The bizarre rants of mass murderer James Gargasoulas
When in the witness box James Gargasoulas quickly became distracted. What happened next can only be described as bizarre as the cowardly killer appeared to switch between reality and his distorted ideologies. And it wasn’t the first time he had done so.
Law & Order
Don't miss out on the headlines from Law & Order. Followed categories will be added to My News.
It was the moment he had waited 22 months for. His chance to explain his actions.
But when taking to his stage — the witness box — James Gargasoulas appeared to enjoy the limelight and quickly became distracted.
Looking around at all the eyes on him, he smirked.
RULE: HOW COWARDLY MASS KILLER REACTED TO SWIFT JUSTICE
GARGASOULAS GUILTY OF BOURKE ST RAMPAGE MURDERS
FROM PETTY CRIME TO MURDEROUS RAMPAGE
“Focus,” his lawyer Theo Alexander quickly remarked, clicking his fingers in front of him.
Gargasoulas snapped his gaze back towards his barrister.
He had moments earlier confirmed his full name was “James George Gargasoulas” and he was unemployed before being jailed over the deadly Bourke St rampage on January 20 last year.
The next 15 minutes could only be described as bizarre as he appeared to switch between reality and his distorted ideologies.
At one moment he offered an apology to the victims.
It came from his heart, he said. And he sounded believable, even laying his palm on his chest as he looked towards the grieving families who had packed the court.
He went on to argue that the death penalty should be reinstated as that would be the only “true justice” for him.
But when he went to explain what he planned to do on that ill-fated day, his words became muddled. He spoke faster. He seemed deluded.
He rambled on about being part of the Illuminati and how God had given him permission to mow people down to escape the pursuing police.
As he described how he planned to drive to Sydney to reinstate God’s laws, a glimpse of reality snuck back in when he strangely offered an apology for stealing the car.
“I was in the process of going to Sydney — with the stolen car … I’m sorry to say,” he said, almost in jest.
He often paused and asked for questions to be repeated, sometimes when he was mid-sentence and had clearly lost track of what he was saying.
But he was quick to reply “yes” when asked if he mowed people down on Bourke St.
For everyone in court, it was hard to watch. He was not doing himself any favours.
And it would only cement his fate with the jury, who today found him guilty on all 33 charges: six counts of murder and 27 of reckless conduct endangering life.
Echoing his rambles in the court were Facebook messages he posted in the weeks before the onslaught warning of “what’s to come”.
On January 9 last year, under the name Dimitrious Gargasoulas, he wrote: “Today the God’s have given me wisdom and knowledge. They have awoken me.
“I have my answers, also vision of a future that is clouded. The work of Satan to face me and fail over and over amuses me rather than shake me to the ground.
“Keep in mind good will always prevail over evil and that is exactly what’s to come in the following days, weeks and so forth.”
Six days before he went on the rampage, he posted rants about Scientology and the Illuminati.
But Gargasoulas was adamant he did not suffer a mental illness.
Another jury earlier this month had determined he was fit to stand trial, despite evidence from three expert witnesses who testified his paranoid schizophrenia and delusions meant he could not understand proceedings, enter a plea, or properly instruct his lawyers.
That hearing heard Mr Gargasoulas had told doctors he was desperate to be found fit for trial so people would take seriously his claims that he is a saviour.
He had been left embarrassed by suggestions he was delusional and had a low intellect.
Gargasoulas was born in Adelaide on January 26, 1990, to parents Christos and Emily Gargasoulas.
Eleven months later, their family expanded with the birth of his younger brother, Angelo.
When their parents split, the boys stayed with their father, growing up in the outback mining town of Coober Pedy in South Australia’s far north.
Aged 16, Gargasoulas moved to Melbourne to live with his mother.
In January 2016, he moved back to Coober Pedy with his then partner, Maria Butler, where he began heavily using methamphetamine.
The couple moved back to Melbourne in October, 2016 — three months before the Bourke St onslaught — where his drug taking spiralled out of control.
He used ice the day before the rampage, and was in a drug-induced psychosis at the time.
Meanwhile, Ms Butler was eight months pregnant with his child. A child he will unlikely ever see freedom for.
They had separated, but “Jimmy”, as she affectionately called him, messaged her on the morning of the Bourke St rampage as he was being hotly pursued by police across Melbourne’s streets.
“Jimmy said he wanted it all to end if he couldn’t be with me, that the world was going to end and his brother Angelo and a few of his friends had access to a bunker, and were going to be safe from the comet,” Ms Butler said in a statement to police.
As she begged him to surrender to police, he text her: “I’m not going to let them get me and go down like a bitch.”
Gargasoulas’s path of destruction had begun earlier that day when he stabbed his brother, Angelo, with a large kitchen knife multiple times, almost killing him, at their mother’s home in Windsor about 2am.
He fled the scene, sparking a police pursuit which would be called on and off in a game of cat and mouse for the next 12 hours.
It culminated in him entering the CBD, doing burnouts outside Flinders St Railway Station, before zooming up Swanston St.
As he turned onto Bourke St Mall, he accelerated. He deliberately drove into pedestrians.
Among those killed were three-month-old Zachary Matthew-Bryant, 10-year-old schoolgirl Thalia Hakin, Bhavita Patel, 33, Jessica Mudie, 22, Yosuke Kanno, 25, and Matthew Si, 33.
“In a period lasting only about a minute during lunch hour, the accused left a trail of death and carnage along Bourke Street,” Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd QC had told the court.
His destructive path only came to an end when his maroon Holden Commodore began to fail mechanically, causing him to slow and police to ram his vehicle.
Surrounding his car with their weapons drawn, one officer then fired two bullets at him, another deployed his Taser.
Gargasoulas was then dragged from the car. He was under arrest. The carnage was over.