Wilton was born in Melbourne, raised in suburban Chelsea and studied at Monash University, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science.

He believed in "constant campaigning" which led him to conduct "mobile offices" very frequently throughout his electorate to ensure that constituents could contact him at all times.

Then Wilton was found by police, distressed in a car with his two young children in the You Yangs, near Geelong as he was driving out of the national park.

While the circumstances of the incident were never clear – fellow MP Kelvin Thomson said that Wilton had told him that he would never have harmed his children – it was reported by the media as an attempted murder-suicide.

The Sunday Herald Sun ran the headline "FEDERAL MP ARRESTED", and full pages were dedicated to coverage of the incident.

His death sparked a major reaction, with the media, the Labor Party, and the family law and mental health systems all coming in for some blame in the ensuing days.