A father-of-three who brutally murdered his wife and three sons and then hanged himself in a devastating murder-suicide has now been exposed as a cross-dresser who regularly watched pornography on his school laptop.

40-year-old Alan Hawe, a deputy school principal, murdered his 39-year-old wife Clodagh, and their three sons — 13-year-old Liam, 11-year-old Niall, and 6-year-old Ryan — in August 2016 in their County Cavan home in Ireland, before taking his own life. 

Clodagh's family have now come forward and spoken about how "evil" Hawe was, the Daily Mail reported. They also rejected all the claims that the man was suffering from depression when he took the extreme step to kill his wife, children, and himself.

Clodagh's mother Mary Coll and her sister Jacqueline Connolly spoke on RTÉ's Claire Byrne Live on February 25 and related the premeditated manner in which Hawe killed his family. They said that he slashed his son's throats so that they couldn't alert each other and killed his wife and his eldest son's so that they couldn't fight back.

Connolly said in the interview: "He was looking at pornography on the school laptop and he never brought the school laptop home. We've had sight of the counseling notes and he had said he was masturbating somewhere that he shouldn't have been, possibly at the school."

Coll said: "We do know now, that we didn't at the time, that he was dressing in Clodagh's underwear. I mean Clodagh would never, ever in her wildest dreams have thought of that, none of us would. We only found that out after the inquest. If he was masturbating in the school well at the very least he was guilty of professional misconduct. That was at the very least."

The women also revealed that Hawe had written a five-page letter before he hacked his wife to death with an axe and used a new weapon to kill his sleeping sons. He also allegedly transferred some money. Coll said: "That is evil. That is not depression. That is force brutality and it is control." Speaking about the letter, Coll added: "He kind of said that it was easier for them to die than to have to live with the truth of what he was doing. Clodagh didn't know and it would be easier for her to die than to know the truth about him."

Coll also said that Hawe was sitting at her kitchen table having tea and biscuits with Clodagh just hours before the brutal murders. Speaking of the night in question, Coll said: "It was a normal conversation. He [Hawe] was due back at work the next day and he didn't want to go back. Myself and Clodagh and Alan sat in the kitchen and we chatted normally and we [had] coffee and tea and biscuits or whatever. When they left, we hugged, we said 'I love you', we always did that, and I said to Alan, I said 'Good luck tomorrow' and he said 'Thanks, Mary, thanks for the goodies,' and I never saw them again."

The mother also said that when she didn't hear from her daughter the following morning, she immediately knew something was wrong. She said: "I drove up to the house and I saw the curtains all drawn and the two cars and I thought there is something terribly wrong."

"I had a key to their back door and I ran around the back and I had the key in my hand and... I saw the note on the door. And it read 'Don't come in, call the gardaí'. And I knew it was his writing. And I went out on the road and I let the phone fall and I tried to dial 999 about ten times but I couldn't. Eventually, I got through and I went to Clodagh's neighbor and I said to her 'Edie', I said, 'I think Alan has done something terrible'." She also said that Clodagh had been drinking tea on the couch and looking up holidays online when her husband hit her with the axe.

Coll said: "He came in behind her and he hit her in the head with the axe and he stabbed her in the back and she put up her hand to defend herself and he basically nearly sawed her hand off. He killed her like he hated her. He didn't need to use two weapons. He killed her with such brutality. It was evil."

After killing his wife, Hawe took a knife and went upstairs to kill his children. He finally killed himself after all the brutality. Clodagh, Hawe, and their children were initially buried together.

Connolly said that it was only one day after the funeral that they realized when they visited the graves. She said: "We were initially told it would be no problem to have him moved but then we realized that the exhumation could not happen [unless] Alan Hawe's next of kin applied for him to be moved. So we asked the Hawe family." She then said that Hawe's family "eventually" agreed.

Clodagh's mother and sister have since called for a brand new inquiry into the four murders. They have also said that they want Garda Commissioner Drew Harris to launch an investigation unit for familicide and family annihilation.