Joel Cauchi, the mass murderer, searched for knives and “how to kill” on Google before fatally stabbing six people at Bondi Westfield on Saturday.
According to reports from A Current Affair crime editor Simon Bouda, Cauchi, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, had a strong fixation on killing and knives, as informed by the police.
“Initially, everyone thought this was a man suffering from schizophrenia whose mind has snapped, words in his head,” Bouda explained on Monday night’s ACA.
“I have learned today that the investigators have been able to download data from his phone, which has indicated that he had a fixation with killings. He also had a fixation with knives. That tells us it wasn’t a spur of the moment attack. Beforehand, he was thinking about killing, and that is terribly frightening.”
When asked if Cauchi was “searching about killing” on his phone, Bouda replied “yes, that is what I understand.”
It was also alleged that Cauchi was spotted at two additional Westfield shopping centers across Sydney — Penrith and Parramatta — prompting investigators to speculate whether he might have been surveying these locations for a potential attack.
“I was told he was spotted at Westfield in Penrith and Parramatta, just in recent weeks,” Bouda continued. What was going through his mind? Was he checking out other locations that he may have decided appropriate for what he wanted to do? Was he just visiting? Who knows. But it was happening in very quick succession.”
Bouda also said that Cauchi walked up behind two of his victims in the back, not speaking to them or looking at them before delivering the fatal blows.
“The first woman was lining up in a queue to buy a coffee, he has come up behind her and stabbed her in the back,” crime editor Simon Bouda said. He stabbed another woman in the back; he is not even looking at them.”
On Monday, Cauchi’s father conjectured that his son had singled out women because he desired a girlfriend and felt “extremely frustrated.”
