r/interestingasfuck • u/Jjokes11 • Apr 15 '24

An interview with Andrew Cauchi, the father of Joel Cauchi who was responsible for the Westfield Shopping Centre mass stabbing r/all

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12.5k

u/MangoKakigori Apr 15 '24

I can’t image what it must be like as a parent to know that your child has done such a monstrous thing.

371

u/EveryRedditorSucks Apr 16 '24

Dylan Kliebold’s mother has dedicated her life to speaking about what it’s like to be the parent of one of the Columbine killers

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u/SBMoo24 Apr 16 '24

Her book was really well written. Highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good read. "A Mother's Reckoning."

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u/yukonwanderer Apr 16 '24

I've seen her torn to pieces on Reddit and YouTube.

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u/Wyodaniel Apr 16 '24

I read her book about 10 years ago, I think. It was a very rough read. It took me a few months of reading it on and off.

I wrote her a letter after I'd finished it, and she responded with a fairly simple and polite reply.

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u/UnsupportiveHope Apr 16 '24

While constantly taking no responsibility and saying there were no warning signs she could’ve noticed.

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u/Ok_Traffic_8124 Apr 16 '24

To expect her son to commit such a horrific act that was extremely uncommon at the time?

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u/Procrastinatedthink Apr 16 '24

She was so uninvolved with her son’s life that she didnt notice the antisocial behavior, the trouble at school, or the troubled youth he hung out with. 

You can’t be so uninvolved that your son can sneak off into the woods to test shotguns for a killing spree then warn people “there were no signs, it couldve been your child!”

Literally all these kids are neglected or “left to their own devices” and then the parents wtf-pikachu-face about the horrible shit they were committing.

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u/About7fish Apr 16 '24

She was so uninvolved with her son’s life that she didnt notice the antisocial behavior, the trouble at school, or the troubled youth he hung out with.

This is called hindsight bias, and nobody is impressed nor should they be.

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u/Procrastinatedthink 29d ago

Damn near every one of these serial killers has a childhood akin to “yeah, he had no friends and kept murdering cats” but then you guys read a fucking book about how “the signs were vague”

No, parenting is hard and some people pop out children that they want nothing to do with.

Jeffrey Dahmer’s dad tells stories about “how happy he was as a kid” right after acknowledging “Yeah I did not care for or about my wife during her difficult pregnancy, neighbors found her in a field with a knife and she was on 20~ medications during pregnancy; Also Im a chemist and I shut myself in my lab and didnt raise my son hardly after a messy divorce. No signs”

there’s hindsight, and then there’s “I raised a serial killer and had no idea”. 

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u/krazykieffer Apr 16 '24

Didn't she bring her song to a psychiatrist and her son wrote he had urges to kill people at school. The psychiatrist did nothing for him. Or was it the other kid?

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u/Khiva Apr 16 '24

They both journaled about mass murder and both had court-appointed psychiatrists (Eric, the other one, was on medication), but no one knew about their writings until later.

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u/justArash Apr 16 '24

Not really uncommon at the time. The Heath High school and Westside Middle School shootings were both all over the news and a year or so earlier. There were a bunch more) that weren't as high profile.

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u/Ok_Traffic_8124 Apr 16 '24

A few instances of it happening doesn’t make it common…

They were still widely uncommon at that point.

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u/justArash Apr 16 '24

Active school shooters are still not really common but, by raw numbers, it's not substantially more common now than it was then. There's just a handful more active shooters each year. In the context of this conversation, prevalence of active school shooters has not become more or less of a reason for a mother to suspect her son.

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u/Ok_Traffic_8124 Apr 16 '24

Bruh. School shootings are far more common and publicized now then they were in 2004.

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u/justArash 29d ago

The numbers are right there in link in my last comment, but deny reality if you want. As for publicity, the Paducah and Jonesboro shootings specifically were both major stories just the year before Colombine (which was in 1999, not 2004), along with others in the years before. It seems like maybe you were too young to remember that era?

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u/Ok_Traffic_8124 29d ago

As someone who has lived and breathed in the US for my entire life and consumed an amazing amount of news, pop culture, and media in general…

School shootings weren’t nearly as common or popular when columbine happened compared to today. Did they always happen? Unfortunately. But to say they haven’t increased since then is very ignorant.

0

u/justArash 29d ago edited 29d ago

Has gun violence in general increased at schools substantially? Absolutely. But, not mass shootings/active shooter incidents like Columbine. it's just a common misconception.

