In Toowoomba, Queensland, Mr. Cauchi’s father, Andrew Cauchi, was asked by news reporters gathered outside his home why his son, who had not been in regular contact with his family, may have targeted women.
The older Mr. Cauchi said it could have been out of frustration from his inability to date women.
“He wanted a girlfriend, and he’s got no social skills, and he was frustrated out of his brains,” the older Mr. Cauchi told local news media.
Tessa Boyd-Caine, chief executive officer of Australia’s National Research Organization for Women’s Safety, said it was understandable for people to reach for a gender-based explanation in the immediate aftermath of the attack. At the same time, she cautioned that the vast majority of cases of violence against women occur in the home and at the hands of people they know, rather than indiscriminately, as in Saturday’s attack.
“How do we make sense of a random act of such brutal, fatal violence, by a man who police are considering might have targeted women?” she said. “It’s such an early stage of the investigation, but people are going to want to know answers to difficult questions.”
By Monday, all six victims killed in Saturday’s stabbings had been identified. The women were Ashlee Good, a 38-year-old new mother; Jade Young, 47, a mother of two daughters; Dawn Singleton, 25, a fashion employee; Pikria Darchia, 55, an artist and designer; and Yixuan Cheng, a Chinese citizen studying in Sydney. The lone male was Faraz Tahir, 30, a security guard and a recent arrival from Pakistan.
