The Sydney Bondi Junction mall knife attacker fatally stabbed six people and injured 10 others in just three minutes, an inquest into the April carnage was told.
The New South Wales state coroner on Tuesday heard that Joel Cauchi, 40, accused of attacking the shoppers with a large hunting knife, suffered from schizophrenia and had been off his "psychotropic medication".
Five women and one man were stabbed to death by Cauchi in the Westfield shopping centre on 13 April in an attack that sent shockwaves across Australia.
The victims were identified as Ashlee Good, 38, Dawn Singleton, 25, Jade Young, 47, an architect in Sydney, 55-year-old Pikria Darchia, security guard Faraz Tahir and Chinese student Yixuan Cheng. The New South Wales (NSW) police said it was “obvious” that Cauchi was targeting and attacking women.
Police shot dead Cauchi shortly after and authorities ruled out terrorism.
The attacker grew up in Toowoomba in Queensland and had been sleeping rough in Maroubra on the morning of the attack, the coroner was told.
He was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager in 2001 and had received public mental health treatment in Queensland until 2021, counsel assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer SC told the court. The attacker stopped taking his medication in 2019 and his mental health condition deteriorated between then and the day of the stabbing.
While he was never previously charged with any crime, he "came to the attention" of Queensland police over the years before coming to Sydney, the court heard, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
Cauchi called the police to his parent's house in Toowoomba in January last year to report that his father had stolen his collection of military-style combat knives.
The court was told those were "the same type of knife used in the Bondi" mall attack.
The police were advised by Cauchi’s parents that their son suffered from long-term schizophrenia and was off the medication. His parents reportedly said they were “worried about the deterioration of his mental state and that’s why his knives had been confiscated by his father”.
Cauchi again called the police a month later to report his father for stealing his knives, the inquest heard.
Dr Dwyer told the court that the police did not “consider they had a basis to detain Mr Cauchi involuntarily at that time”. One of the officers, who had been called both times, wrote to the Queensland police mental health team but there were no follow ups, the inquest was told.
Cauchi traveled to NSW between 2023 and 2024 and was homeless and “living under the Maroubra beach pavilion”, the court heard.
A resident reportedly called the local police after spotting him in a sleeping bag, prompting authorities to speak to him.
A CCTV footage captured Cauchi taking a hunting knife from a locker and putting it in his backpack, the court heard.
“I expect Your Honour will hear from at least one expert psychologist that there is a strong need for sustained serviced housing of mentally ill homeless persons … which includes men like Mr Cauchi who are experiencing schizophrenia … who fall through the cracks and then become acutely unwell,” the Australian Broadcasting Corporation quoted Dr Dwyer as saying.
She said experts and doctors would be called in April 2025 when the inquest formally begins. The investigation will look into possible security lapses and failings in the mental health systems in NSW and Queensland, BBC reported.
