The parents of the Bondi Junction killer have spoken of his descent from country school kid to national “monster,” against the backdrop of untreated mental illness.
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.
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.
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. “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.
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.
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