Strathfield massacre

Strathfield massacre
File:Wade Frankum.jpg Wade Frankum
Location	Strathfield
Coordinates
Date	17 August 1991 c. 3:30 p.m.–3:40 p.m. (GMT+10)
Target	Strathfield Plaza
Attack type	Spree shooting, massacre, murder–suicide
Weapons	Knife Norinco SKS
Deaths	8 (including the perpetrator)
Injured	6
Perpetrator	Wade John Frankum
Motive	Unknown

The Strathfield massacre was a shooting rampage in Strathfield, Sydney, Australia, on 17 August 1991. The shooter was Wade Frankum, who killed himself as police arrived at the scene. The incident left eight dead and six wounded.

Perpetrator

Wade Frankum was born in 1958 and had worked at various occupations including as a retail assistant. 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. Frankum also owned a copy of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Investigators suggested that both his reading and viewing habits contributed to this motivation for the shooting.

Rampage

At around 1:00 p.m., 33-year-old Frankum went to Strathfield Plaza, a shopping mall. He sat in a café called The Coffee Pot, where he drank a number of cups of coffee.

At approximately 3:30 p.m., apparently without provocation, Frankum pulled a large knife from an army surplus duffel bag and repeatedly stabbed one of two teenage girls who were sitting behind him, killing the girl.

Leaving the knife in the body of the girl, he pulled a Chinese-made SKS semi-automatic rifle out of his duffel and shot around the café, killing several more people. He then shot the café's owner dead and fled into the main area of the mall, where he killed his last victim.

Frankum ran into the rooftop car park and held a car owner at gunpoint, demanding that she take him to Enfield, a nearby suburb. Before the woman could start her car, police began to arrive on the scene with Constable Darren Stewart the first to arrive. He was shot at in his police car by Frankum from the car park rooftop, Stewart ran through the Strathfield shopping centre to engage Frankum but upon arriving at the carpark rooftop Frankum shot numerous rounds into the door leading to the carpark pinning down Stewart, Frankum finally turned the gun on himself. Hearing more approaching sirens, Frankum apologized to the woman and then got out of the car, knelt on the ground, and committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

Victims

Frankum's shooting 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 Voon
• Patricia Rowe
• Carole Dickinson
• Joyce Nixon
• Rachell Milburn
• George Mavris.

See also

• List of massacres in Australia
• List of disasters in Australia by death toll

Further reading

• Milton, R (1993). Profile of a Mass Killer : Wade Frankum at Strathfield Plaza. Blackstone Press, Bondi Junction, NSW. ISBN 1-875114-26-2.

External links

• Mass and Serial Murders in Australia