Bourke St accused James Gargasoulas warned he would run people down, court hears
ACCUSED Bourke St killer James Gargasoulas told his girlfriend he would run people down in the city if pursuing police caught up to him, a Supreme Court jury has heard, as text messages reveal desperate police attempts to stop him.
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ACCUSED Bourke St killer James Gargasoulas warned he would run people down in the city if pursuing police caught up to him, a jury has heard.
The Supreme Court murder trial was told that in the hours before the carnage the 28-year-old told his girlfriend, then with him in the car: “I swear if they catch up to me, I’m going to run everybody down in the city.”
Text messages between Mr Gargasoulas and a detective giving chase reveal desperate police attempts to stop him.
ACCUSED BOURKE ST KILLER IN COURT
But the jury heard that Mr Gargasoulas replied to text messages from Detective Senior Constable Murray Gentner by texting: “Everyone’s going to die from the comet.
“I’m not telling lies. It’s real. I can tell the future, my friend. I know I can. That’s why I sound crazy. They will not win, as I have the knowledge. Now listen, I’m a saviour, I’m a comet, and I know how to save everyone.”
Mr Gargasoulas, 28, has pleaded not guilty to six counts of murder and 27 of reckless conduct endangering life over the rampage on January 20, 2017.
“The accused deliberately drove his car towards people who were unable to get out of his way,” Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd, QC, said.
Ms Judd, in her opening address to the jury, said one witness spoke of Mr Gargasoulas as “focused”, both hands on the wheel, and that “he didn’t flinch or look anywhere. It was just relentless”.
The court heard Sen-Det Gentner texted Mr Gargasoulas at 1.19pm: “I’m telling you, you are making a big mistake.”
“Please stop,” a 1.23pm message read. Another, at 1.27pm read: “Don’t do this.”
Three minutes later, Mr Gargasoulas was doing burnouts outside Flinders St Station, creating smoke, and hanging out the window, the court heard.
One witness would say he heard Mr Gargasoulas taunting police, saying: “Come on, come and get me you c---s.”
The car then sped up Swanston St, veered on to the footpath near Little Collins St causing people to jump clear, and turned left onto the Bourke St Mall.
Sen-Det Gentner told the court of his shock when Mr Gargasoulas first veered onto the footpath.
He said he put his sirens on to try to alert people to the oncoming danger.
“People had no idea there was a car coming down the footpath. At that stage, there were just people jumping out of the way.
“As he turned into the mall … that’s when we realised we were in a very bad situation. I recall seeing one person going about 9m in the air. There were just so many people being hit,” he said.
Earlier, defence lawyer Theo Alexander told the jury that the case was “unusual”, as Mr Gargasoulas was not disputing the facts.
“Mr Gargasoulas has pleaded not guilty,” Dr Alexander said. “Equally, he has agreed … to all of the facts necessary to establish the charges.”
Dr Alexander told the jurors they must understand that Mr Gargasoulas had a right to plead however he wanted.
“Secondly, and more directly, he says he had very important reasons for what happened on January 20th,” he said. “Mr Gargasoulas, for better or for worse, is committed to his explanation.
“And as a jury found him fit for trial, he is accordingly allowed to have his say.”
He said that Mr Gargasoulas would give evidence.
But he warned the jury that his client was “not a well man”.
“He has a mental illness now,” he said. “This is a sad, tragic and emotional case.”
The court heard that Mr Gargasoulas told a psychiatric nurse in hospital that he “f----- up”, and also said: “But it wasn’t my fault. The accelerator got stuck.”
But testing of the car did not detect any mechanical faults.
The trial, before Justice Mark Weinberg, continues.
GASPS INSIDE COURT AS RAMPAGE VISION PLAYS
IT took just a minute for James Gargasoulas to leave “a trail of death and carnage” as he deliberately drove into pedestrians, a jury heard on Thursday.
In that 60 seconds, six people were killed and 27 injured.
Young workers on their lunch breaks, shoppers, and families enjoying a day out in the city were among those caught up in the Bourke St rampage on January 20, 2017.
The Supreme Court heard that Mr Gargasoulas does not dispute steering a stolen car towards innocent people walking on the footpath.
But he is adamant he has a reason for it — a reason, his lawyer says, that will be explained later in the trial.
A boy celebrating his 13th birthday, going to buy cricket stumps, was the first of the 33 casualties, mowed down in the mall outside the Causeway Inn. About 700m away, near William St, a 37-year-old man became the last.
Both survived.
Zachary Matthew-Bryant, just three months old, died when the pram he was in was rammed by Mr Gargasoulas’s car. He was thrown 68m.
The pram, torn from his nanny’s grip, was dragged by the car and fell off some 100m away. Still strapped into the insert of the pram was Zachary’s sister Zara, 2, who was seriously injured.
Schoolgirl Thalia Hakin, 10, going to a magic show with her mother and little sister, was struck and killed.
Bhavita Patel, 33, Jessica Mudie, 22, Yosuke Kanno, 25, and Matthew Si, 33, were the others killed.
Gasps broke the silence in court on Thursday as CCTV showing the moments pedestrians were struck was played.
Some flew in the air; others went under the car’s tyres.
Some of the footage had accompanying audio: screeches from the car’s tyres echoed, and emergency sirens blared.
Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd, QC, in her opening address to the jury, related an “awful series of events”.
“In a period lasting only about a minute, in the busy lunchtime rush, the accused left a trail of death and carnage along Bourke St,” she said.
“He accelerated. He deliberately drove towards pedestrians. The accused killed six people, including two children, aged three months and 10 years,” Ms Judd said.
Mr Gargasoulas was estimated to have been travelling at an average speed of 61kmh as he mowed people down.
Ms Judd said Mr Gargasoulas’s path of destruction had begun early that morning, when he repeatedly stabbed his young brother, Angelo, at his mother’s Windsor home.
Police had been on his tail for 12 hours while he was on the run.
The air wing had followed him, and unmarked police cars had tried to stop him.
A pursuing police officer even spoke with him by phone for 30 minutes, and exchanged texts, urging him to stop what he was doing.
But the court heard that his destructive path came to an end only when the maroon Holden Commodore began to suffer mechanical failure, causing him to slow down.
Police rammed the vehicle and surrounded it, their weapons drawn.
One officer then fired two bullets; another deployed his Taser.
Mr Gargasoulas was then dragged from the car. He was under arrest.
The carnage was over.