Joel Cauchi revealed to have stalked other malls and Googled ‘how to kill’ before Westfield Bondi Junction stabbing

The Westfield Bondi Junction knifeman had reportedly investigated murders and stalked other shopping centers before his stabbing.

Joel Cauchi, 40, fatally stabbed six people and injured at least 12 more in a violent rampage in the busy Sydney shopping center on Saturday afternoon.

The killer’s distraught family have spoken of 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 had somehow been triggered into psychosis and he had lost touch with reality,” she said.

But now it has emerged that Cauchi’s vandalism may not have been an attack, and he may have been planning it for weeks.

He had reportedly investigated homicides and stalked other malls before his stabbing

Cauchi had googled ‘murder’ before the attack.

“I have learned today that investigators have been able to download data from his phone which has indicated that he had a fixation with murder,” revealed Simon Bouda, A Current Affairs crime editor.

“He also had a fixation with knives. That tells us it wasn’t a spur of the moment attack.

“Beforehand, he thought about killing, and that’s terribly scary.”

Cauchi had been seen at Westfield shopping centers in Penrith and Parramatta, in Sydney’s west, in recent weeks.

‘What was going through his head?’ asked Mr Bouda.

Cauchi had been spotted at Westfield shopping centers in Penrith (pictured above) and Parramatta (below) in Sydney’s west in recent weeks

Westfield Parramatta is pictured

“Did he check out other places that he might have decided were appropriate for what he wanted to do? Was he just visiting? Who knows.’

Bouda also revealed that police hope the CCTV footage from Westfield Bondi Junction is never released to the public because it is so ‘chilling’.

“It’s so horrible and cold and hard that the police don’t want it to become public,” Bouda said.

Six people — five women and a male security guard — were killed in Cauchi’s stabbing, while several others were injured.

On Monday, Cauchi’s parents said he was a diagnosed schizophrenic who had lived with them until he was 35 in Toowoomba, south Queensland.

His life was derailed when he tried to come off his anti-psychotic medication because ‘he wanted a life’ – but instead triggered his psychosis, his parents said.

‘How do you love a monster? Feed them!’ said tearful father Andrew Cauchi.

‘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’.