A RESPECTED Lithgow doctor who was found dead in her home by her teenage sons was killed by her husband in a suspected murder-suicide, police believe.
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Leonie Geldenhuys' two sons, aged 13 and 18, woke on Tuesday morning to find their 46 year-old mother fatally stabbed in their Wrights Road home.
The body of her 54-year-old husband, also a doctor, was found on Tuesday afternoon at a property on Wolgan Valley Road, Wolgan Valley.
Police said they were not treating his death as suspicious.
Lithgow Valley Medical Practice manager Nikki Baraz said Dr Geldenhuys was "the most beautiful person you could ever wish to meet".
The 46 year-old GP migrated from South Africa with her family six years ago in search of a better life.
Dr Geldenhuys had become a well-known and respected doctor in the community and her two sons are high-achievers at a local high school.
Tragically, she came to the regional NSW town believing it would be more secure than her homeland, Ms Baraz said.
"She was, I believe, the best mother and the most compassionate doctor," Ms Baraz said. "She was the whole package - lovely, smiley, always happy. She was always punctual, always pleasant. She will be irreplaceable."
She said her colleagues were in disbelief "to see her go in the way she did".
"It is tragic and so unexpected," she said.
Homicide Squad detectives are investigating the death and will prepare a report for the coroner.
Detective Inspector Luke Rankin said the couple's teenage sons were being looked after and were "obviously traumatised and I suppose unimaginably traumatised finding their mother deceased".
"Then as the day's gone on we've had to inform them that their father's also been found dead," Inspector Rankin said.
