On October 17, 2016, police officers in the quiet suburb of Davidson, Sydney, were called to perform a welfare check on the Manrique family. When they were forced to enter the home, they were met with a scene so profoundly tragic and horrific that, according to reports, they emerged just minutes later, weeping.

Inside, the entire family—Maria Claudia Manrique, 44, her two children, Eliza, 11, and Martin, 10, their father, Fernando Manrique, 44, and even the family dog, Tequila—were found deceased. They appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but the silent, chilling truth was that this was a meticulously planned and executed family tragedy, orchestrated by the patriarch.

To the outside world, the Manriques were the picture of a resilient and loving immigrant family. Maria, a former lawyer from Bogota, Colombia, had given up her career to become a full-time mother to their two children, who both had nonverbal autism. She was a pillar of strength, volunteering at their school and dedicating every moment to their care.

Fernando, an IT executive, was seen as the successful provider. Their life in a comfortable home on Sir Thomas Mitchell Drive seemed to be the embodiment of the Australian dream. But behind this perfect facade, a dark and deceptive secret life was festering, one that would ultimately lead to unimaginable tragedy.

Fernando Manrique was living a lie. While he was an “awkward IT executive” in Australia, his work, which required him to travel to Asia for two weeks every month, allowed him to become a completely different person. In the bars of Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines, he was a “superstar.”

He spent lavishly on high-priced escorts and cultivated relationships with multiple, often very young, girlfriends. He had a 17-year-old girlfriend in Manila named “Jamie,” whom he was supporting financially, promising to buy her a house and land. He was a king in his secret world, a world his wife knew nothing about.

The unraveling began when Maria discovered a bill from a strip club in Asia among their mail. Her investigation into the transaction exposed Fernando’s infidelity. Heartbroken and betrayed, she filed for divorce and kicked him out of the family home. For Maria, this was a step towards a new, independent life.

She was planning to return to her native Colombia with her children after the divorce. She had even secured support from Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which would provide her with financial aid and a social worker to help care for Eliza and Martin. She was finally taking control of her life.

For Fernando, however, Maria’s newfound independence was a death sentence to his carefully constructed world. The divorce would not only expose his infidelity but would also lead to his complete financial ruin. He was drowning in debt. He had racked up over $18,000 in credit card debt funding his lavish double life, owed over $15,000 in unpaid taxes, and had been paying only the interest on their mortgage.

Their savings were gone, and their trust fund contained a mere $6. The impending divorce meant he would be forced to pay alimony and substantial child support, which he could not afford. His house would be repossessed, and he would still be on the hook to support his teenage girlfriend in the Philippines.

Faced with this catastrophic loss of control and the complete collapse of his financial and personal life, Fernando devised a monstrous plan. He decided that if he couldn’t have his family, no one would. He meticulously planned to bring about their end.

In September 2016, he used his company’s name to create a fake business account and order two large cylinders of a toxic, odorless gas. In a cunning move, he had the cylinders delivered to the home of an unsuspecting coworker.

His next step was to get back into the family home. He went to Maria, begging her to let him return, claiming he had nowhere else to go and was in dire financial trouble. Maria, out of kindness and perhaps pity, agreed to let him stay temporarily while he looked for a new apartment. For one week, Fernando played the part of the “father of the year.”

He helped with chores, spent time with the children, and acted like a changed man. His neighbors saw him frequently working on the roof. They had no idea he was secretly installing a network of hidden plastic hoses, a delivery system for the poisonous substance he had hidden in their garden shed.

On the night of Sunday, October 16, 2016, while his wife and two innocent children slept soundly, Fernando put his plan into action. He connected the hoses to the gas cylinders and fed the toxic substance into the windows of their bedrooms. The house’s ventilation system silently circulated the poison throughout the home, leading to the tragic outcome.

The investigation that followed the horrific discovery concluded that it was an act orchestrated by Fernando, which included his own de@th. While some initially theorized that Fernando might have planned to escape to the Philippines, the final inquest determined he had intended to end his life with his family.

He had not purchased a plane ticket. More tellingly, he had destroyed his phones and computer hard drives, a final, desperate act to erase the secrets of his double life. His last known transaction was a “parting gift” of several thousand dollars to his 17-year-old girlfriend.

The case of the Manrique family is a chilling story of the ultimate betrayal. It is a testament to the fact that evil can lurk behind the most ordinary of facades. Fernando Manrique, a man obsessed with control and terrified of facing the consequences of his own deceit, chose to be the man responsible for his family’s tragic end, leaving a trail of unimaginable grief that stretched from a quiet Sydney suburb all the way back to their hometown in Colombia.