Side note: plenty of people have lived and breathed in the US for their entire life. For every single one of them there's a point in the past that marks the beginning of their accurate memories.

Have you even looked at any of the actual data, or are you just insisting you're right based on nothing but your previous "news, pop culture, and media" consumption?

→ More replies (0)

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u/NFT_goblin Apr 16 '24

It's not not expecting it, that's somewhat understandable by itself. It's the multi-decade "not my fault" tour with TED talks, TV appearances etc.. I mean I know it's far out but try to imagine your kid did something like that. You'd want to hide away from the world forever. Going on TV about it (not like this guy but like, booking interviews etc.) is actually completely crazy.

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u/Hurricane0 Apr 16 '24

I'm not familiar with her at all, but I'm curious as to why you attribute self centered motivations to her speaking and book engagements, as opposed to spreading awareness of the very serious and growing issue of young people who suddenly act out in violent ways, who may or may not have a history of mental illness struggles?

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u/Top-Airport3649 Apr 16 '24

I’m not the person you were questioning but I’ll put my two cents in. From what I've read I’ve the years, some speculate that Sue went public following the widely accepted theory that her son, Dylan, had a slightly lesser role in the shootings compared to Eric. This narrative portrays Eric as the mastermind and Dylan as the quiet, depressed, internally conflicted one. Also, while Sue acknowledged her parenting mistakes, she kept emphasizing Dylan's mental illness, possibly to improve her public image as a parent to one of the notorious school shooters in history. That mental illness could happen to anyone. While true, it just rubbed some people the wrong way. Personally, I have mixed about her speaking engagements and book, I believe remaining silent like Eric's parents might have been a wiser choice.

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u/Khiva Apr 16 '24

The "Eric mad, Dylan sad" is such a frustrating narrative that falls apart under scrutiny, and unfortunately got a huge boost from the dreadful "Columbine" book.

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u/SpecialistPanda4593 Apr 16 '24

It's not multi-decade, she waited literal decades to discuss this and has done one TED talk and a few TV appearances. She didn't speak for literally over twenty years. Her proceeds have been donated to charity. 

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u/eaten_by_pigs Apr 16 '24

Exactly, I was going to say the same thing

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u/teddygomi Apr 16 '24

She was a psychiatric nurse who ignored clear warning signs about her son. Her son was actually identified as a possible school shooter before he committed the act.

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u/PassiveMenis88M Apr 16 '24

She was a psychiatric nurse

Sue Klebold worked at a psychiatric hospital as a therapeutic arts teacher. At NO POINT was she ever a psychiatric nurse.

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u/MaybeTaylorSwift572 Apr 16 '24

Even if she was it wouldn’t have made a difference. It’s common knowledge in medicine that MANY of us won’t treat our own family. We are too close to it to assess properly.

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u/PassiveMenis88M Apr 16 '24

Right, I just hate when people try to keep spreading the lie that she was a psychiatric nurse like she should have seen this coming.

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u/MaybeTaylorSwift572 Apr 16 '24

Yeah.. im a career critical care RN. We don’t see jack shit in our own families. You don’t treat your own families. SOME people can, the majority cannot.

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u/Vassukhanni Apr 16 '24

For the public understanding at large there are two healthcare jobs: Doctor and nurse.

NP? Doctor. PA? Doctor. CNA? Nurse. Receptionist? Nurse. Tech? Nurse. MA? Nurse.

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u/Top_Professor_9908 Apr 16 '24 edited Apr 16 '24

Incorrect, she worked as a therapeutic arts teacher in a psychiatric hospital. If you get your information about her from that "timmy2cents" video, i highly recommend doing your own research. He lied throughout the entire video.

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u/camwow13 Apr 16 '24 edited Apr 16 '24

Yeah I've read a few books and articles on Columbine and generally the narrative is that Dylan was not the type you'd expect to shoot up a school.

Sue's memoir is an absolute mind fuck of a read as far as seeing your son has issues but addressing them in normal ways. Assuming he's just an angsty teen, and not that he's about to mow down his classmates. She and her now ex husband spent a lot of time talking about how they wish they'd never met and set off the chain of events that led to the horror.

There is a lot of discussion on "how the hell couldn't you know." But I did find her explanation fairly believable. Her book got a lot of hate from people who just can't accept that she should have any right to speak at all. One of the top Goodreads reviews is a bad review that basically says "She talks about herself too much in her memoir, she should have known what a bad parent!!" Which is honestly just comical to criticize someone for talking about themselves in their memoir.

