Tasmanian businessman Rodney Patterson, 58, and a 24-year-old security guard from Hampton Park were also injured. Both were in a stable condition in hospital on Sunday. Their attacker, Shire Ali, died in hospital after being shot by police. Neighbours said they never spoke to the couple, despite seeing them regularly come and go in the past year from the converted garage they rented at the back of a single-storey brick veneer house. "They never spoke to us and we never spoke to them," one said. Neighbours reported seeing Shire Ali's wife on Sunday when she returned briefly to their home. "She came back and she packed up some things and left," one neighbour said.

"She had lots of bags." Another neighbour said her husband had last seen the couple together on a hot night a few weeks ago. The house where Hassan Khalif Shire Ali lived in a converted garage with his wife and child. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui "It was late on one of those really hot nights we had and they were out walking together up the street. Them and the baby in the pram," the neighbour said. "I was surprised to see her come back here today. She was holding the baby, she was trying to hurry. She must have gone in, grabbed a few things and took off."

Shire Ali was originally from Somalia, and police said he arrived in Australia with his family in the 1980s as a child. His wife is not Somalian. Despite coming to attention of authorities some years ago, Shire Ali’s profile had remained similarly low-key in Melbourne’s broader Somali community. Sharmake Farah of the Somali Community of Victoria said he did not know Shire Ali, but knew his father Khalif, describing him as “a hard-working” man. Mr Farah said Khalif was a well known figure in the Somali community and would often visit the Somali restaurants in Flemington. “He’s generally a very good man and everyone you ask will say the same,” he said.

“He used to work different jobs. Started in factories, he used to drive a taxi.” The Werribee home of Shire Ali's parents was also raided by police on Saturday. His family released a statement on Sunday arguing their brother and son was not a terrorist, but was simply “crying for help”. “Hassan suffered from mental illness for years and refused help. He's been deteriorating these past few months,” said a handwritten statement provided to Channel 9. “He has seen a psychologist and psychiatrist, but stopped as his paranoia and hallucinations led him to believe they’re ‘after him'.

“Please stop turning this into a political game, this isn’t a guy who had any connections with terrorism, but was simply crying for help.” The note said the family had no further comments to make. However, Shire Ali was known have radical views and was known to counter-terrorism agencies, Police Commissioner Graham Ashton said on Friday night. "He's got family associations that are well known to us," Mr Ashton said. His passport was seized in 2015 when he made plans to travel to Syria.