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SYDNEY - The owner of the NSW motel where a suspected axe murderer was arrested says he called police after he watched the nightly news and realised a man who had just checked in fitted the description of the wanted man.
The man had checked in under his
own name and was driving the car described in news reports, said John Whitehead, the owner of the Highway Inn Motel at Hay, in far south-western NSW.
The arrest came after the bodies of the man's 52-year-old wife and two young grandchildren were found inside a home in Cowra, in NSW's central west, yesterday afternoon.
The man was charged this morning with three counts of murder and one of attempted murder over an alleged attack on his police officer daughter, who also was injured at the home.
Mr Whitehead, a former Victorian police officer who retired from the force 11 years ago, said the man appeared "ordinary" at first.
"I booked him in, an oldish gentlemen with grey hair and a limp ... he was ordinary," Mr Whitehead told ABC Radio today.
He said the man ordered bacon and eggs with orange juice for breakfast before he escorted him to his room and turned on the heater and the TV.
"I asked him if he wanted a location for dinner, he said he would stay in the unit."
Mr Whitehead said the man did not book in under a false name, and he was driving the car also described in news reports.
"I realised the description of the car fitted that car, so I went back out and had a look at the number plate".
"They had given the name out, my son had heard the name, and he said it was the same person."
"I just got straight on to triple-0."
Mr Whitehead said while he was on the phone, the wanted man knocked on the door asking for milk.
"I was on the phone to triple zero, luckily we'd locked the front door. I said, 'I'm busy, I'll get your milk'," Mr Whitehead said.
"It was a bit of a waiting game because we're so remote out here ... sometime later the police arrived, they knocked on his door.
"He opened it and he was then arrested."
Mr Whitehead later told Fairfax Radio Network the man was initially unwilling to co-operate with police, but the arrest was uneventful.
- AAP
