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Wade FRANKUM
Classification: Mass murderer
Characteristics: Shooting
rampage in shopping centre
Number of victims: 7
Date of murders: August 17,
1991
Date of birth: 1968
Victims profile: Roberta Armstrong; Robertson Kan Hock
Joon; Patricia Rowe; Carole Dickson; Joyce Nixon; Rachell Milburn, and
George Mavis
Method of murder: Stabbing
with knife
- Shooting (SKS
carbine)
Location: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Status: Committed suicide by shooting himself the same day
In 1991 taxi driver Wade Frankum killed
7 people when
he sprayed his chinese assault rifle in a suburban shopping mall in
Strathfield, Australia. Then he killed himself.
The Strathfield
Massacre was a shooting rampage in Sydney, Australia on August 17,
1991. The shooter was Wade Frankum, who killed himself at the end of the
massacre. Altogether, the shooting left 8 dead, including the gunman,
and six more wounded.
Perpetrator
In the apartment where
Frankum lived alone, police found a large collection of violent
literature and video copies of violent films. One of his books was a
well-thumbed copy of American Psycho and although there is no
direct evidence that the controversial novel had inspired Frankum, a
number of suggestions that it had done so were made in newspapers.
American Psycho has been condemned as misogynistic because it
features many gruesome murders of women, and some thought it significant
that five of the seven people Frankum killed were women. He is also said
to have possessed a copy of the book The Female Eunuch by
feminist author Germaine Greer, contradicting the American Psycho
theory.
Rampage
At around 1:00PM, 33
year old Frankum went to the Strathfield Plaza, a shopping mall .He sat
in a cafe called The Coffee Pot, where he drank a number of cups of
coffee.
At approximately
3.30pm, without provocation, Frankum pulled a large knife from an army
surplus duffel bag and started stabbing two teenage girls who were
sitting next to him, killing one and badly injuring the other.
Leaving the knife in
the body of his first victims, he proceeded to pulling an assault rifle
out of his duffel bag and shooting around the cafe, killing several more
people. He then shot the cafe's owner dead and fled into the main area
of the mall, where he killed his last victim.
Frankum ran into the
car park and held a car owner at gunpoint and demanded them to take him
to Enfield, a nearby suburb. Before the terrified woman could start her
car, the police began to arrive on the scene. Hearing the approaching
sirens, Frankum apologised to the woman and then got out of the car,
knelt on the ground and shot himself in the head, commiting suicide.
Frankum's spree had
lasted 10 minutes. He had killed seven people and injured six, none of
them personally known to him.
Victims
Roberta Armstrong
Robertson Kan Hock
Joon
Patricia Rowe
Carole Dickson
Joyce Nixon
Rachell Milburn
George Mavis
Notes
The massacre bought up
the issue of gun control in Australia, as did the Port Arthur Massacre
perpetrated by Martin Bryant five years later.
Bo Armstrong was a
student studying at the Mcdonald College, just up from Strathfield
Plaza, on Beresford Rd. She was a gifted ballerina and musician. Her
mother has since given the school a scholarship, The Roberta Armstrong
Award, which pays tuition for a whole year to one student gifted in
ballet and music. Mrs Armstrong presents the award each speech night.
Wikipedia.org
Australia gunman kills 7, self in
crowded shopping center
San Jose Mercury News
August 17, 1991
A man armed with an
automatic rifle and a machete went berserk in a crowded shopping plaza
today, killing at least seven people and wounding several others before
turning the gun on himself, police said.
The sniper fired the Soviet-designed
AK-47 from the upper level of a parking garage at Stathfield Plaza, a
shopping center filled with mid-afternoon shoppers, a police spokesman
said.
Man kills 7, self in Australia
The Boston Globe
August 18, 1991
STRATHFIELD,
Australia -- A man hacked a teen-age girl to death, then opened fire in
a crowded shopping mall yesterday, killing six others before taking his
own life as police closed in.
At least seven other people were
wounded by automatic gunfire in the 10 minute rampage that brought
carnage and confusion to the suburban Sydney shopping center.
Australian killings similar to
movie
'Taxi driver'
The Phoenix Gazette
August 19, 1991
''Taxi Driver,'' the
1976 movie in which actor Robert De Niro played a psychopath who shaves
his head and goes on a shooting rampage, will be examined by Australian
police trying to find a motive for the shopping center slaughter of
seven people.
Part-time taxi driver Wade John
Frankum, 33, who killed seven people Saturday, shaved his head Thursday,
neighbors have told police.
Wade Frankum
At 1pm on Saturday August 17, 1991 33 year-old Wade
Frankum stands alone on the platform of North Strathfield Station. He is
wearing jeans, a grey beanie covering his crewcut, and a denim jacket.
