The man who shot and killed his three children in Melbourne on Saturday afternoon and then killed himself was a former Dunedin resident.
The body of Rajesh Osborne (37) was found in a north Melbourne house along with a firearm and the bodies of his children Asia (12), Jarius (10) and Grace (7).
The children's mother, Shianne, who was separated from Mr Osborne, is now in dispute with the children's grandmother, Mr Osborne's mother, over where the children will be buried.
The mother wants them buried on Taupiri Mountain, near Huntly, while the grandmother wants them buried in Australia.
The mother told The New Zealand Herald her biggest priority was to "get them home and get them cleaned up and make sure that they go to where they belong and not in some strange country where they do not belong".
A Hamilton member of the mother's large Maori family told the Otago Daily Times last night the mother had gone into hiding to avoid the media.
The family member said she was getting "quite sporadic communications" from the mother, who was "not having a very good time, which is understandable".
"It's just a waiting game from our end.
We'd really like to get over there and help but at this moment there's not much that we can do."
Asked why the children had been living with their father and his new partner, the family member said she did not know.
"Apparently it's one of the hot questions around Melbourne at the moment."
Mr Osborne, a Fijian Indian, worked in Dunedin as a freezer manager and in 2001 lived in Cooper St, in the hill suburb of Mornington.
In June 2002, he was one of 42 people granted New Zealand citizenship at a ceremony in Dunedin.
The family moved to Australia in 2004.
His Australian manager at Concept Caravans in Campbellfield said he saw no warning signs less than a day before the shootings.
Mr Osborne, known as Roger, was in good spirits on Friday as he built caravans.
"In fact, five minutes before he left, he even bought chocolates from a footy drive here for the kids."
A worker said Mr Osborne would often leave work early on Friday to pick up his children from school.
"He loved them. He cared for them."
However, during the previous month he had kept to himself and become unusually quiet.
- Staff reporter, with additional reporting by NZPA and AAP
