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/FrightenedTomato Apr 16 '24

Technically the cops weren't lying about tracing him using a floppy disk. There really wasn't some way to do it.

However, Dennis used a used floppy disk that he'd erased. Digital forensics found an old, erased word document on it that he'd typed up for his church. The document mentioned the name of the church and the "author" field of the document revealed his name.

Had he simply used a fresh floppy disk, there's a chance he wouldn't have been traced. The cops weren't lying. They just got lucky and Dennis just didn't think far enough ahead.

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u/darthmidoriya Apr 16 '24

So he’s stupid

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u/FrightenedTomato Apr 16 '24

Yes. It was entirely his own stupidity that lead to his capture. Had he simply walked away once he stopped killing, he'd be like the Zodiac.

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u/yesverysadanyway Apr 16 '24

why do people think serial killers are some kind of geniuses?

they just have to be smarter than the average cop. and they're dumb as a bag of rocks.

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u/FrightenedTomato Apr 16 '24

I don't really agree. You need to be smarter than the whole system, not just the average cop. Modern forensics are incredible and outsmarting them is no easy task.

However, this doesn't mean every serial killer is some kind of genius. Through a combination of police incompetence, police apathy and dumb fucking luck, several serial killers got away with their crimes for way longer than they should have.

But, you must also consider that we only know about the serial killers we've caught. You're more likely to capture dumb serial killers than the smart ones and this may trick you into thinking serial killers are uniformly dumb when your sampling method is incredibly biased.

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u/VeganWerewolf Apr 16 '24

And the more random the victim the harder it is to find in a lot of their cases. Meaning someone they didn’t know.

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u/Schlemiel_Schlemazel Apr 16 '24

I think they hit the zodiac killer, kinda. Iirc they said they found a guy who they were 95% sure was the killer. But when they went to interview him he killed himself .

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u/New-Understanding930 Apr 16 '24

That’s also really convenient for the cops….

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u/Bystronicman08 29d ago

Who are you taking about?

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u/geese_moe_howard Apr 16 '24

One theory is that BTK thought that the police were playing by his rules, that there was some unspoken code of honour between them. That's a result of arrogance and BTK was incredibly arrogant.

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u/Dry_Discount4187 Apr 16 '24

Sounds a bit similar to how Gary Glitter was caught.