Robin Michael found dead in prison

Robin Michael 63, former general manager of Royal Darwin Hospital, was found dead in his Hobart cell on Saturday night. He was being held on remand for the murder of his wife Kerry Michael 44, in February.

The couple were married on Boxing Day in 2009.

Michael had run the Darwin hospital prior to 2007 when he moved to Adelaide to fill a position of chief executive at a radiology company.

It's a tragic tale of betrayal that was too much to bear, and yet another Australian woman is killed by her partner.  Just hours after her murder, he confessed on Facebook and described his wife as his "heartbeat" and one of "the most beautiful people" in the world.

The happy couple

He felt betrayed, he said, not just by his wife, but by the man she allegedly had an affair with.  "To say I cracked and lost it when our quiet mountain descent got real would not do justice to the situation" he wrote. "The English language cannot describe my anger and rage, I cannot contemplate it.

"You may think you know what it feels like to take a knife in the stomach but trust me, the physical equivalent well understates what it felt like in my inside when it hit home.  Pain is one thing, but not enough if you had known, and loved, and been loved by Kerry, and she betrayed you."

The couple were on a six week holiday touring Tasmania and the incident took place on a walking trail near the summit of Mt Roland.  Family alerted police soon after seeing the Facebook post and her body was found soon after.  She died from a head injury. When police came to the Devonport Caravan Park to arrest him, they found him with self-inflicted wounds, but not bad enough to be life threatening.

"I have committed an act of pure evil and pray it failed" he wrote. "In the heat of the anger with Kerry's admission, I had no control or influence over myself.....but in hindsight, it's a copout, I was so far gone it was surely insanity at its greatest."

"I have done what I did and will bear full consequence" he wrote. "To my three boys, particularly X, what I have done can never be understood, let alone forgiven."