Cauchi,40,was unshaven,wearing a Kangaroos rugby league jersey and shorts,and sneakers,and carrying a dark backpack. CCTV showed he left the centre briefly before returning about 3.20pm. He then drew a long-bladed knife from his pack.
Over the,Cauchi stabbed up to 18 people as he roamed the shopping centre,chasing and lunging at some people and seeming to veer away from others. Six people were killed and 12 received treatment in hospitals..
Cauchi,who experienced psychotic episodes and had a penchant for sharp knives,had moved to Sydney about a month ago from Queensland. He was first seen on Saturday morning calmly ordering a red curry with chicken at Saigon Noodle,an Oxford Street eatery just east of the Westfield complex at 10.05am.
A worker at the shop,Rogate Sianipar,said Cauchi seemed confused when he realised he had no money to pay for his curry. He returned at 12.22pm,paid for his last meal,and moved on. At 1pm,he was seen on CCTV leaving Daiso,a Japanese variety shop on the Oxford Street mall.
Police are still piecing together the sequence of chaotic and horrifying events that took place between 3.20pm,when Cauchi entered the indoor shopping centre for the final time,and about 3.45pm,when police inspector Amy Scott shot him dead.
Many people saw a fragment of the events,just enough to suggest something horrifying was taking place as they ran for the exits or were hustled towards shop stockrooms to take shelter. Others filmed what they could and shared images on social media in near-real time as the murderer moved around the complex.
Cauchi appears to have entered the complex on level three – level with the pedestrian mall outside – and commenced his attack there.
In the early stages of his attack,shoppers were still entering the centre,to be confronted by gruesome scenes. Geoff Young arrived at 3.30pm with his toddler in a pram. He said he saw three women lying bleeding on the ground outside a Country Road shop. “A lady is lying on the ground and a guy is saying,‘Stay with me,stay with me’ and she is white,” Young said.
Footage taken near the beginning of Cauchi’s attack shows him running and jogging through the centre,lunging erratically at some people and seeming to ignore others.
A mother ushered her three children away,walking quickly but not in a state of panic. Other shoppers seemed oblivious as the man holding a knife with a blade about 30 centimetres long jogged past.
Cauchi was seen chasing one person,lunging at another and then stopping short and veering away when a larger man partially blocked his path.
Witnesses described the awful scenes after Cauchi stabbed mother Ashlee Good and her nine-month-old daughter.
“She comes back to the pram and picks up her baby and there’s just blood all over her back,” a shopping mall worker told Nine News. “The scream was unforgettable. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Two brothers helped stem the baby’s bleeding using shirts from a nearby clothing store. “The mum got stabbed and the mum came over with the baby and threw it at me and[I] was holding the baby. I was holding the baby – it looked pretty bad.”
Good,38,died of her injuries after being taken to St Vincent’s Hospital. Her baby daughter is in intensive care.
Dawn Singleton,the 25-year-old daughter of advertising executive John Singleton,was among those killed.
Jade Young,a mother of two daughters from Bellevue Hill,also died at the scene.
Two security guards at the centre,a man and a woman whose name has not been released,were also among those who were stabbed and died at the shopping centre. The male security guard was Faraz Tahir,30,who arrived as a refugee from Pakistan about a year ago. He was working his first day shift at the centre.
By Sunday evening,a fifth victim’s name was revealed:Pikria Darchia,55,from Tbilisi in Georgia. She was an artist with two sons.
A brave bystander fended off Cauchi for a time as he sought to use an escalator to travel up to the complex’s fourth level,holding a bollard base-first towards the murderer. It is unclear how that confrontation ended. Cauchi reached the fourth level soon after and the man with the bollard was later seen,apparently having armed himself with a metal chair,guiding police towards the attacker.
Several of Cauchi’s attacks took place on level four of the shopping centre’s southern wing,on the south side of Oxford Street,among stores including Myer,Chanel and lululemon.
Emergency calls began flooding in to triple zero by 3.30pm. Alarms in the centre were activated,billboards began displaying an evacuation message,and pedestrian traffic thinned out markedly as people ran for their lives.
At some point,Cauchi crossed the enclosed pedestrian bridge that links the mall’s southern wing to its northern section. There he was confronted by Inspector Amy Scott.
Scott,a senior officer in Eastern Suburbs Area Command,had been supervising other routine police operations nearby when the call came in. She immediately ran to the scene.
CCTV footage taken at 3.38pm shows her running towards where Cauchi was believed to be,followed by four members of the public,one of whom was carrying a metal chair.
Scott confronted Cauchi on level five of the centre,near a Kmart outlet and in front of Eckersley’s Art&Craft store.
Witnesses have given slightly different accounts of what took place,with unverified reports of either one,two or three shots fired.
Rakesh Sanga,33,said he heard shouting outside his clothing alterations shop next door to Eckersley’s. He said the attacker threw the knife towards a mobile store and was shot by a policewoman. “I think she shot like two times or three times,” he said. He estimated the time tentatively as 3.50pm or 3.45pm,though other accounts put the incident slightly earlier,closer to 3.40pm.
Another witness,Jason Dixon,said Scott called out a warning before firing:“All she said was:‘Put it down.’ Just once. Then she shot him in the chest and he went down.”
NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Tony Cooke said:“This all happened very,very quickly.
“The officer was in the near vicinity,attended on her own,was guided to the location of the offender by people who were in the centre and she took the actions that she did,saving a range of people’s lives.
“He turned,faced her,raised a knife,she discharged a firearm and that person is now deceased.”
If you or anyone you know needs help,call Lifeline on 13 11 14 (and see) or Beyond Blue on1300 22 4636 (and see).