A white Toyota Prius parked in the driveway. Boots piled by a welcome mat. Footsteps and muffled voices. A masked man briefly emerging to collect a food delivery, before vanishing back inside.
On Tuesday morning, these were the only signs of life at the family home of the Bondi suspects in Bonnyrigg, a diverse, working-class, suburb of Sydney about 30 miles west of the beachside park where Sunday’s attack took place.
Outside the home, teenagers rode past on bicycles, a couple of neighbors walked by, and a postal worker (who said he had interacted with the family but was not allowed to speak to the media) came through riding an electric vehicle. A large group of reporters was staked out nearby.
Earlier that morning, a seemingly bewildered delivery driver arrived at the house with what clearly was intended to be an offensive message to a Muslim family: a $42 half leg of ham with a message that included a racial slur, the reporters said. The ham, in a paper bag decorated with Christmas gingerbread men, remained on the footpath outside the home. The family did not answer the door.
Two neighbors said they believed the family had moved in a year or so ago, and that they had largely kept to themselves.
“No dramas,” Glenn Nelson, who lives across the road, said about his impressions of the suspects. Mr. Nelson, 65, who has been a resident of Bonnyrigg for nearly four decades, described it as a peaceful and aging community. He said that he occasionally saw a father and son outside the house, but had never spoken to him or any other members of the family.
He and another neighbor said that a few hours after the shooting on Sunday night, several police cars with flashing lights cordoned off the street. Sometime after midnight, Mr. Nelson said, the authorities told the family to come out of the house with their hands up. He said he saw three people — two women and a man — come out of the house.
Max Kim contributed reporting.
Livia Albeck-Ripka is a Times reporter based in Los Angeles, covering breaking news, California and other subjects.
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