Ariel Bombara alerted police three times to the threat of her father’s collection of 13 guns, just weeks before he shot and killed a mother and daughter in Western Australia.
Last week in Floreat, WA, while looking for his ex-wife and daughter, Mark Bombara shot and killed their friends, 59-year-old Jennifer Petelczyc and her 18-year-old daughter Gretl, before turning the gun on himself.
Mark Bombara’s daughter, Ariel, has come forward for the first time since the incident occurred last week, saying she feels “let down” by the way the authorities responded to her concerns about the threat her father posed on herself and her mother.
“My mother and I made it clear that our lives were at risk – we were repeatedly ignored, repeatedly failed,” Ariel Bombara told ABC News.
“These failures have cost the lives of two incredible women.”
Those women, who were helping Ariel Bombara and her mother escape from the violence of Mark Bombara, are survived by the daughter of Jennifer and sister of Gretl, Liesl Petelczyz.
“I’d like to start by saying how truly, deeply sorry I am to Liesl Petelczyc for the losses of her beautiful mother, Jenny, and sister, Gretl; losses she has suffered at the hands of my father’s violence,” Bombara said.
“I did everything I could to protect my mother — when my father couldn’t find us he murdered her best friend and her best friend’s daughter.”
Bombara said she and her mother fled their family home on March 28, a place that was no longer safe for them due to the violence of her father.
Over the next few days, between March 30 and April 2, Bombara said she spoke to police three times, alerting authorities to her father’s large collection of firearms.
“(On) each occasion I alerted officers to my father’s guns and told them my mother and I felt there was a real and imminent threat to our lives,” Bombara told ABC News.
Yesterday, WA Police Minister Paul Papalia said Mark Bombara owned 13 guns – 11 which were obtained on a recreational licence, and two handguns which were purchased on a collector’s licence.
But Ariel Bombara said there was a Glock handgun “which was unaccounted for”, and she believes it was ultimately “one of the weapons that my father used to take the lives of two innocent women”.
When she spoke to police about the gun collection, Bombara was told there was “nothing police could do about the situation at the time”, and her request for a 72-hour temporary protective order was denied.
Police accompanied Bombara and her mother to retrieve their belongings from the family home on April 2, and when raising her concerns to police about the guns for the third time, she felt “completely helpless”.
“By that point we felt completely helpless and I had to focus on getting mum to safety,” Bombara told ABC News.
Seven weeks later, on May 24, an armed Mark Bombara shot and killed Jennifer Petelczyc – the woman who was helping Ariel and her mother get to safety – along with her 18-year-old daughter Gretl.
Ariel Bombara said she feels “let down” by the authorities, who are supposedly there to protect women like her.
“My father should always be considered accountable for his actions – they were his actions and his alone,” Bombara said.
“However, (there were) authorities who should have helped us stop him and they failed.”
The Premier of WA Roger Cook recently announced a $400 million package to address domestic violence in the state and has proposed reforms to strengthen gun ownership laws.
It’s not the first time where a lack of response from police, despite receiving previous warnings of threats of violence, has ended in men’s violence against women.
Just last month, 28-year-old Molly Ticehurst was killed at her home in Forbes, NSW allegedly at the hands of her former partner who was on bail at the time. Daniel Billings, 29, was released on bail for a separate offence, before he allegedly contravened an apprehended violence order (AVO) and murdered his former partner, Molly Ticehurst.
In 2021, 27-year-old Kelly Wilkinson approached different police stations along the Gold Coast “almost every day”, pleading for police to help her escape her partner, Brian Earl Johnston, who was charged with four serious domestic violence offences and given watch house bail. Her concerns, however, fell on deaf ears: police dismissed her pleas as “cop shopping”, and days later, on 20 April 2021, Johnston brutally murdered Wilkinson.
According to Destroy the Joint’s Counting Dead Women, men’s violence has taken the lives of 31 Australian women in 2024.
If you or someone you know is experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, domestic, family or sexual violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au for online chat and video call services.
If you are concerned about your behaviour or use of violence, you can contact the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491 or visit http://www.ntv.org.au.
Feeling worried or no good? No shame, no judgement, safe place to yarn. Speak to a 13YARN Crisis Supporter, call 13 92 76. This service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.