A HUSBAND and wife have been shot dead along with their son at their farm after a row with their neighbour, it was reported.
Mervyn and Maree Schwarz and her son Graham Tighe were killed on remote farmland in outback Australia and the alleged gunman was later arrested.
Mervyn and Maree Schwarz were killed along with their son[/caption]
Their other son was airlifted to hospital[/caption]
Graham’s brother Ross survived being shot and managed to flee “many, many kilometres” to raise the alarm, said police.
He airlifted to hospital and is in intensive care in a serious but stable condition.
Acting Superintendent Tom Armitt said: “He was able to tell police that he had been shot and three others (were) also shot.”
Cops launched a manhunt to find the shooter, who remained at large for several hours.
Later Mr Armitt said the “alleged gunman is with use here in custody”.
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The killings are linked to a property dispute, the Courier-Mail reports, though police wouldn’t confirm any motives.
Officers were called to the property in the small outback mining town of Bogie, north Queensland, which has a population of 207, at just before 9am on Thursday.
Neighbours say the property was to a young family last year but there was an ongoing dispute with a neighbouring property owner over boundary lines.
The shooting took place on a sprawling cattle property which is “rural, remote, very hilly and heavily forested”, said Mr Armitt.
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Queensland police said that “investigations remain ongoing into the circumstances leading up to the shooting”.
A local woman told Daily Mail Australia she saw several police cars racing towards scene of the shooting.
“I saw at least three police cars while I was outside and heard a few more sirens after that,” she said.
“It’s not usually what you see. I thought straight away that something bad had happened.”
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Australia has some of the toughest gun laws in the world, introduced after a lone gunman murdered 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania in 1996.
Since then, there have been only three mass shootings – defined in Australia as those resulting in at least four deaths, excluding the perpetrator.
