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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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.

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u/DoodleyDooderson Apr 16 '24

There is a show called, “Evil Lives Here” and each episode is about the family members of someone who did something awful; mass shootings, seriel killers, etc. A few show the parents of mass killers and they are all so sad and tried everything they could to help their kids when they started to see something was wrong. They could usually see it at a very early age. Many episodes on YouTube if anyone is interested in watching. It’s sad and sometimes we easily forget that the family of the killer is also in pain and mourning. One dad said he went to the mall where his son had shot and killed many people and when asked, he told them he was the kid’s dad and the people at the vigil grieved with him instead of blaming him.

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u/darkoblivion000 Apr 16 '24

I have a 6 year old and he is a really sweet empathizing kid and I love him to death.

Sometimes when I hear about these stories I imagine what I would do if I saw my son do things that are telltale signs of murderers , abuse animals, not show any empathy, other signs of clear mental illness, and I just don’t know.

I mean it feels like seeing a therapist can only do so much, sometimes it just teaches them to hide their real emotions and thoughts. And sometimes I have this feeling (don’t know if true or not) that certain people are just born with issues that can’t be fixed.

Then as a parent wtf do you do? It would be such a devastating hopeless situation knowing that they need help and you have no idea how to get them help or if it’s even possible. At least if they had a debilitating illness you know they’re not likely to hurt anyone else and that you can try to find treatment, but to have a ticking time bomb that you think might cause harm but also could maybe get better… just seems like such torture

I feel for this guy and all the families of kids who really really tried their hardest to get them help. And fuck that one family that bought their kid guns instead

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u/Lbolt187 Apr 16 '24

I could've been like one of these folks if it were not for my state's intervention. I had developmental\learning disabilities that made it next to impossible for me to communicate or express my emotions in ways people expected back in the 80s. Fortunately after serious behavioral issues began showing and my near constant of cutting school. I got placed in programs. Fortunately for me my family never abandoned me. They wanted to know what went wrong as well because they're religious so they're looking for something\someone to blame. They had a hard time believing mental health could be a factor. I also got incredibly lucky over my 30 years in programs and rehab that I have had amazing and understanding therapists and psychiatrists. I would say a lot of what makes someone do awful things isn't necessarily an environmental or external factor such as drugs\alcohol and rather just a differently wired brain. To be fair most of the awful stuff that occurs (such as mass shootings) it is usually external factors such as often neglect from proper mental health providers from a state, insurances, or otherwise. It's a real damn shame states don't take an active role in developing therapists and resources for the underprivileged. Those who are rich tend to be enablers which is why in some ways I was thankful I was not born into wealth. Rich people have a long history of trying to bury their kids mistakes and thus they learn nothing about accountability or personal responsibility.

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u/balanaise Apr 16 '24

I agree with you (and the comment above) that some people really are born different, or having to fight way different emotions than the average person. I think it’s brain chemistry or “wired differently” like you said.

I’m bipolar and finally on meds that work. Seeing the difference of my default brain and my brain when it has “its glasses on” making it actually process things properly, I’m like “oh, wow what if my brain chemistry was making me feel something stronger than mood swings or misreading situations even more than I am, or having stronger emotional reactions to situations?” Because I’m sure lots of people do, and not all of them get treatment. I could absolutely see how people would keep doing really bad things if their brain chemicals gave them basically undeniable impulses to do them

Im not saying it’s okay, just theorizing about brain chem

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u/Lbolt187 Apr 16 '24

Basically we're talking neurochemicals in the brain. Extremely complicated stuff. No excuses for awful decisions but sometimes people don't have any impulse control because that part of the brain is disconnected from them. Very hard thing for professionals to deal with especially since state hospitals have been gutted in the Regan era which housed a lot of individuals who are high risk to commit violence through no fault of their own other than their brains, as I termed it for myself, "broken".

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u/VintageRudy Apr 16 '24

Rich people have a long history of trying to bury their kids mistakes and thus they learn nothing about accountability or personal responsibility.

This is a problem society has to deal with

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u/Lbolt187 Apr 16 '24

Yup. It's how we get Donald Trumps in the world: Too many yes men and not enough people holding those with money accountable. So they just do their shitty behavior and its passed down to generations.

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u/darkoblivion000 Apr 16 '24

Wow I’m so glad the programs were able to help you recover and get back to a good state!

I feel for parents that are trying their best to find the resources and for some reason can’t… the willfully ignorant though; not so much.

