Mass murderer Joel Cauchi dated an 18-year-old girl when he was more than twice her age at 37, as the young woman now offers a chilling insight into their relationship.
Josephine Everson met Cauchi, a surfer and online English teacher, in mid-2019, when she turned 18.
Five years later, Everson was horrified to see her ex-boyfriend shot dead by police after his rampage at Westfield Bondi Junction on Saturday.
He fatally stabbed five women and one man and injured 12 more during the crazed killing spree before he was shot dead by sole police inspector Amy Scott.
But in 2019, Everson and Cauchi met for the first time through a dating website in Toowoomba, their Queensland hometown, 125 kilometers west of Brisbane.
Josephine Everson (pictured) began dating Joel Cauchi around her 18th birthday in 2019, despite their nearly 20-year age difference.
Cauchi (pictured) was shot dead by a lone policewoman after stabbing six innocent shoppers to death and wounding at least a dozen others, including a nine-month-old girl.
Despite their nearly 20-year age difference, the couple met for coffee at Northpoint Mall and immediately hit it off.
They continued dating for about five months, during which time Everson said he would take her to interesting places in the region on a series of day trips.
The unlikely pair walked to the top of the Toowoomba Range and took another excursion to a spot just outside Highfields, “with pumpkins on the fence”.
“He was a fun, kind person,” he told ABC on Wednesday.
Everson cried and admitted not knowing that Cauchi suffered from schizophrenia, which he was diagnosed with at age 17.
‘He always had a big smile on his face. “He was a happy person,” he said.
The couple bonded over their love of photography, and Cauchi taught Ms. Everson how to use her camera properly.
She added that he “was always respectful” throughout their relationship and that he had met her parents.
However, their relationship deteriorated when Cauchi moved to Brisbane in October 2019, which was when his parents said he began coming off his antipsychotic medication.
The couple tried to stay in touch but eventually broke up due to the distance between them.
Cauchi’s frightened parents, Michele and Andrew Cauchi, desperately tried to reach the 40-year-old in the run-up to the Westfield Bondi Junction attack.
After losing contact with their son, they ended up contacting their bank just to find out if he was alive and had been using their account.
A moment of relief came just five weeks before the attack when Cauchi sent the couple a selfie from the coast in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
‘Mum, I just want to show you how beautiful Coogee Beach is. [is],’ he wrote.
But the next time the couple saw their son was on television when news of the Westfield stabbing broke.
Cauchi (pictured) was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 17 and was not on medication at the time of the Westfield Bondi Junction stabbing.
Cauchi (pictured) received a selfie from her son on Coogee Beach five weeks before the attack.
“I walked in and my wife said, ‘He looks like Joel.’ I said, ‘He does a little bit,’ but he had his head down,” Mr. Cauchi said.
Several other former romantic partners of Cauchi have come forward since the Bondi stabbing.
A Brisbane woman, who claims to have met Cauchi on Tinder in 2020, said she got the impression Cauchi was simply looking to connect with people.
A Gold Coast woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told WhatsNew2Day Australia about her brief relationship with the knife-crazed man.
The woman said she barely recognized the savage killer, who stabbed a nine-month-old girl in her stroller, from the man she met on the Badoo dating app in April 2020.
“I struck up a conversation with him for a while and then had a few drinks with him at his house in Brisbane. “He lived there with roommates,” he said.
“He was a lovely guy when I met him, definitely quiet and reserved. “I’m very surprised by what has happened.
“It’s hard to believe he killed these innocent people.”
She described Cauchi as a “true gentleman” but admitted they only met in person once because he wasn’t her type.
Despite this, the couple continued their relationship until 2021.
‘He was a very nice guy. Well spoken. I only saw him once, but after that we texted for a good year,” he said.
“To be honest, it seemed a bit nerdy to me, but we still stayed in touch. I live on the Gold Coast and he was living in Brisbane at the time.
A Brisbane woman, who claims to have met Cauchi on Tinder in 2020, said she got the impression Cauchi was simply looking to connect with people (pictured, messages from his chat).
A Gold Coast woman (pictured) described Cauchi acting like a “true gentleman” during their brief relationship.
Although Cauchi’s father previously told WhatsNew2Day Australia that the 40-year-old lived a “backpacker” lifestyle, which involved alternating between sleeping in his car and cheap hostels, the Gold Coast woman had no recollection that Cauchi was interested in traveling.
“He never mentioned traveling with me. That’s why I was surprised he was in Bondi,” he said.
Another woman who claims to have dated Cauchi said she stopped seeing him because of his strange behavior.
‘We went to church together. I had a few coffee dates with him, but he had compulsions,” she said.
‘It was a bit strange so I stopped messaging him and then he said he was moving. I’m shocked.’
Another person, who claimed to be in the killer’s “close circle of friends” when he was at high school in Toowoomba, southeast Queensland, gave some background on the strange behavior reported by Cauchi.
“He was one of those shy ones at school, always a little awkward, but whenever he did something it was always at full speed,” they wrote.
‘In retrospect, it probably didn’t regulate that well.
“He fell off the radar after school, but as far as I know, he didn’t maintain any friendships with his circle of schoolmates.”
They believe Cauchi was suffering a mental health episode at the time of the Westfield attack on Saturday, a theory shared by police and echoed by his distraught parents.
Cauchi was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager and his parents said he had stopped taking his medications, triggering his psychosis.
“It may seem like misplaced empathy, but the Joel I knew would not have been himself, he would not have been in control of his actions as he attacked those people,” the friend wrote.
‘If there is a lesson, it is that mental illness sucks and we shouldn’t waste our time on it.
‘We shouldn’t be too hard on getting help ourselves when we need it, and when people reach out to us to connect, we should see it for what it is and not ignore them.
“Surely Joel isn’t the only one struggling.”
They also shared their solidarity with the loved ones of the six shoppers who died and were injured.
“I know it’s no consolation to the victims, this whole thing is a bloody tragedy for them and their families, for Joel and his family, and for everyone associated with the event who doesn’t feel so safe to shop there now.” , ‘ they wrote.
NSW Police do not believe the stabbing was a terrorism incident, instead pointing to Cauchi’s (pictured) history of mental illness.
The six people who died in Saturday’s attack have been identified as mother Ashlee Good, 38, advertising heiress Dawn Singleton, 25, architect Jade Young, 47, artist Pikria Darchia, 55 , security guard Faraz Tahir, 30, and Chinese student Yixuan Cheng, 27. .
New South Wales Police do not believe the stabbing was a terrorism incident, instead pointing to Cauchi’s history of mental illness.
The attack is still under police investigation and will be the subject of a forensic investigation.