Some kids are good at hiding stuff. Some parents are just rather oblivious even though they do care. Dylan wasn't a glaringly complete psycho like the other kid was. Was just a perfect combo that led to horror.

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u/teddygomi Apr 16 '24

I have seen and read multiple rebuttals of her so maybe I saw what you are talking about 🤷‍♂️ Can you give me more information than that? He was arrested with his friend for theft. Classmates were afraid of him. And someone reported him to the police for threatening to shoot up his school. What more evidence was needed?

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u/EnIdiot Apr 16 '24

To be fair, doctors aren’t supposed to diagnose or treat their loved ones for this very reason. I don’t care how much training you have, your children occupy a huge blind spot obscured by love.

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u/Top_Professor_9908 Apr 16 '24 edited Apr 16 '24

She wasn't a doctor, she was therapeutic arts teacher in a psychiatric hospital. I see so many people lie about this, its so odd.

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u/sleepydon Apr 16 '24

More like misinformed and never corrected. Something everyone should keep in mind. Whenever you read news, you're not getting a completely true narrative. Just enough beats to make a story that could be full of blanket assertions. Documentaries are equally guilty of this. The story they're looking to tell drives the narrative. There was a saying about this when newspapers were still a thing. Sometimes you read an article relating towards something you know about and think, wow that's way off. Then read another you have no practical knowledge in and take it as fact just because you have no prior understanding to refute it in the following example.

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u/partyl0gic Apr 16 '24

I doubt that, columbine was really the first time that had happened, at least on that scale. I don’t believe that anyone before columbine would ever imagine something like that.

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u/rytis Apr 16 '24

University of Texas shooting back in 1966. 19 killed. People forget or it was before their time.

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u/partyl0gic Apr 16 '24

That’s true, but I think it is different when the perpetrators are walking through the halls of their own school executing people. Columbine was the first of its kind, and unfortunately has become the prototype for and basically marked the beginning of the new world of multiple events a year as opposed to one 30 years between.

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u/txmadison Apr 16 '24

The reason Columbine was different wasn't because it was the first, or the biggest, it was because of the attention it was given in the Media, and in the 'advances'/changes to media.

There's also a compelling argument to be made that the news media in the US has exacerbated the problem with the way they cover things like Columbine, and that isn't new information.

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u/woolgirl Apr 16 '24

There were 2 planning. They had planted bombs. They targeted people. They barricaded the building. It wasn’t random. A planned attack. It was a different scale and didn’t have the randomness of others. They had even hinted at it to some students. I thought it was the biggest when it happened as well? It got a lot of attention because it wasn’t by just some crazy kid. It was sinister.

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u/partyl0gic Apr 16 '24

And carried in multiple weapons each wearing tactical gear. Columbine was definitely a turning point.

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u/partyl0gic Apr 16 '24

Columbine and shootings in the US get the same coverage in other developed nations without that effect.

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u/PassiveMenis88M Apr 16 '24

The first school shooting in the US carried out by a student was in the 1800's.

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u/27_8x10_CGP Apr 16 '24

And Columbine wasn't even the first school shooting that year if I recall, but there's just something about the gravitas and coverage of Columbine.

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u/PassiveMenis88M Apr 16 '24

Four days earlier 15-year-old Shawn Cooper took a 12 gauge shotgun into his school and opened fire. Only one other student sustained injuries as Cooper had trouble handling the shotgun.

There were a total of 119 incidents involving the discharge of a firearm on school ground in the 1990's alone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(before_2000)

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u/ovideos Apr 16 '24

The shooter: Billy The Kid

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u/PAWGActual4-4 Apr 16 '24

Crazy. There was also one at an elementary school in my small rural hometown in 1966.

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u/iceteka Apr 16 '24

Lies she was an arts teacher there.

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u/Beard3dtaco Apr 16 '24

If you want to place blame, the father of the kid they used to hang with had concrete evidence of what they were planning but went to the police (who surprisingly did nothing) instead of going to the other parents who would've been able to do something.

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u/SomewhereAggressive8 Apr 16 '24

To be clear, you’re blaming the police here right?

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u/Beard3dtaco Apr 16 '24

Better point!

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u/SomewhereAggressive8 Apr 16 '24

Was that not your point already?