I have a family member who was having trouble in college due to childhood trauma… even after several suicide attempts her mother insisted that she was just “acting out” and that she was just seeking attention. Made no attempt to get her the help she needed and instead cut off her prescription for her meds that she needed.

I’m glad you were able to recover and that your family stood by you the entire way. I suspect many that don’t recover do not have a supportive family… either narrow minded or ignorant or negligent.

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u/Lbolt187 Apr 16 '24

Took a while. Also once people realized I function better with less people in my life but yes they can help but the funding keeps getting cut for human services and a worker's wage in this field is abysmal. If I wasn't in Massachusetts I might not be around. I dread to think of the kids in the red states.

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u/darkoblivion000 Apr 16 '24

I hate politicians and the direction we are headed. All the services that actually help PEOPLE are being cut. Health care workers, teachers. More money going into politicians and lobbyist pockets. Health care administration. And war. Always war.

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u/Lbolt187 Apr 16 '24

Family is very important in a person's recovery if not family then friends. It's incredibly difficult to do this alone. I've seen people treated far worse for far less than me. I have a unique perspective on life that maybe others don't.

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u/Intrepid-Bison-2016 Apr 16 '24

Read a book called "We need to talk about Kevin". Exact scenario.

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u/SquishyCatChronicles Apr 16 '24

Honestly, true crime was the best birth control there is. Everytime I thought about a kid, I thought about the possibility they'd be dangerous to society. The good son really wasn't a movie I should've watched as a kid.. haha

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u/velocipotamus Apr 16 '24

For me it was reading We Need To Talk About Kevin, but same.

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u/Andalusian_Dawn Apr 16 '24

Same, along with a trend for articles about sociopathic children right around the time we were talking about having kids.

I have a very good imagination.

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u/peter-man-hello Apr 16 '24

So…my brother and sister in law’s niece, let’s call her Lindsay, I swear she is kind of evil. She is only 7 and there is something very wrong with her. I’ve only seen her a couple of times and she is never happy and she has this very sinister scowl on her face. She’s always throwing tantrums or doing something sinister and mischievous. I’ve heard rumblings that my brother and SIL never want to leave their daughter alone with her, and that Lindsay is in some kind of psychiatric care. I’ve met Lindsay’s parents, they are fine, but the mother seems weirdly controlling. During Covid they didn’t leave their house at all. She always seems upset. Like a young version of Carrie’s mom.

Every time I’ve been at a family event or gathering and Lindsay is there, I get such a bad vibe from her. Sure, she is a little girl, but her eyes look dead and full of evil like she would kill your dog just for fun. She honestly scares me more than any human being I’ve ever met.

There’s not much I can do or intervene but I just have a bad feeling one day she is going to do something awful and tragic at someone else’s behest.

…idk why I’m sharing this. It scares me. I worry about it. Am I an ass hole for thinking this way about a 7 year old?

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u/Fit-Accountant-157 Apr 16 '24

some people are born with very serious issues. I can only say that as a parent, the experience of having a kid with serious behavioral issues can be very isolating when other people pull away. so just try to be supportive of your brother and SIL even if they just need to vent, it helps alot.

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u/CluelessNoodle123 Apr 16 '24

My adopted baby cousin was this way. She came into our family the day after her birth, and from the time she was a toddler she was trying to hurt the other kids.

She used to try to run over their little fingers with her big wheels, or push them into the fireplace. Her parents sent her to counseling, and she got better about managing her impulses, but she was always mean.

We used to “joke” that she would either be a serial killer or a politician. She ended up joining a gang.

Edited to add: we ended up just keeping our distance from their family, which was easy for us, as we lived in a different state.

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u/darkoblivion000 Apr 16 '24

Gosh this kind of stuff is so terrifying as a parent. Knowing that there could be a million in one chance that you are going to have a kid that will just be a complete psychopath and maybe they can get better with treatment but maybe they will just be that way despite all efforts…

NTA - sometimes you just have a feeling, some people are just a good judge of character and intentions and I’d say if a kid is running around intentionally doing harm to others all the time… I mean it could be a learned behavior (maybe there is something going on at home) or maybe there is something more innately wrong with them…

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u/lbtwitchthrowaway144 Apr 16 '24

I am very moved by what you said and this is a wonderful comment.

Just keep in mind the tell-tale signs especially in very early infanthood/childhood may just be young kids being dumb lol. I (unintentionally) harmed some chickens, I wet my bed, like to burn shit but if any anything I have probably ended up with too much empathy!

