From an aspiring teacher, keen to meet others, to a murderous loner

Like many people, Joel Cauchi first experienced mental health problems as a teenager. He has been remembered as a normal-enough kid, in turn-of-the-century Toowoomba, if a little socially awkward.

His parents were people of faith, craving a simpler life. He initially sought to become a teacher, and they helped him graduate and keep his health issues under control. And yet he would never work in a school, nor have children of his own.

Andrew and Michele Cauchi have extended their condolences to the victims of their son, Joel (centre), in the Bondi Junction killings.Credit: Composite from supplied pictures

At various times, as a young adult, Cauchi would be remembered – posthumously – as “weird”, even “disturbed”. But, like many people, his life seemed to ebb and flow. It was only in his later years that Cauchi’s fascination with knives would become a lasting memory – and, perhaps now, a red flag.

It wasn’t until Cauchi was 40, dead after committing a murderous rampage at a busy shopping centre in Sydney, that his childhood diagnosis became a matter of public interest. It wasn’t until the weekend, when his family learned he had slaughtered people at a shopping centre, that his gradual decline became a topic of national debate. It wasn’t until this week, as grieving families and friends tried to make sense of his senseless crimes, that people would be looking for any sign that Cauchi’s first and only rampage could have been prevented.

“This is so horrendous that I can’t even explain it,” Cauchi’s father Andrew said on Monday, as he reluctantly fielded questions from the media in Toowoomba.

In a frank and wide-ranging exchange, an at-times distraught Andrew Cauchi suggested his son’s decline started when he stopped taking his prescribed psychotropic medication and moved to the city.

“To you he’s a monster, but to me he was a very sick boy,” Andrew Cauchi said, adding that he did not recognise the man who killed six people in Bondi Junction on Saturday.

Queensland police say there was a schizophrenia diagnosis at age 17, when Cauchi was in year 12 at Harristown State High School. In his parents’ initial statement, distributed by police media, they said he had “battled with mental health issues since he was a teenager”.

Outside their modest home on Monday, the Cauchis were adamant that for many years their son had his schizophrenia under control. His mother, Michele, said the medication made him feel ill, but he was doing so well his doctors agreed to let him gradually reduce his dosage.

“My heart goes out to the people he has hurt,” Michele Cauchi said, stoic and well-spoken.

“If he was in his right mind he would be absolutely devastated by what he has done.”

Queensland Health has confirmed that, by the time Cauchi was 29, he was being treated privately by a psychiatrist, no longer needing the public sector.

By the time he was in his mid-30s, when his former school friends had families, Cauchi had moved away from home. Michele Cauchi said her son, no longer feeling the negative effects of medication, “wanted to have a life”. But he also left his psychiatrist behind, and she concedes she was worried.

An unemployed Cauchi travelled to Brisbane and started adding to an online profile that is now being pored over by investigators. In March 2020, Cauchi was looking for a life drawing class – free, preferably small – in Brisbane. The next month, he wanted to learn languages from Russian and German speakers. By October of that year, he was seeking companions to do “some travel to a few beaches, maybe the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast or an Island”. And then he asked an outdoors group if he could meet with “people who shoot guns, including handguns”.

Facebook posts and reviews from Joel Cauchi, the Bondi Junction killer.

Within months, Cauchi was leaving a review for a Brisbane knife sharpener, who he claimed had blunted his instruments. But he would also leave glowing reviews for a gelati shop in Noosa, cafes in Kangaroo Point, Byron Bay, Cronulla, Newtown and Toowoomba.

In Toowoomba, some women who had spent time with Cauchi suggest he was unremarkable, and they didn’t feel in danger. His mother Michele insisted that, despite what people might claim, her son previously had friends. His father Andrew – who acknowledged his son appeared to have deliberately targeted women in the knife attack – said he also desperately wanted a girlfriend.

“He has no social skills and he’s frustrated out of his brain,” Andrew Cauchi said, at times referring to his own trouble with other people, and even a psychiatric assessment after he lost his temper once.

Queensland acting Assistant Commissioner Roger Lowe said the majority of contact police had with Cauchi had been since 2000, when it appeared his mental health started to decline. But nothing was so serious as to warrant charges or ongoing monitoring.

“We have people in our society who suffer from mental health,” Lowe said.

“They go about their days without causing these types of crimes. Mental health in society is not a crime.

“We do not run an intelligence regime on persons who suffer from mental health. There would only be an exchange of information if a person were to present such a security risk in society that we would need to monitor that behaviour.”

Based on his Facebook history alone, Cauchi seems to have travelled the east coast in recent years, and spent time in Sydney and Melbourne, often seeking to meet new people and have new experiences. By mid-2023, when he left a review for the Minx Gentleman’s Club in Sydney, he was advertising himself as an escort for men, women and couples.

Yet in June, NSW police had reason to stop him in The Rocks, where they believe he had been sleeping rough. At other times he had stayed in backpacker hostels, or sharehouses.

Joel Cauchi in an undated photo, used on his Facebook profile, from a surfing lesson at Noosa.Credit: Facebook

By September, Cauchi was interested in naturist places around Melbourne, and in October said he wanted to “learn how to use a surfboard” from someone in Sydney. He later joined another online singles group.

In December, he asked a south-east Queensland astrophotography group about any coming workshops. He was based in Surfers Paradise at the time, where he again came to the attention of Queensland police. He was searched for a knife, during a routine wanding patrol in the tourist hotspot, but on that occasion was not carrying one.

At some point, he returned home to Toowoomba. His father took combat knives off him, prompting Cauchi to complain to police, and his father to insist he wasn’t stealing them.

Andrew Cauchi said he told police his son had schizophrenia, and told a friend he was worried he was going to be “killed in my own house by my own son with an American US Army combat knife”. But, on Monday, he insisted he was not critical of police, and still did not believe his son was capable of such violence.

For most of this year, Cauchi is believed to have been back in Sydney, living in his car, possibly in a storage unit. He sought friends and transport through a backpackers group, remained interested in astrophotography, and was still looking for people to learn languages from. There weren’t many replies.

Last week, Cauchi asked a Facebook group for beginner surfers and adventurers if anyone wanted to surf with him at Bondi. About the same time, he changed his profile photo to an older portrait in a wetsuit getting surfing lessons at Noosa. His relationship status was still ‘single’, he still didn’t have a job, and his parents hadn’t heard from him in weeks.

By Saturday night, Cauchi’s online presence was terrifying and final, leaving nothing open to interpretation. Through posts from strangers, and the media, Cauchi would be remembered as an unshaven, sinewy, seemingly composed man in a rugby league jersey and shorts, hunting random women with a knife in the Bondi Junction Westfield.

“I love my son, I’d give my life for him,” Andrew Cauchi said on Monday, attempting to explain the life of a parent with an unwell child but unable to explain his actions.

“How do you love a monster?”

Michele Cauchi told the media she was “having trouble becoming lucid, and I’m trying to keep my son from getting upset”. She then corrected herself, to say she was trying to protect her husband, who has high blood pressure.

“I don’t have a son any more,” she said.

If you or anyone you know needs help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 (and see lifeline.org.au) or Beyond Blue on1300 22 4636 (and see beyondblue.org.au).