New South Wales police are investigating if Bondi Junction killer Joel Cauchi deliberately targeted women and children as the New South Wales government announces a coronial inquiry into the stabbings.
While a motive is not yet known, police commissioner Karen Webb on Monday confirmed investigators would look at if Cauchi had been targeting women and children specifically.
Webb said videos of the incident that had quickly spread online “speak for themselves”.
“It’s obvious to me, it’s obvious to detectives that seems to be an area of interest – that the offender had focused on women and avoided the men,” she said.
Police have also been speaking with Cauchi’s family and people who knew him from Queensland and who may have interacted with him in NSW before the rampage.
Cauchi’s Queensland-based father, Andrew, said his mentally unwell son had been a “very sick boy” since he was a teenager and the family had done “everything in my power” to help him.
“He is my son and I am loving a monster,” he said.
“To you, he is a monster. To me, he was a very sick boy.”
Andrew said his son had been taken off medication “because he was doing so well but then he just took off to Brisbane”.
His mother, Michele, said her heart went out to those her son had hurt.
“He was brought up in love,” she said.
“If he was in his right mind he would be absolutely devastated with what he has done.”
Cauchi’s interactions with police and other government agencies including medical professionals in both states will be looked at closely when a coronial inquiry into the incident begins following an $18m injection from the state government.
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, has also ordered a review of the powers held by security guards, while ruling out handing them firearms or stun guns.
“Families are in mourning today, lives have been devastated as a result of these criminal actions and we think about those families,” he said.
“The people who were killed were … innocent people who had their entire lives ahead of them. The community is devastated in the knowledge of their loss, whether we were personally known to those who were killed or not.”
Floral tributes continued to grow outside the eastern suburbs shopping centre that also serves as a service and transport hub for residents and tourists heading to Sydney’s famous beaches including Bondi.
The Sydney Opera House was on Monday night lit up with a black ribbon to mourn and honour the victims.
The families of the six Sydney stabbing victims are being offered time to walk through the shopping centre where their loved ones were murdered on Saturday before it reopens to the public.
Emotional residents and loved ones lay flowers at the site during a visit from Westfield’s parent company Scentre Group chief executive Elliott Rusanow on Monday.
Rusanow said management had been working with police and victims’ families to facilitate visits to the centre that was handed from police to its owners on Monday morning.
“Being able to facilitate the families of the victims to be able to come and pay their respects … that will determine the timing of when and how the centre reopens,” he said.
Family members of refugee and guard Faraz Tahir who died trying to keep others safe are expected to land in Sydney later this week.
Fellow foreign national and University of Sydney student Yixuan Cheng was the last victim to be identified on Monday.
A Chinese Australian-based media outlet has quoted Cheng’s fiance as saying he had spoken to her shortly before the attack.
“She happily spoke to me at around 3pm and tried on clothes to show me, but I didn’t realise that the attack happened when she hung up the phone,” said the man, surnamed Wang.
Wang said as soon as he heard news of the attack his “heart was thumping” and he tried to call Cheng back but she didn’t pick up. He said he and her family were glued to the news, praying for her safety, until they received a call from the Chinese embassy.
A spokesperson for the embassy said they had been “deeply shocked and saddened” by the death and said another Chinese national was seriously injured in the attack.
“We extend our deep condolences to the victims and our heartfelt sympathies to their families, and wish early recovery to the injured,” the spokesperson said.
On Monday, eight people remained in hospital including victim Ashlee Good’s baby, whose condition had improved since Sunday.