In his hand is an army surplus dufflebag. Unbeknownst to the other
commuters on the train platform, Frankum was on a mission.
Casually, Frankum walked over to the ticket booth and
bought a ticket to Strathfield. He nodded in reconicance to the man
inside the ticket office. The two men knew each other, Frankum often
chatted to the railworker. But today he just turned to the man and gave
him a warning
"You'd better go home", said Frankum to the
man sternly. FRankum then walked away again. He stood alone again as
though he was waiting for someone. He watched train and after train go
by before finally catching the 1.48 train to Strathfield.
We should remember the comment made by Coroner Waller
when conducting the inquiry into the Wade Frankum massacre at
Strathfield, NSW: "Guns and porn make a lethal mix".
In 1991, the horror of mass murder struck
an outer suburban Sydney shopping centre. On August 17, Wade Frankum, a
33-year-old taxi driver, set out for Strathfield Plaza with an imported
7.62mm SKS self-loading assault rifle in his bag and a machete concealed
under his jacket. After downing four coffees in an hour at the Coffee
Pot cafe, he stabbed a 15-year-old girl, leaving the machete in her body,
then shot at diners around him before moving through the centre firing
indiscriminately until the murder tally reached seven. "He was just
calmly standing," said one witness. "Fired the first round,
another two or three rounds, and then just turned around calmly and
pointed the gun into the kitchen -- bang -- and then continued."
Police found 50 cartridges after the assault. He flagged down a motorist
in the the car park, then asked to be let out of the car. He uttered his
last words -- "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" -- then shot
himself, sobbing.
Frankum's father had died some years
earlier and his mother had gassed herself 12 months before in the family
car, which he continued to drive. Frankum's neighbours described him as
"just a kind regular guy, friendly but quiet", a loner.
"He would spend the whole day in the house and never go out apart
from down to the local shop to buy milk and cigarettes, and then he
would go out at night to drive his taxi," said one.
A particularly striking example of this
in Australia was the mass murder perpetrated by Wade Frankum in
Strathfield, Sydney, about nine years ago. Frankum stabbed a 15 year old
girl, then shot seven people at random before killing himself. His final
words were a line taken from a well-thumbed book police discovered on
his bedside table, American Psycho, a novel describing, in nauseating
detail, graphic horror.
There is strong evidence that the potent images in American
Psycho were lodged in Wade Frankum's unbalanced mind -- where highly
disturbed sexuality and murderous impulses dwelt -- in the days before
he set out on his final journey. The copy of the book was, according to
Milton, "well-thumbed." Even more revealingly, when Frankum
arrived at Strathfield railway station on Aug. 17, he obliquely warned
the stationmaster of the impending horror. "You had better go home,
Clive," he said. These are almost the same words as those spoken by
the hero of American Psycho to a woman he is about to murder.
Time - January 6, 1992
SIR: Wade Frankum reads American Psycho. Wade
Frankum becomes a mass murderer. Kevin Waller (Herald, March 9)
puts the case for the new censorship in no uncertain terms: "I find
it impossible to justify their [the Strathfield massacre victims']
suffering in terms of an individual's right to read books and watch
films and videos of gross cruelty." I share Mr Waller's concern,
but did he notice the other book found in Wade Frankum's bedroom?
Newspaper reports at the time stated that Frankum had also been reading Crime
and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Is it possible that this great
work of literature could have helped Frankum along the path to murder?
SMH - March 11, 1992
Wade Frankum (Strathfield massacre) had been released
from a mental institution, had been prescribed psychiatric drugs,
notably Prozac (with known rage-state side affects) and was a user of
prostitution businesses, (having spent in excess of $5,000 the week
before the massacre) pornography and violent video consumer. We note
that he knifed his first victim, a young girl, to death. It is also
interesting that the Coroner said in his summing-up, that there was
anecdotal evidence to suggest that Frankum's viewing of pornography was
a contributing factor to the massacre.
Wade Frankum
When Wade Frankum walked into Strathfield shopping
plaza in 1991 no-one had a clue what was about to happen. Particularly
the two teenagers sitting in the next booth to him in the malls coffee
shop.
They noticed the weirdo staring at them just a few
moments too late, as they never had a chance to get out before he had
lunged at them with his machete flying. It ripped through one of the
girls, Roberta Armstrong, 15.
A moment later Frankum pulled out a SKS
self loading assault rifle and began laughing. He was firing at anything,
hitting a few, and then as suddenly as he'd started, he stopped. He
turned and walked out of the coffee shop very calmly shooting a
bystander on the escalator on his way to the buildings roof-top car park.
