Arming himself with a Bentley 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, Evers confronted 60-year-old Thomas Cullin in the housing commission high-rise in Sydney's inner-city Surry Hills, shooting him dead through the screen door of his unit. Four others were killed in the rampage that followed.

Surrendered after buying cigarettes and a soft drink at a nearby store.

 

Man killed 5 in Australia after tauntings, police say

San Jose Mercury News

August 30, 1990

An unemployed man angered by a neighbor's tauntings about his receiving welfare shot and killed the man today, then killed four other people before surrendering, police said.

Paul Anthony Evers, 35, was charged with five counts of murder following the shootings in the public-housing apartment building where he lived.

5 australians slain

Philadelphia Daily News

August 30, 1990

SYDNEY, Australia - An Australian man, awakened this morning by a neighbor's insulting taunt, killed five people with shotgun blasts to the head and walked to a grocery to buy cigarettes and a cold drink before surrendering to police.

Police prosecutor Brett Longville said Paul Evers, 35, was awakened by a male neighbor shouting "dole bludger" (unemployed idler) outside his room. Evers shot the neighbor and then four others at his three-story apartment.

Aussie gunman kills five

The Oregonian

August 30, 1990

A man with a shotgun killed five persons Thursday in an apartment building, police said. A suspect surrendered after buying cigarettes and a soft drink at a nearby store.

A police spokesman said four victims were killed in a public housing building in the Sydney neighborhood of Surry Hills. The fifth died after being taken to a hospital.

Neighbor's insult spurs australian to kill five

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

August 31, 1990

SYDNEY, Australia - An Australian man, awakened Thursday by a neighbor's insulting taunt, killed five people with shotgun blasts to the head and walked to a grocery to buy cigarettes and a cold drink before surrendering to police.

Paul Evers, 35, left a scene described by police as horrendous after a breakfast-time rampage through a three-story apartment building in Surry Hills, a rundown district in Sydney.

Paul Anthony Evers

On August 30, 1990, Paul Anthony Evers awoke at about 8.30am to the taunts of his neighbour: "You bludger. You dole bludger." It was enough to send him over the edge.

Arming himself with a Bentley 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, Evers confronted 60-year-old Thomas Cullin in the housing commission high-rise in Sydney's inner-city Surry Hills, shooting him dead through the screen door of his unit. Four others were killed in the rampage that followed, including Ever's half-sister, who had also been his lover, Michelle Coleman, 24.

Evers blamed his neighbour's taunts but psychiatrists, who labelled him psychotic, said he was enraged because Coleman was leaving him. His father recounted a life of rejection by the women in his life -- his natural mother, who left him when he was three, his stepmother and finally his half-sister. Evers was found guilty of manslaughter, rather than murder, due to diminished responsibilty.