Time line of a murderous rampage inside busy shopping centre

The first confirmed sighting of Joel Cauchi was outside a Woolworths supermarket. What unfolded next.

Police with the slain body of Joel Cauchi.after his deadly stabbing spree. Picture: Twitter

The first confirmed sighting of Joel Cauchi was outside a Woolworths supermarket. It was Saturday, roughly 3.30pm, and he was spotted by a witness on level three of the vast and sprawling Westfield in Bondi Junction.

The emergency alarms had been slow to activate, and by that time Cauchi was roaming free, a long knife clutched in his fist, his spree of attacks just beginning.

The first inkling of imminent threat was the sudden sight of shoppers running en masse for the exits, a scene that some witnesses figured for a prank.

What’s known so far is that Cauchi, an itinerant from Brisbane, a man with an interest in blades and a history of mental health concerns, had spent his morning nearby in the vicinity of the shopping centre.

He was captured on camera at 10.01am walking inside a Vietnamese restaurant, Saigon Noodle, a short walk from Westfield. He flicked through the menu and decided on a red chicken curry, but left shortly after because he was unable to pay for the meal, according to those who served him.

Two hours later Cauchi returned, having spent the intervening period in the inner-city region where police said he was known to hold storage space. Back at the restaurant, he reordered the meal and is known to have remained at the venue for 15 minutes. At this point he was thought to be carrying a knife in his backpack.

It’s 1pm by the time he walks out, but he won’t take his first steps inside Westfield until after 3pm, which is when he’ll be captured for the first time on the centre’s CCTV cameras entering and leaving the complex. Police said he entered at 3.10pm and returned approximately 20 minutes later. His movements and behaviours in between remain unaccounted for.

It’s a testament to the chaos of the afternoon that some witness accounts of what happened are a muddle of store names and locations. Some thought they saw bodies outside JD Sports, a shop located on level two in the centre, although it’s unclear if Cauchi ventured there at all. Others reported seeing injured people outside The Body Shop on level three, at a distance from Cauchi’s confirmed sighting near Woolworths.

What’s plain is that his attempts to access level four of the centre were stymied by a man with a bollard who confronted Cauchi at the escalators, footage of which has been shared widely online. Still, Cauchi clearly found a method of rerouting. In images circulated widely he’s seen jogging at pace through the centre, chasing after shoppers, eventually emerging from a set of escalators on level four where a majority of victims seem to have been encountered.

It’s here where Cauchi accelerated his attacks, striking people in the vicinity of Lululemon, Cotton On and Peter Alexander, a trio of stores located at the southern end of the complex. Blood stains and emergency equipment left behind in Tommy Hilfiger suggest he proceeded north thereafter.

Doors down outside Country Road, ambulance officers are thought to have attended to 38-year-old mother Ashlee Good, who rushed her bloodied nine-month-old baby into the arms of strangers sheltering nearby, these Samaritans using racked clothing to try to stanch the wounds.

Cauchi then appears to have crossed a pedestrian bridge separating the centre’s two towers, leaving two women suffering from slash wounds on the floor of a Chanel boutique. Footage of the scene depicted Inspector Scott performing CPR on a woman while centre security attended to the other victim.

But those images were captured some time after Inspector Scott neutralised Cauchi on the fifth floor. He’d seemingly jogged away from the Chanel boutique, heading west to a set of escalators near Zara, emerging on the floor above outside Superdry and Cotton On Kids and pursuing a man who lost his footing next to a Boost Juice kiosk.

This is where Cauchi’s madness reached its end. Inspector Scott, approaching from behind, shouted that he drop his weapon before discharging a bullet into his chest. But this, too, was after Cauchi turned and raised the knife at her, according to Assistant Commissioner Tony Cooke.