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The Strathfield massacre was a shooting rampage in Sydney, Australia on Saturday, August 17, 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. 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. Frankum also owned a copy of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

Rampage

At around 1:00 p.m., 33-year-old Frankum went to the 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 semi-automatic rifle out of his duffel bag 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. Hearing the 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.

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 Joon
• Patricia Rowe
• Carole Dickinson
• Joyce Nixon
• Rachell Milburn
• George Mavris

Notes

• The massacre brought up the issue of gun control in Australia, as did the Port Arthur massacre perpetrated by Martin Bryant five years later.

See also

• List of disasters in Australia by death toll
• Mass and Serial Murders in Australia
• A Masked Gunman Kills 6 at a Mall in Australia, The New York Times (August 18, 1991)

References

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