BEST mates and brothers, Spencer and Fletcher Connelly were thrilled when their dad took them to McDonalds for a takeaway treat after picking them up at the end of the day.
But Paul Connelly’s seemingly loving gesture was part of an evil plot to murder his own children, as courageous Spencer, who survived to tell the tale, explains.
It was December 2012 when Connelly picked up his boys from childcare and school before carrying out his unthinkable plans.
“I was five and Fletcher was eight, he was my best friend,” says Spencer, who remembers his dad pulling into the backyard of their family home in Tasmania, an island state of Australia.
“Dad and our mum Alison had recently separated, she was due to collect us in an hour.
“‘We’re going to have a picnic in the car’, Dad told us.”
Leaving his sons in the Hyundai hatchback to eat their food, Connelly grabbed some items from under the house before loading them into the boot of the car and returning to the driver’s seat.
Now 18, Spencer remembers hearing a hissing sound behind the back seat but when his older brother asked his dad about it, Fletcher was told: “It’s just a new noise the car’s making.”
A few minutes later, the boys’ father flicked his lighter to purportedly smoke a cigarette and the car exploded.
“A loud BOOM rang out and I was hit with a wall of fire,” Spencer recalls.
“I screamed in agony as the flames licked my skin.”
In a twisted revenge plot against his estranged wife Alison, the boys’ evil dad had loaded two gas bottles into the car and opened the valves before striking his lighter in a failed attempt to kill his sons.
Scrambling to unbuckle his seatbelt, Spencer leapt over the centre console of the three door car to reach the front passenger door and flee the intense blaze.
Realising his father was no longer in the vehicle, he escaped the car to find Fletcher alight, rolling on the ground in a desperate bid to put out the flames.
“When he looked at me his face was melting and his sandy brown hair was singed,” says Spencer.
“Petrified, I started running through the backyard as the flames engulfed my arms, face and legs.
“Looking up at the sky, I thought I was going to die.”
Fletcher next saved his little brother’s life by holding him down and forcing him to roll on the grass.
The seriously injured siblings ran to the side gate of their house to find it locked, with neighbours who had heard the explosion jumping over the gate to help them escape.
When the emergency services arrived at the scene Spencer can remember a paramedic cutting off his clothes and giving him medicine to ease his pain.
Loaded into the back of an ambulance, he also remembers catching sight of his dad nearby, receiving help.
Flown to the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Spencer was in a coma for a fortnight.
“When I woke up again I was wrapped in bandages like a mummy,” he says.
“Mum was by my side and Fletcher was on the other side, in his own hospital bed.
“‘I’m so glad you’re alive’, Mum cried.”
Spencer was left with 30 percent burns to his body, including full thickness burns on his face, inside his mouth, ears, around his neck, right shoulder, and hands.
Fletcher, 22, suffered burns affecting 28 percent of his body, with the worst to his face, ears, hand and elbows.
The boys went on to have 25 operations between them, including painful skin grafts, to repair their bodies with their mum Alison, 48, a constant by their sides.
A jury would later take just one hour to find their evil father guilty of two charges of attempted murder, sentencing him to 20 years in prison.
“I was glad he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else,” says Spencer.
The court heard that despite denying trying to kill the boys Connelly, 50 when he was sentenced, had told someone the night before the attack he planned to blow up the house while his sons were asleep.
“He was their father, with a duty to protect them,” said Chief Justice Alan Blow who noted Connelly had shown almost no remorse as he handed down his sentence at the Supreme Court in Burnie, Tasmania.
“Attempting to kill them was the worst possible breach of trust.
“I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that [he] decided to kill the boys in order to deprive his wife of them…
“He decided to kill the boys in order to spite his wife.”
Discharged from hospital four months on from the explosion, the boys moved into a new home in a new area with their mum.
“Being so young, I struggled to fully understand what had happened,” says Spencer.
“Two months later, we started at a new school.
“Kids were mostly nice but sometimes they would stare.
“‘Why do you look like that?’ they’d ask.”
Today, Spencer has a wonderful new stepdad called Christian, 47 and his involvement with the KIDS Foundation charity saw him land a role in the 2024 Hollywood blockbuster Furiosa: a Mad Max Saga, at the age of 14.
He played one of the “war boys” in the film, a group of young cancer-ridden half-lives and says he made lifelong friends with his fellow cast members.
Meeting the film’s star, Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, at the movie’s Sydney premiere was “incredible” and he would love to act again.
For while Spencer has experienced more pain than most people go through in a lifetime, he is looking to his future with positivity.
“Over the last 13 years, I’ve had more than 50 surgeries, and undergone intensive physiotherapy and speech therapy,” says Spencer.
“I’m currently in the process of getting prosthetic ears as mine were burned off.
“Thanks to the support of Mum, my stepdad, and Fletcher, I know I’m lucky to be alive.
“I’ve come to learn that my scars aren’t something to feel ashamed of, they represent my strength and I’m proud of that.”
“Fletcher was my rock through everything,” he adds of the best mate who saved his life that fateful day.
“Having someone else who looked like me made life easier.
“We’d support one another through physio, operations and the mental toll.”
