Harvey, 25, killed two-year-old twins Alice and Beatrix, three-year-old Charlotte and their mother Mara Lee Harvey, 41, at their Bedford home on September 3 last year.
Mrs Harvey’s mother, Beverley Quinn, 73, was murdered when she visited the next morning.
Last month, Harvey officially became WA’s worst killer when Supreme Court Justice Stephen Hall made an order that he be the first person in the State’s legal history never to be released.
Sentencing Harvey, Justice Hall said he struggled to “find words that are adequate to convey the magnitude” of his crimes.
“Your actions are so far beyond the bounds of acceptable human conduct that they instill horror and revulsion into even the most hardened of people,” he said.
The West Australian has confirmed Harvey has lodged an appeal notice against the sentence with the WA Court of Appeal.
During the sentencing hearing, State DPP Amanda Forrester revealed Harvey had planned his horrific crimes for weeks.
He had bought two knives in the weeks leading up to the murders. Then, he persuaded his wife to sign a form, which allowed him to operate her bank account.
Hours later, when his wife came home from work at Coles, he battered her with a 1.2m pipe, before stabbing her 12 times in the back.
He then went upstairs and stabbed Beatrix nine times, Alice 13 times, and Charlotte 38 times. All of the wounds were to the heart.
When their grandmother arrived in the morning with a basket of washing, Harvey helped her inside before killing her too.
After showering and sleeping, Harvey went to get coffee. He then arranged his wife and children’s bodies in bed together with the girls’ favourite toys.
Later, he placed flowers and notes on both scenes.
To his wife, he wrote: “I think I’ve lost my mind.” “I remember what I have done but there is no reason behind it. Movement is life now and I must go. Take care of those little girls like you always do.”
Then, he ran his wife’s boss to say she had broken bones in her foot. He sold tools, his car, bought another car, and emptied his bank accounts.
He then drove north to Pannawonica, where his parents lived, where he revealed what he had done.
In a journal found in his car, police discovered Polaroid pictures of the bodies between the pages.
“I must embrace my darkness, my animal instincts. I must do the unthinkable to unshackle myself,” he said in one of his entries.
“There is no other case that is truly comparable,” Justice Hall said.
Story originally appeared on The West Australian and is republished with permission.
