playing the victim in order to get Hannah to bend.
The next morning, February 19, 2020, Sue got up early & headed to the gym, arriving back home at 6:20 am where Hannah & the kids were awake & greeted her. At 6:30 am, Hannah ran out to get herself & her mom coffee & came straight back home. While her mom got ready for work, she sat on the bed, chatting & drinking her coffee while the kids played & watched TV. At 7:20 am, Sue gave everyone kisses & told them she loved them as she headed out the door for work. At about 8:15 am, Hannah left the house in her silver Kia to drop the kids off at school, the three children sitting in the backseat. As Hannah started the car, Rowan, armed with a gas can full of fuel & a knife, ambushed Hannah & forced his way into the car.
He screamed furiously & demanded that Hannah drive, as she screamed for him to get out of the car. Defying Rowan’s orders, she pulled the car up to a driveway on Durimbil Street after she had driven only a short distance down the road. She yelled out to a man who was washing his car, “Call the police, call the police, he’s trying to kill me, he’s poured petrol on me.” The man, Michael Zemek, couldn’t see or hear the children, but he was able to see Rowan holding Hannah in a bear hug with both arms around her. As he approached the passenger side window to investigate, he described the look on Rowan’s face as ‘resigned.’ With that, Rowan sparked his lighter & the car suddenly exploded & Michael just remembers a bang & blackness that hit his face. He turned his face & when he looked back, the car was ablaze. The explosion was so fierce that windows on the houses across the street rattled. Hannah, Rowan & the children were engulfed by flames as neighbors desperately tried to hose down the screaming mother who had gotten out of the car. A thick plume of smoke could be seen across the neighborhood. The first call to 000 came through at 8:26 am.
An off-duty paramedic just happened to be in the area & witnessed the explosion. Hannah was screaming & crying, “My babies are in the car.. Why didn’t I just stay in the car with them?” She was head to toe in flames & pleading for someone to save her children. A woman who was driving her own kids to swimming lessons saw Hannah’s car in flames & found Hannah laying on the grass near her car saying, “My kids, someone get my kids.” As Michael used his hose to try to extinguish the flames, Hannah told him, “I didn’t save my kids, I couldn’t save my kids.” Michael was still unable to see the children & wondered if they had been killed somewhere else.
The three children had been strapped into the car’s backseat & had already, tragically perished by this point. Despite being covered from head to toe with severe burns, Hannah heroically recounted as much as she possibly could to paramedics & police who had raced to the scene. Her conversation with Senior Constable Angus Skaine was transcribed from his body cam audio. She explained that she & the kids had gotten into the car, just up the street so that she could take them to school. As she turned the car on, Rowan jumped into the front seat & she started to scream. He told her to drive & that he only wanted to see the children, but Hannah noticed the gas can in his hand. She explained that he had Facetimed the kids the night before, but the last time she had seen him in person was about a week prior. Two weeks previously, he had tried to break her wrist which the police were aware of.
Only three percent of Hannah’s skin wasn’t affected by burns, most of which were full thickness; the only part of her body that hadn’t been burned were the bottoms of her feet. The moment a doctor arrived on scene, he could see that Hannah had ‘essentially non-survivable injuries.’ As he treated her, she was not screaming in pain & they reassured her as much as they could. They told her they would try to take away any pain that she was having & hoped that she would wake up in a hospital & be in a better place. He described Hannah as ‘incredibly courageous’ & indicated that the pain was not her primary issue, it was her children. Despite the horrific extent of her burns, she was able to give details of names & dates of birth before she was sedated with pain medication & intubated. First responders were amazed at how much information Hannah had been able to provide. Once the fire was extinguished, they were able to recover the children’s bodies from the car & they were pronounced dead at 9:53 am. They were so badly burned that they couldn’t be visually identified.