Once arriving at this destination Frankum put 5
bullets into a car and driver (Perhaps he didn't like cars either?). He
then decided to take himself a hostage, Catherine Noyes. He pointed the
gun at her head and ordered her to drive. BUT this little trip didn't
last too long as the police were waiting for Frankum at the exit of the
car park. Frankum had the car stopped where he jumped out, said "I'm
really sorry", and blew his brains out the back of his head.
The Wacky World of Murder
Scribblings may be only clue to mall killings
The scribbled musings of mass
murderer Wade John Frankum may prove the only clues in trying to fathom
what sparked the shooting spree which left seven people dead in Sydney.
The 33-year-old part-time taxi driver hacked a young
girl to death with a machete and shot dead six others with an automatic
rifle at the Strathfield shopping mall on Saturday afternoon. He then
shot himself.
Four days after the massacre, police admit they have
gleaned little about his lifestyle or personality - other than that he
was a loner with few friends. A forensic psychiatrist assigned to put
together a profile of Frankum yesterday refused to reveal the contents
of scribbled notes found in the killer's flat hours after the massacre.
But the psychiatrist admitted that even the notes, written only to
Frankum himself, clearly indicated what a guarded personality he was.
"People reveal bits of themselves in all sorts of
ways ... by what they write and what they say and how they impress
people," the psychiatrist, who asked not to be named, said last night. "The
scribblings are quite useful. But this chap seems to have revealed so
little of himself ... there was obviously a lot of unhappiness in his
life."
To date, the only indicators that Frankum may have
been anything other than the pleasant young man his neighbours say he
was is the large cache of violent magazines and books - including a copy
of the controversial serial killer novel American Psycho -
found in his flat. Police also suspect Frankum's belated grief for his
parents - both of whom have died in the past four years - may have been
a factor in triggering the massacre.
"There isn't a lot of difference between killing
himself and killing others," the psychiatrist said. "Suicide from grief
is not uncommon."
One neighbour said Frankum had covered his bedroom
with photos of his mother, who died last May after gassing herself in
her car at the family unit in North Strathfield. Frankum's father had
died of emphysema only three years before his mother's suicide. But,
according to the friend, Frankum seemed to feel guilty that he had not
seen his mother more often before she died.
"She was a lovely woman but she became a bit vague
and very lonely after her husband died," the neighbour said. "Just
before she killed herself, she wished she could see more of her children."
A nuggertty, short man, Frankum had a steady working
history right up until about a year before his death when he gave up his
job as a shop manager in Bondi and began working as casual taxi driver.
With his mother's death, he moved into the North Strathfield unit which
he shared with his younger sister Gaynor, aged in her early 20s. It was
only then, say his neighbours, that they thought he began to let himself
go a little, usually wearing either a tracksuit or Army shirts and
shorts, shaving his hair into a severe crew cut.
A neighbour, Margaret De Francesco, said Frankum
seemed to be a lonely man, spending most of his day alone at home and
venturing out only to buy milk or cigarettes from the local shop or to
drive his cab. "He must have been very lonely."
Detective Superintendent Peter Wick said Frankum had
no criminal record and it was uncertain if he had ever undergone
psychiatric treatment.
Shopper 'froze' amid gunshots
On a mild winter's day in
western Sydney, Diane Roberts was doing her regular Saturday shopping in
the busy Strathfield Plaza.
For her, and hundreds of others, the ritual was
shattered at 3.15 pm when a man armed with an automatic rifle and a
machete went berserk. As gunfire crackled through the crowded two-story
complex, many shoppers screamed and dived for cover in doorways, under
plastic tables and chairs and behind waste bins. But Diane Roberts stood
paralysed with fear: "It all happened too quickly, the whole thing was
like something you see on television." she said later. "I couldn't go
anywhere or duck for cover, I just froze." Bullets zipped only
centimetres from her head.
As the gunman ran amok, Mr. Gregory Read, a Vietnam
War veteran, instinctively ran through the centre yelling at shoppers to
"hit the deck."
"The shots started coming towards me, I was in front
of him by six metres. I could hear all the shots," Mr Read said from his
hospital bed, where he is recovering from two gunshot wounds to his feet.
"I could see he was running to get out of the building. I reached the
carpark first and told a couple to hit the deck. I dived under the car
and that's how I got shot in the feet. Looking over the barrel of his
gun, I guess you could say I had eye contact with him."
Mr Read said he was not a hero, but had acted
instinctively. "I just acted on the spur of the moment."
Sergeant Roger Wigley, who was first on the scene,
said he found a 15-year-old girl lying face down in the coffee shop with
the gunman's machete still in her back. "I have never seen anything like
it in my life, in the 26 years I've been doing this job. It's
unbelievable," Sergeant Wigley said at the scene. "There was blood and
spent shells everywhere."
The massacre has sparked calls for tougher gun laws
in Australia. It was the fifth major shooting tragedy in Australia in
the past four years.