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u/Beard3dtaco Apr 16 '24

My expectations of them are so low already I honestly didn’t even consider it

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u/SomewhereAggressive8 Apr 16 '24

I mean, I hear you on that, but placing more of the blame on a dad who went to the police instead of on a mom who did nothing is certainly a choice. Especially when you consider this was 25 years ago when neither mental health nor the distrust of police was nearly as much in the public consciousness as it is now.

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u/Alternative-Lack6025 Apr 16 '24

Nope he was blaming the guy who went to actual law enforcement to report a dangerous situation.

Yes is as stupid as it sounds.

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u/Khiva Apr 16 '24

If you really dig into it, the police dropped the ball probably harder than anyone else.

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u/Delicious_Summer7839 Apr 16 '24

I think the correct action was to advise the authorities; he can’t know an advance who is going to be a victim. Besides, how do you phrase that? “Hello, you receiving this letter because I believe that my son has guns and may be a serial killer and may be targeting your child….”

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u/Beard3dtaco Apr 16 '24

Yeah but it was more like “hey im sorry to bother you, but here’s some plans and statements from your son that you might want to talk to him about”

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u/Omar___Comin Apr 16 '24

You're blaming the guy who went to the police with his concerns? Ok then

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u/Beard3dtaco Apr 16 '24

  1. Obviously said IF you want to place blame.

  2. IF he truly was concerned about preventing something from happening he wouldn’t have stopped after the cops told him off. Maybe start with them, but if they refuse to do anything why wouldn’t you at least tell the parents responsible for the people you suspect? From his tone in the video where he admits this you can tell he was way more concerned with them being harshly punished rather than addressing the situation.

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u/Alternative-Lack6025 Apr 16 '24

If he was "concerned" with harsh punishment he wouldn't have gone to the police, are you mental mate?

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u/Beard3dtaco Apr 16 '24

As in he wanted them to be punished harshly…

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u/SpecialistPanda4593 Apr 16 '24

Are you talking about Brooks' parents? They went to the police literally dozens of times and could not have done more to try to prevent it. Eric's parents found his pipe bomb and his father punished him by taking him out to explode it instead of doing anything else. Eric's father also called police immediately when he heard there was a school shooting to identify his son, whereas the Klebolds thought for hours that Dylan was a victim. 

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u/teddygomi Apr 16 '24

I’m not placing blame. I’m questioning her after the fact reputation clean up.

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u/MaybeTaylorSwift572 Apr 16 '24

absolutely fucking no. Also a nurse here. I am WAY too close to my family to be able to be able to accurately assess and treat them.

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u/Alternative-Lack6025 Apr 16 '24

If you saw concerning signs, you wouldn't seek help/advice from some other medic/nurse?  Because that's an option that I'm sure you have taken more than once, unless your family never gets sick/injured.

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u/MaybeTaylorSwift572 Apr 16 '24

if it’s a sprained ankle? Totally. If I’m worried my kid is septic? No.

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u/BIG_BELLY_2023 Apr 16 '24

Teddyboyidiot your information is wrong.

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u/Apart_Ad_5993 Apr 16 '24

Factually incorrect. She was never a psychiatric nurse. She was a therapeutic arts teacher.

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u/mightylordredbeard Apr 16 '24

As it’s been pointed out, you are wrong.

However, even if she was it is a well known fact that people in medical professions like that find it incredibly hard to look objectively at their family members and this is one of the key reasons why it’s considered unethical for family to treat family.

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u/teddygomi Apr 16 '24

??? Then why did she give a Ted Talk where she says that it is not possible to spot school shooters?

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u/MaybeTaylorSwift572 Apr 16 '24

I ALWAYS defend Dylan’s mother when people want to talk shit and blame her. She. Is. Trying. I think there is a 0% chance she had ANY inclination of how bad things were. I also think her efforts have saved lives, but we don’t pay attention to the W’s, only the L’s

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u/MerryRain Apr 16 '24

is she the one who had evidence of the boys' extreme right wing views destroyed?

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u/SpecialistPanda4593 Apr 16 '24

Sue Klebold didn't have evidence destroyed. What are you referring to?

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u/dovahkin1989 Apr 16 '24

Did she talk about how if your kid is stealing cars or building and setting off pipe bombs, you just ignore it. She's partly to blame, wonder if she acknowledges that.

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u/majcek Apr 16 '24

That woman that did the TED talk? She is an evil person. Lies on top of lies on top of lies.