Police probe why Sydney mall killer targeted women
SYDNEY, Australia: Australian police on Monday are investigating why a 40-year-old man with mental illness appeared to target women as he roamed a Sydney shopping mall with a large knife, killing six people and injuring a dozen more.
Videos shared on social media showed unshaven itinerant Joel Cauchi pursuing mostly female victims as he rampaged through the vast, crowded Westfield shopping complex in Bondi Junction on Saturday afternoon.
Five of the six victims killed were women, as were most of those wounded.
“The videos speak for themselves, don’t they, and that’s certainly a line of inquiry for us,” New South Wales police commissioner Karen Webb said.
“That’s obvious to me. It’s obvious to detectives that that seems to be an area of interest — that the offender had focused on women and avoided men,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC).
Webb stressed that police could not know what was in the mind of the attacker, who was shot dead by a police officer.
“That’s why it’s important now that detectives spend so much time interviewing those who know him,” she said.
Cauchi’s Facebook profile said he came from the eastern city of Toowoomba, near Brisbane, and had attended a local high school and university.
His parents say he had suffered from mental health issues since he was a teenager.
‘Loving a monster’
Andrew Cauchi, the father, told local media he was “heartbroken” and did not know what drove his son to kill.
“This is so horrendous, I can’t even explain it,” he told reporters outside his home in northeastern Queensland state. “I made myself a servant to my son when I found out he had a mental illness.”
“I did everything in my power to help my son,” the visibly distressed father said. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do or say to bring back the dead.”
Andrew Cauchi said he believed his son primarily attacked women because “he wanted a girlfriend, he’s got no social skills, and he was frustrated.”
“He is my son, and I am loving a monster. To you, he is a monster; to me, he was a very sick boy,” he added.
The last of Cauchi’s six victims to be identified was Yixuan Cheng, a young Chinese woman who was a student at the University of Sydney.
The other women killed were a designer, a volunteer surf lifesaver, the daughter of an entrepreneur and a new mother whose wounded nine-month-old baby is in the hospital.
The mother, 38-year-old Ashlee Good, handed her bleeding baby girl to strangers in desperation before being rushed to the hospital, where she died of her injuries.
Her baby, named Harriet, is in a serious condition in a Sydney hospital but is expected to improve, health authorities said.
The only man killed was 30-yearold Pakistani Faraz Tahir, who had been working as a security guard when he was stabbed.
‘Very traumatic’
A total of eight people wounded in the assault remain in the hospital — some in critical condition — after four were released in the past 24 hours, officials said.
Cauchi’s assault, which lasted about half an hour, was brought to an end when solo police inspector Amy Scott tracked him down and shot him dead.
Scott — hailed as a hero by police and political leaders — was spending time with her family to deal with the “very traumatic matter,” the state police chief said.
Cauchi is believed to have traveled to Sydney about a month ago and hired a small storage unit in the eastern city, police said. It contained personal belongings, including a boogie board.
He had been living in a vehicle and hostels, and was only in sporadic contact with his family via text messages, his parents said.
A mound of flowers grew outside the Bondi shopping center as people paid their respects to the victims.
Flags across the country flew at halfstaff in mourning.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had spoken to the families of some victims.
“The gender breakdown is, of course, concerning — each and every victim here is mourned,” he told ABC radio, promising a “comprehensive” police investigation.
A public coronial inquiry will be held into the attack, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told reporters.
It will look into the police response and criminal investigation, but also the killer’s past interactions with state health authorities, he said.