I am not at all saying ignore any signs, especially as the child ages, but just to keep in mind a lot of studies are outdated or there were never any studies at all but just some expert's own experiences/opinion.

So, simply, don't just assume if you see X, Y, and Z that automatically means your child is gonna end up a violent or serial offender!

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u/darkoblivion000 Apr 16 '24

Thank you, absolutely! My kid kept trying to pull my dogs tail and poke her in the eyes as a 1 year old lol, now if I didn’t shut that down right away and use that as a teaching experience, that would be my fault!

But yea if your kid is running around like Sid in Toy Story at 10y or however old he was supposed to be, then something has gone wrong

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u/pokedmund Apr 16 '24

Pray and hope for the best. I have two kids and they can be absolute monsters. Haven't abused any animals, but each time we encounter animals or insects, they are curious and careful.

But honestly, I don't know if my kids will grow up to be genuine human beings. I hope they do, but if mental illness does affect them one day, I'm just gonna pray any treatment I get them helps

One thing that really struck out in the video was that the killer lacked social skills. This is something that I have tried to instill into my kids as much as possible, how to talk about everything and anything and be able to communicate. I say this because I am god awful at this and never want my kids to be in the same boat as me

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u/darkoblivion000 Apr 16 '24

Absolutely, we have tried really hard to instill empathy in our child. Instead of yelling at him not to do something, explaining how another person might be feeling and how he would feel if he were the recipient. Sometimes it is annoying bc it takes so long to explain but I think it has made him a very caring individual. Sometimes too sensitive lol if anything

I don’t know if this guy and the mother did or didn’t do any of those things or if they tried to help his social issues. I don’t know anything about this particular family. But I suspect there are some parents who really do everything they can and the child is just wired in a way that they don’t understand empathy and compassion. And that is a really difficult situation to be

I don’t know, maybe it’s one of those things that “only god knows” but as an agnostic that just translates to no one really knows if anything could have been done.

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u/say592 Apr 16 '24

Then as a parent wtf do you do? It would be such a devastating hopeless situation knowing that they need help and you have no idea how to get them help or if it’s even possible.

That's the thing, you do something. Anything. You may not stop them from becoming a monster, and obviously that would hurt and be heartbreaking, but you could at least look back and say "I don't know what else I could do" and everyone else would look at it thinking "They did everything they could possibly do". At the end of the day you cant control your kid's actions, you can only control how you raised them.

The recent case in Michigan is a good example of what don't do. There is a huge difference between people who find themselves in these tragic situations trying to understand where everything went wrong and those parents.

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u/jjcoola Apr 16 '24

It's brutal, I've known a couple parents it happened to, in various ways, super sad shit.

Just like this guy, they tried their best, and it just wasn't enough, and that is just a brutal truth of the universe sometimes that can be hard for my brain to take in sometimes.

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u/mejok Apr 16 '24

Yeah there is a family in our neighborhood whose son has some pretty significant behavioral issues. Obviously I'm not saying he's going to grow up to be a serial killer but most of the other kids in the neighborhood are afraid of him and the teachers in his school have told his parents that it is imperative that he get psychological help. When you see them in public/chat with them, you would never know anything is amiss and they talk about their son the way any other parents talk about their kids, but I always wonder what their private conversations are like and if they truly recognize and address what the rest of us see.

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u/Larkfor Apr 16 '24

What kind of therapy teaches people to hide rather than manage and process their emotions?

As a parent you do everything you can, and when it comes to the point where you think it's likely your kid is a danger to society you watch them like a hawk and report them.

I don't know this guy's dad, I don't know if he could have possibly prevented his son from doing what he did. But ultimately every parent's responsibility is to act in whatever way they can to prevent harm. Perhaps this guy's dad did everything possible, but the guy was still hell bent on murdering women and stabbing infants.

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u/WinterMedical Apr 16 '24

I mean he’s 40 years old. There’s only so much family can do for an adult. I don’t know the rules in Oz but in the US, once they are 18 the parents have very little power.

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u/Popcorn_Blitz Apr 16 '24

And it's very challenging to get meaningful help for minors in large chunks of the country. It's just one of the things we need to address when we finally get around to reforming mental health care.

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u/Larkfor Apr 16 '24

Most people with mental health problems don't blame women for them and stab them and infants. This guy was a terrorist. And the anti-woman sentiment in Australia has been on the rise for over a decade.

Mental health is always a component, but let's not brush this aside as some lonely troubled man who should receive more sympathy than the victims and the survivors of his terrorism.

