IT was the senseless act of violence that shattered a state, still traumatised from the Port Arthur massacre.

Just over a year after the mass shooting claimed 35 lives in 1996, Peter Shoobridge, a Tasmanian bush poet, crept through his home near Richmond early one morning with a large carving knife in his hand.

The 52-year-old antique dealer was considered a quiet, wealthy man, who’d divorced from his wife Wendy Innes two years earlier.

She had dropped the four girls off at their fathers home on June 28, 1997 and found her former husband “normal and ordinary”.

But that was as far from the truth as you could get.

Early the next morning he made a 000 call to the ambulance service and told them there had been a tragedy.

When police and ambulance officers arrived they found his body lying near the entrance to the shed. He had a gunshot wound to the head and was missing his right hand.

The hand had been cut off with an axe and was sitting on a chopping block next to where his body lay.

There was more horror inside the house. His four daughters, Georgina Rose, 9, Sara Francise, 12, Anna Josephine, 14, and Rebecca Rose, 18, were in their bedrooms.

They were all dead, their throats had been cut.

After the bloodshed, Shoobridge went and posted or delivered several handwritten letters to friends and neighbours. Others were found neatly stacked on the kitchen table.

Some of the envelopes the letters were sent in were stained by the girls blood.

The then Hobart Coroner, Ian Matterson, later found the letters were long and detailed, and spoke of his concern for the world and made mention of his animals, and how they should be cared for after he was gone.

“That Peter Shoobridge had some concerns about his own future is not an issue,’’ Mr Matterson said.

“He had apparently been told by his own general practitioner about 12 months before that his degenerative arthritis, mainly in his lumbar spine, could mean that within several years he may have had difficulty in walking.

“But his young daughters had everything to live for,” Mr Matterson said in his findings.

There is an indication Shoobridge’s mental state worsened considerably after the Port Arthur atrocity.

Shortly before his killing spree he wrote: “Would it be right to bring children up in such a world.”

But apart from the reference to a cruel world there was no indication of how seriously troubled he was, and there was seemingly no motive.

He was, to the outside world at least, a normal man, if not slightly eccentric. And there was a strong clue that, although he was planning to kill himself, killing the girls was never part of the plan.

Among the letters on the table were ones addressed to the girls and included instructions on “life” — which suggested to the Coroner the killings wasn’t planned.

“Whether taking their lives was seen as a way of protecting them from the world as a result of some depression or delusion will remain speculation.’’

There was some speculation in the community he may have cut off his hand as some form of self-inflicted punishment for the brutal deaths of his daughters.

Mr Matterson thought that was unlikely though.

“Rather it must be remembered he came from farming stock, having worked on the family property until only a couple of years before his marriage.

“People on the land know that for a bullet to kill instantly it must be accurate. To cut an animal in such a way that it will quickly bleed to death will ensure a rapid demise. I am of the opinion the severing of the hand was no more than insurance in case the bullet failed to perform its intention.’’

Journalist Ellen Whinnett covered the case and told news.com.au it was one that she would never forget. The fact it came so soon after Port Arthur made it even more devastating.

“I just remember this feeling of ‘here we go again’, this dreadful tragedy that was going to impact on this state that was still very raw from the Port Arthur massacre.”

Now national political editor at Melbourne’s Herald Sun, Whinnett said Shoobridge had a profile in the community and the “beautiful” girls were well known throughout the community for their sporting and school activities.

“I’ll never forget it. I remember getting a call that it’d happened and going up this long driveway to this beautiful home.”

The horror of what had happened became clear when Shoobridge’s severed hand became visible.

“There were all these police standing around outside and crime scene tape there and you could actually see his hand.”

Whinnett said it was a surreal scene.

“We were just shaking our heads saying “Poor old Tasmania, we haven’t recovered from Port Arthur — we’ve got a long, long way to go from that — and now we’ve got this. We’ve lost these four girls.”

In 10 years of covering crime, it remained “one of the worst things you could be called to.”

She said Port Arthur was damaging in many ways, from the lifelong grieving to the economy, and the Shoobridge killings felt like another blow.

“These girls were very well known and respected and liked and loved girls in their communities and the ripple effect of that was horrendous.”