An Australian man was arrested and charged Monday with the gruesome ax murders of his wife and two grandchildren. Police have arrested a 69-year-old man over the alleged triple murder of his wife and his two grandchildren in rural New South Wales.

Police pounced on John Walsh, 69, as he checked into a local motel, Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported.

Walsh is suspected of murdering his wife, Mabel, and two of his grandchildren, aged seven and five, in an ax attack in the small town of Cowra, in central New South Wales.

Walsh is also alleged to have attacked his daughter, police officer Senior Constable Shelly Walsh, 31.

Shelly Walsh, who had had moved in with her parents to take care of her elderly mother, ran to a neighbor's house bleeding and screaming for help shortly Monday afternoon, The Telegraph

“Apparently she came in screaming that her father’s gone off and axed the kids,” Terry Lovett told The Daily Telegraph.

Lovett described Walsh as quiet, but noticed a change in him after Walsh's son committed suicide a few years ago.

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