More than $500k raised for youngest Bondi Junction stabbing victim
More than 10,000 people have donated to an online fundraising campaign to support the nine-month-old baby injured in the Bondi Junction massacre.
An online fundraising campaign to support the youngest victim of the Bondi Junction stabbing has raised more than $500,000.
A GoFundMe page authorised by the family of Ashlee Good, the 38-year-old mum killed in the massacre while pushing her nine-month-old baby in her pram, has received $572,570 in donations.
The fundraising effort was established to support Ms Good’s daughter who is recovering in hospital and on Tuesday was moved out of intensive care and onto a ward, NSW Health confirmed.
More than 10,000 people have contributed to the fund.
Ms Good was shopping with Harriet at Westfield, pushing the baby around in a pram when they were set upon by attacker Joel Cauchi at around 3.30pm on Saturday.
The 40-year-old armed with a knife stabbed more than a dozen people before being shot dead by hero NSW Police Inspector Amy Scott.
Witnesses described how Ms Good tried to save her daughter, handing her baby to two strangers as she fought for life with horrific injuries.
“The mum came over with the baby and threw it at me, and I was just holding the baby,” one of a pair of brothers told 9News shortly after the attack.
“I just helped out, just holding the baby and trying to compress the baby, and same with the mother, trying to compress the blood from stopping and calling the ambulance and police. We just kept yelling out to get some clothes to help us compress and stop the baby bleeding.”
Some of the slain mum’s friends and family, including high-profile lawyer Rebekah Giles, visited the memorial at Bondi Junction on Tuesday, which has expanded into a vast display of flowers and messages of support.
People could be seen hugging, lighting candles and laying bunches of flowers at the site in the middle of the pedestrianised mall.
“What she’s done is the instincts that mothers do to protect their children,” one tearful mourner told 9News.
Ms Good’s family released a statement after her death praising her as “a beautiful mother, daughter, sister, partner, friend, all around outstanding human and so much more”.
“We appreciate the well-wishes and thoughts of members of the Australian public who have expressed an outpouring of love for Ashlee and our baby girl,” the family said.
“We would also like to thank the New South Wales Police for their kindness and diligence in this tragedy and emergency services for getting our baby the care she needed as quickly as possible. To the two men who held and cared for our baby when Ashlee could not — words cannot express our gratitude.”
The Good family statement added that they “were struggling to come to terms with what has occurred”.
On Monday, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said it was obvious to her and detectives that the killer had focused on women and avoided men during the attack.
“The videos speak for themselves, don’t they?” Ms Webb told ABC News Breakfast.
“That’s certainly a line of inquiry for us. It’s obvious to me, it’s obvious to detectives that it seems to be an area of interest that the offender had focused on women and avoided the men. We don’t know what was operating in the mind of the offender and that’s why it’s important now that detectives spend as much time interviewing those who know him, were around him, close to him, so we can get some insight into what he might have been thinking.”
Cauchi’s father, Andrew Cauchi, said his son — a paranoid schizophrenic — may have targeted women because he was unable to find a girlfriend and had no social skills.
His family reportedly contacted authorities when they saw footage of the massacre on TV because they believed it was their son.
“He wanted a girlfriend and he’s got no social skills and he was frustrated out of his brain,” a tearful Andrew Cauchi told the media on Monday outside his Rockville home, near Toowoomba.
That came as reports emerged that Cauchi had been seen at two other Westfield shopping centres around Sydney — Penrith and Parramatta — leading investigators to question if he may have also been scoping these out for a possible attack.
He also searched on the internet for knives and “how to kill” before he stabbed six people to death at Bondi Westfield on Saturday, police sources told A Current Affair.
The other victims have been identified as Chinese student Yixuan Cheng, artist Pikria Darchia, 55, Dawn Singleton, 25, the daughter of millionaire businessman John Singleton, Pakistani security guard Faraz Tahir, 30, and architect Jade Young, 47.
The attack left multiple people in hospitals spread across the city as of Tuesday afternoon.
“One female patient remains in ICU in a stable condition and one male patient is in a stable condition on a ward,” NSW Health said.
“Two patients are at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. One female is in ICU in a serious but stable condition and one male is in a stable condition on a ward. One female patient is at Royal North Shore Hospital in a stable condition on a ward.”
— with NCA NewsWire