The shootings started at 9:12 p.m. at the Terrigal apartment of his ex-girlfriend Kerry Gannon and her younger sister Lisa Gannon. Baker used his shotgun to smash the front window. Twenty-two-year-old Christopher Gall, a friend of the sisters, was the first person shot, suffering a gunshot wound to the face. Baker then entered the house and shot Kerry Gannon dead. Moving through the house he shot Lisa dead, who was eight months pregnant; later efforts to save her unborn baby failed. Their father, Thomas Gannon, 43, who had been visiting for a few days, was found dead in the street.
Baker then drove north to the coastal suburb of Bateau Bay, where he arrived about ten minutes later, at the home of his 27-year-old son David. Baker shot his son through the back of his head.[3] His body was discovered in the back yard of the home he shared with his ex girlfriend and her baby.
Baker then went to the home of Ross Smith, 35, and Leslie Read, 25, in Wyong, 15 kilometres north of Bateau Bay. Arriving there shortly before 10 p.m., he shot and critically injured Read, then finding Smith in the bathtub shot and killed him instantly. Read died two hours later in hospital. Smith and Baker had had a confrontation about two years prior, over a business deal gone sour.