Tragically, Hannah died in the hospital, only hours later at 5:40 pm. Witnesses attested to her bravery, knowing that her life was coming to an end. As witnesses continued to try to extinguish the flames from the burning SUV, Rowan, who was badly burned & had suffered burns to eighty percent of his body, dove into the car to retrieve a knife from the burning wreck. A neighbor raced to the car with a fire extinguisher & felt like Rowan was guarding the car to ensure that his children could not be saved; if she moved one way, he moved the same. At the time, she was oblivious to the fact that he was holding a knife. When another neighbor spotted the weapon, they ran over to warn others that he was armed. One resident saw Rowan kneeling on the sidewalk with the knife pressed to his stomach. She pleaded with him to drop the knife, but instead, he fell forward onto the knife & curled into the fetal position on his side, taking his own life by plunging the knife into his heart & was pronounced dead at the scene.
During the investigation, it was speculated that Rowan had initially planned to drive Hannah to a secluded location, kill her with the knife & then burn her body, but this plan was changed when Hannah pulled off to the driveway down the street. The death of the children may have been a hasty decision in order to inflict trauma on Hannah. Once he realized what he’d done, he retrieved the knife & killed himself.
In the weeks before her murder, Hannah had asked Lewis Bartlett, who she’d known since 2008 & had worked for at his sports shoe store, how to write a will. She explained that if anything ever happened to her, she wanted to be sure that the children were well looked after by the right people. He reassured her saying that nothing would happen to her & Hannah replied, ‘No, he’s going to try & kill me.’ When she told the police about her concerns, she assumed that things would be put in place to protect her. When she spoke with her mom one week before her murder, she worried about what would happen to the children if he killed her & went to jail. She always worried for her safety but never fathomed he would do anything to harm the children.
The murder of Hannah & her children scarred the nation & led to & outpouring of grief at the tragic loss of the young mom which led to questions as to how police should respond to domestic violence scenarios. An inquest was issued to determine how the system let Hannah & her children down. Deputy State Coroner Jane Bentley became emotional as she delivered the findings on the deaths of the young family & described Rowan’s death as a “final act of cowardice.” She recommended drastic changes to domestic violence training & support. She found that Hannah suffered from non-survivable burns & died from multi-organ failure from the fire while the children died almost immediately from smoke inhalation & burns. Despite Hannah’s injuries, the coroner was astounded at the bravery where Hannah fought through to describe to a witness what Rowan had done. The inquest was closed & indicated that further actions from the police likely would not have made a difference as Rowan was not interested in engaging unless it furthered his cause. He was not mentally ill, rather a master of manipulation.
When Hannah’s mom was asked why Rowan would have done such a horrific thing, she felt he didn’t know how to love & his form of love is as a possession. Lloyd & Sue Clarke lost everything on that tragic morning. Their home, which was once filled with laughter & life from their daughter & three beautiful grandchildren, is now silent. The girl’s bedroom remains the same as it was on the morning that their father violently took them from this world, still strewn with toys. But somehow, through the tragedy, they found strength. Since their daughter’s death, Lloyd & Sue have been advocating for coercive control to become a crime. They’ve also created The Small Steps 4 Hannah Foundation to HALT (Hannah, Aaliyah, Laianah & Trey) domestic violence. It’s their goal to bring more understanding & awareness about family violence
Sue wants people to know that her daughter was strong & would have done anything to save her children. They’re focusing on Hannah’s legacy & giving her a voice which has helped them get out of bed each morning.
References:
- Women’s Aid: What is coercive control?
- News.com.au: Heroic final act of slain mum Hannah Clarke revealed as horror DV murder explored at inquest
- News.com.au: Final act of ‘cowardice’ by Hannah Clarke’s ex-husband revealed
- Small steps 4 Hannah
- Daily Mail: How the horrific death of Hannah Clarke & her three children after they were set alight by her ex forced a major law change to deal with controlling partners
- ABC.net.au: Hannah Clarke inquest concludes as coroner finds further actions by authorities ‘unlikely’ to have prevented murders
- Queensland Courts – Coroners Court of Queensland Findings of Inquest
- Women’s aid: What is coercive control?
