Joel Cauchi is revealed to have stalked other shopping centres and Googled 'how to kill' before Westfield Bondi Junction stabbing rampage
- Joel Cauchi, 40, killed six people
- Murderer had researched killing
- Also stalked other shopping malls
- READ MORE: Stabbing victim's final phone call to fiancé
The Westfield Bondi Junction knifeman had reportedly researched killing and stalked other shopping centres before his stabbing spree.
Joel Cauchi, 40, fatally stabbed six people and injured at least 12 more in a violent rampage at the busy Sydney shopping centre on Saturday afternoon.
The killer's distraught family have spoken about his long battle with mental illness and his obsession with knives.
His mother, Michele, said on Monday that her son was 'obviously not in his right mind'.
'He somehow had been triggered into psychosis and he'd lost touch with reality,' she said.
But now it has emerged Cauchi's rampage may not have been a spur-of-the-moment attack and he may have been planning it for weeks.
Joel Cauchi (pictured), 40, fatally stabbed six people and injured at least 12 more in a violent rampage at the busy shopping centre on Saturday afternoon
He had reportedly researched killing and stalked other shopping centres before his stabbing spree
Cauchi had been googling 'killing' before the attack.
'I have learned today that the investigators have been able to download data from his phone, which has indicated that he had a fixation with killings,' Simon Bouda, A Current Affair's crime editor, revealed.
'He also had a fixation with knives. That tells us it wasn't a spur of the moment attack.
'Beforehand, he was thinking about killing, and that is terribly frightening.'
Cauchi had been spotted at Westfield shopping centres in Penrith and Parramatta, in Sydney's west, in recent weeks.
'What was going through his mind?', Mr Bouda asked.
Cauchi had been spotted at Westfield shopping centres in Penrith (pictured above) and Parramatta (below), in Sydney's west, in recent weeks
Westfield Parramatta is pictured
'Was he checking out other locations that he may have decided appropriate for what he wanted to do? Was he just visiting? Who knows.'
Mr Bouda also revealed that police are hoping the CCTV footage from within Westfield Bondi Junction is never released to the public because it is so 'chilling'.
'It is so horrendous and cold and callous that the police don't want it to become public,' Mr Bouda said.
Six people - five women and one male security guard - were killed in Cauchi's stabbing rampage, while several others were injured.
On Monday, Cauchi's parents said he was a diagnosed schizophrenic who had lived at home with them until he was 35 in Toowoomba, southern Queensland.
His life went off the rails when he tried to get off his anti-psychotic medication because 'he wanted to have a life' - but instead triggered his psychosis, said his parents.
'How do you love a monster? Give birth to them!' tearful dad Andrew Cauchi said.
'I loved my son. But he had a fascination with knives.
'He had five or six army commando knives. He had a problem with women, he couldn't get a girlfriend.'
