Murdered Nimmitabel man Ben Green with sister Kate Henderson (right). Picture: Facebook

Kate Henderson left the Coroners Court this week after listening to findings into the death of her brother Ben Green, 32, and his killer William “Bill” Markee, 58, who shot himself after he gunned down Mr Green as he slept in bed.

The deaths traumatised the small town of Nimmitabel, 37km from Cooma in south-eastern NSW, when they happened on May 15, 2015.

But it was the Green family who suffered most. Not only did they lose Ben, a second brother Hubert Green was shot by Markee, but escaped with a graze to his arm.

The men had all been close friends after meeting through the local shearing industry. The fact one of them became so violent was “shocking and incomprehensible” to the community, Magistrate Harriet Grahame said in her findings released this week.

The inquest found Markee had become isolated, paranoid, disturbed and delusional in the final months of his life. He was convinced the Greens were conspiring against him and somehow helping his estranged partner Mandy Elliot in her settlement against him.

“Once Bill became fixated on the idea that the Greens were in collusion with Mandy Elliot ... he could no longer see a future for himself,” Magistrate Grahame said.

Markee believed he was being “hounded and attacked” and was being persecuted by his former partner and the Greens. No evidence was ever found to support his theory and it was dismissed as “a delusion” by the Coroner.

Tragically, he acted on it. Mrs Henderson accepts mental health played a role in Markee’s actions, but she told news.com.au this week the problems for him started much before that.

Ben Green loved his horses and had a ‘gift for working with animals’.Source:Supplied

MAY 15, 2015 — THE SHOOTINGS

On the night of May 15, 2015 after many weeks of worrying behaviour, Markee went to Ben and Hubert Green’s home.

Slipping through an unlocked back door, he moved through the dark house and went straight to Ben Green’s bedroom. He knew the house well. Until recent times, the Greens were close friends so he’d been at the home many times.

Ben Green didn’t feel a thing. He died in his bed, killed by a shot to the head at close range.

“It appears fairly certain that Ben was sleeping when he was shot to the head with a .22 calibre rifle at close range,” wrote Magistrate Grahame.

He then went looking for Hubert Green. Inside his room he woke him as he reloaded the gun.

“There was a struggle and somehow Hubert was able to remove the bolt and magazine from Bill’s firearm.”

Hubert ran to his ute and got in when a shot blasted through the passenger window and the bullet split, grazing his arm.

“It must have been a terrifying experience,” Magistrate Grahame said.

He went straight to Ben’s girlfriend’s home — hoping his brother was there — and when he realised he wasn’t, they both then went to their third brother Arthur.

It was there he saw Markee lurking nearby. He blasted his horn and shone a spotlight at him and he then disappeared, almost certainly saving the life of his brother.

As Natasha Kessler, Ben’s girlfriend, called triple-0 for help, they went to find Ben, hoping to find him “and if so, what state he was in”.

“Tragically, Hubert found Ben was already dead.”

Police launched a manhunt for Markee. They found a shotgun at the Green home, but there was no sign of Markee.

He was eventually found at 8am the next morning. His blue commodore had driven off the road in a small gully. The keys were in the ignition, the headlights off. Markee was dead, a significant head injury the obvious cause and a shotgun between his legs.

Later, police would find notes in his belongings that lay bare his delusions. They suggested that he was being followed and listened to, and important files were “stolen”.

He referred to the brothers as “low down c***s’. He wrote they had “sold me out”.

“I carn’t [sic] live with that.”

Ben Green, sister Kate Henderson and her husband Cody Henderson.Source:Supplied

MENTAL HEALTH

“There is no doubt a picture emerged of a man with increasingly serious, yet undiagnosed, mental health difficulties,” Ms Grahame said.

“The evidence clearly suggests Bill suffered a long, slow decline in his mental wellbeing, becoming increasingly fixated and paranoid in the weeks before his death.”

Research had shown that people in rural communities and men from farming communities in particular were often reluctant to seek help for mental health issues, she said.

The fear of stigma and concern for their privacy within close-knit communities contributes to the reasons for this, she added.

As well as that, there was an increasing need for people to look out for others who appeared to be struggling. Ms Grahame said citizens must do their best to steer them towards professional help and support all attempts to find effective treatment.

She noted the southern NSW Local Area Health District access line was staffed by mental health professionals and can be contacted 24 hours a day on 1800 011 511.

“The issue in this case was not that appropriate services did not exist, but that Bill Markee could not understand that he needed urgent help. The end result was the tragic homicide of Ben Green and indeed Ben’s own untimely death.”

Despite all the help in the world, those who remained “resistant to seeking professional help, dangers remain.”

The small town of Nimmitabel was rocked by the shootings.Source:News Limited

‘INSTEAD OF JUST MOVING ON, HE DIDN’T’

Mrs Henderson knows mental health played a big role in what happened to her brother. But she feels there is more to this tragedy.

“I feel a bit frustrated and let down that the coroners and detectives pinned everything on mental health when there was more to the story. But being a murder-suicide they just seemed to jump onto undiagnosed mental health to help raise awareness.”

Leaving court on Tuesday left them empty.

“Many of us that left the coroners court on Tuesday felt like the system failed to promote the whole truth and left many of us with a lot of questions.”

As a nurse, she told news.com.au the Coroner’s messages about mental health were correct and much needed. But her view in the case of Markee, was his problems began with his failure to cope with the breakdown of his relationship.

“It’s all good and well to say be nice to each other but when it starts with greed, and jealously [as Markee did after the break up] that’s what happened ... ”

His “descent” began after he split with her and it proved to be his downfall.

“Instead of just moving on, he didn’t. He didn’t want her to have anything, didn’t want her getting nothing — he was obsessed with that.”

She’d always thought of him as misogynistic but others, including family members, insisted he just didn’t relate well to women and was “a bloke’s bloke”.

Mrs Henderson isn’t so sure. She believed it was his total failure to cope that sent him on a path that eventually “consumed” him.

“He had this file [about the separation] that his friends called his ‘security blanket’.”

But then the file went missing, and he blamed the Green brothers for taking it.

“And from then on there was three months of this plotting and calculating.”

andrew.koubaridis@news.com.au

* Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit beyondblue.org.au.