The next generation of Australia’s most inbred family, who were discovered living on a filthy remote block in the hills of country NSW a decade ago, have begun asking questions about their past – including if one girl’s father is also her uncle.
The 40-strong Colt family were discovered by authorities living without electricity, running water or sanitation near the town of Boorowa, 150km north of Canberra, in 2012.
Their story of incest, depravity and squalor shocked the world when authorities discovered the clan living in isolation on a filthy bush block in the hills, and the NSW Children’s Court found the case so disturbing it decided to publish a lengthy judgment of its findings.
Choosing pseudonyms to protect the children, including Ruth Colt, the Court’s unprecedented 34-page dossier on the family nevertheless contained horrifying detail of intergenerational incestuous behaviour and neglect conducted in secret for decades.
Ruth, one of the youngest members of the family and now about 19, has surfaced on social media, posting about her loneliness, how she misses her siblings and directly questioning the man believed to be both her father and uncle.
‘Hi,’ she wrote to her dad on social media. ‘Are you and mum brother and sister?’
She then wrote, ‘do you know who my dad is?’ and ‘hi uncle how are you’.
Ruth’s mother Martha and her aunt Betty were the matriarchs of the clan. The young woman was just nine when her family’s terrible secret was uncovered by authorities, after a chance remark in the schoolyard by one of her siblings.
Ruth Colt, now aged about 19, has taken to TikTok to dance to songs and has questioned her uncle on Facebook as to whether he is her real father
The Colt incest family tree which shows how the clan are inter-related with the late patriarch Tim having possibly fathered 14 of two of his daughters’ children and probably one of his granddaughter’s
Auhtorities found the Colt clan living on an unsewered bush block with no running water. electricity and the children running rampant
The Colt’s farm was in the hills behind Boorowa, difficult to access and kept the family socially isolated which is what they enjoyed – until authorities uncovered their terrible secret
DNA tests found the Colt family, a pseudonym appointed by the Family Court, included at least 11 children who had been fathered by a relative of their mother.
Meanwhile, authorities found the related children were themselves allegedly involved in rampant sexual activity, according to court records.
The 38-member clan had moved to NSW after spending years travelling around performing at country music festivals and living at remote locations in Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria.
They may have moved from state to state to avoid detection.
The original 2013 judgment by NSW Children’s Court president Judge Peter Johnstone found that the Colts were descended from a New Zealand brother and sister.
The siblings were the parents of June Colt, who was the wife of Tim Colt, the family patriarch and lead singer of the family band, which produced tunes such as one titled ‘Songs of Love’.
Tim Colt was the patriarch of the Colt clan which moved from state to state evading detection until authorities uncovered them at a squalid family farm, finding children who could not walk properly and spoke unintelligibly
Ruth Colt posted on her ‘uncle’ Charlie’s Facebook page asking him about the identity of her father and if he and her mother were brother and sister
Tim Colt, who died in 2009, fathered seven children with his wife, June, but also fathered up to 16 children with two of his daughters and probably one with his granddaughter.
As the family tree drawn from Justice Johnson’s bombshell judgment on the Colt case shows, while Tim was having sex with his daughters, other daughters and granddaughters were having sex with their brothers, uncles and cousins.
Incestuous sexual activity between the relatives living in the squalid camp near Boorowa was rampant, according to Justice Johnson’s report.
And it produced deformities in the children born inbred.
These included low-slung ears or misaligned eyes, and children who look decades older than they should.
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In 2021, one of the children who did attend a local school was heard tell another student that one of his sisters was pregnant, and that they didn’t know which male relative had fathered the child.
Colt women had always avoided doctors when pregnant.
Martha Colt with three of her sons and one daughter fathered by her brother Charlie who she openly shared a marital bed with at the Boorowa farm
Charlie Colt under arrest after NSW child protection authorities charged eight of the Colts, with many of the charges being dropped or ending in acquittal
When authorities finally descended on the Boorowa farm, what they discovered was both shocking and traumatising for nurses, doctors and social workers.
Living on the squalid farm were seven adults and more than 30 children, sleeping in a series of tents, sheds and lean-tos draped with electrical wires hooked up to a generators.
Some children’s speech was so stunted they could not be understood. They had fungal infections, and had never used a toilet or shower.
They were years behind at school, if they had attended at all. They tortured the genitalia of animals and had sex on the farm with their cousins, uncles and aunts and played sex games.
Derek Colt, who is one of Betty’s sons with her father Tim, had four children with his own sister Tammy, one of whom died of the genetic disorder Zelleweger syndrome
Ruth’s mother Martha openly shared a ‘marital bed’ in one of the tents with her brother, Charlie.
The family were socially isolated, and the children and adults appeared perfectly happy with one another, but that blissful ignorance ended when the NSW Child Protection Squad leveled 80 charges against eight Colt adults, including sexual abuse, but many were later dropped.
Three of the Colt sisters were charged with perjury for lying about their children’s paternity, when the DNA tests had proved their ‘homozygosity’, or identical gene patterns of their parents.
Removed from the farm and their parents, the children were placed in foster care, from which some of them tried to escape.
Betty (pictured) was arrested, convicted and jailed for trying to kidnap her own sons from foster care after the children found by DNA testing to have closely related parents were removed
Ruth Colt questioned Charlie Colt (pictured) about his relationship with her mother a decade after he and Martha were found to be openly sharing a marital bed despite the fact they were brother and sister
Betty was found guilty of two charges relating to the attempted kidnapping of two of her children from authorities and served time in jail.
In 2018, five sons of Betty and her sister Martha, posted videos expressing their desire to be restored to the care of their mothers.
Still hardly intelligible, the boys then aged between 13 and 18 claimed that while in care they have been ‘bashed’, ‘beaten up’ and given ‘a hiding for not washing properly’.
The five boys who made the video recordings, Billy, Brian, Karl, Jed and Dwayne, said they were unable to fit into society.
Martha was more recently reunited with her three sons once they had reached adulthood and has posted photographs of herself with them on Facebook.
Several social media posts of Colt family members like Ruth seem to indicate a yearning to find out about her past and be reunited with her family.
On her Facebook page, she says that she misses her sister and that seeing her and others would make her happy.
On TikTok she says she would like to visit her sibling. It features video of herself dancing along in a room to emotional songs.
The complicated family history of the Colts is believed to go back further than four generations, and will probably never entirely be told.