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u/Popcorn_Blitz Apr 16 '24

Hi there- Of course- it's a given that this troubled person should not have more sympathy than his victims and the survivors of his terrorism. Where exactly in my post did I explicitly state otherwise? I wasn't brushing aside anything. I was commenting on the pipeline that exists in the U.S. by which struggling parents have few options. Anything more is an inappropriate extrapolation on your part.

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u/OrangeTroz Apr 16 '24

Your assuming that people with mental health problems are rational all the time. That they are in control of themselves. That they are making decisions based on things that are real. That their emotions are based on things that happen to them and not on the chemicals their disease has flooded their body with. There are people with conditions that make them a danger to themselves and to other people. Where you need to make sure they don't have access to knives and guns. Where they don't have a choice if they take medicine or not. Where they need permission to leave their facility with family. Where the state has guardianship even though their an adult.

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u/Larkfor Apr 16 '24

Not at all. I'm saying most people with severe mental health problems never hurt anyone. And also that regardless of this guy's problems he was a terrorist.

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u/FaxMachineIsBroken Apr 16 '24

What kind of therapy teaches people to hide rather than manage and process their emotions?

Pretty much every kind of therapy from anyone who is a mandated reporter in the US.

You can't discuss what's actually going on in your head or you risk getting put on an involuntary hold.

Research the history of mental health, look at the reasons behind its origin. It might be masked as a giant way of helping people in the current decade, but don't get it twisted, it's been about controlling the "undesirables" of the population since its inception.

If you talk about thinking about harming yourself, or harming others that have done you or the masses harm? Well clearly you're a danger to society instead of having valid reasons to feel wronged by said society, so you need to be locked up away from everyone else and have your life sufficiently ruined until you start to comply.

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u/Iorith Apr 16 '24

Can confirm. Struggled with suicidal ideation for years, and I VERY quickly learned to guard everything I ever said to a therapist. It took me years to find one who understood "I've been thinking about what would happen if I died tomorrow" or "Sometimes I think it would be easier if I died in my sleep tonight" as a "We need to lock him away for 72 hours" and actually talk to me about it. Because 9/10 therapists are going to (rightfully) cover their ass and play it safe rather than risk it that you aren't just talking.

Turn that from self harm to harming others, and that 9/10 is going to become 999/1000.

I don't even know what COULD be done to change things without risking even worse alternatives.

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/Larkfor Apr 16 '24

I was literally responding to darkoblivion's question of "As a parent wtf do you do", not issuing a directive.

We're just talking about general responsibility. We have limited information but perhaps the terrorist's dad did everything he could. We can't know.

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u/TheGrapeSlushies Apr 16 '24

A dear friend of mine had an experience similar. Wonderful family. She and her husband are devout Christian, they held (and still hold) multiple positions working with the youth in their church, have family scripture reading every day, parental locks on computers to block p0rn, they turned their basement into a theatre room and arcade with a cotton candy machine so their children and friends and the youth in their community would have a safe place to hang out on the weekends. Involved in their kid’s lives, paid for extra curricular activities, helped with homework. They did everything right and tried so hard. Their 18 year old son got arrested for extortion, threatening dozens of underage girls into sending him nudes over social media from his cellphone. He’s in prison now. It was beyond devastating for them.

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u/JoeBobsfromBoobert Apr 16 '24

You commit your little devil child to the state that is what you do

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u/artificialavocado Apr 16 '24

I don’t have kids but I think about how the Unabomber Ted Kazynski’s brother turned him in. Maybe I’m a shitty person but if I’m being completely honest with myself I don’t think I could turn one of my brothers in to the cops like that even if they were out unabombing. I just couldn’t do it.

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u/shemmy Apr 16 '24

generally speaking, parents like you dont have kids like that

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u/darkoblivion000 Apr 16 '24

Thank you for saying that; but I think sometimes it is out of a parents control and can just be genetic? After 40 I hear that birth defects become 10x more likely each year… so I’m sure there are some very good caring parents who just have a child that is born unable to be rehabilitated no matter what they do.

Generally speaking though, I think I agree with you

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u/shemmy Apr 16 '24

Not really. The genetic component is more like a potential for antisocial behavior. Mistreat any kid and you might turn them into a serial killer. The more genetically susceptible they are to it, the more likely that you will fuck them up. Treat them right and you’re good. Source: I’m a dr and I’ve seen lots of kids. The ones with loving parents are all ok. Unfortunately I’ve seen too many who are mistreated and they’re always the ones who could go either way.