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Hoddle Street killer Julian Knight's school cartoons show his deadly fantasies
The Sydney Morning Herald
John Alexander
about 1 hour ago (as at 18:17 AEDT 11 November 2017)
‘For some time Knight wrote to me from prison, at first wanting a ghosted book, but mostly as part of a clumsy pattern of obtuse threats. Even now he writes to inmates informing them of anything I publish about them, one assumes to curry favour with them and build antipathy to me.
Knight claims he went on his rampage after he was bullied at the army's Duntroon officers college, where he was a failed student. But material published here for the first time would suggest he was having dangerous fantasies at least two years earlier.
"The Six Million Dollar Mouse", a cartoon Julian Knight drew while a pupil at Melbourne High in 1985. Photo: Supplied
A fellow Melbourne High School student recalls Knight as "bright, cheeky and funny but a bit of a weirdo. None of us anticipated he was capable of something like that” (the Hoddle Street massacre).
”In 1985 Knight was in the school cadets and obsessed with weaponry.” He also liked to dabble in cartooning, which gives an insight into his darkness. In one story, Seymour - The Six Million Dollar Mouse, a frail Seymour is shot several times while his military mates fly to his rescue.
Knight's use of the name Seymour in his cartoon may be a reference to his time growing up at the Puckapunyal Base in Seymour. Photo: Supplied
”Seymour recovers with amazing speed, fighting injustice wherever he finds it." Knight's character (clearly based on him) then goes on a shooting rampage, killing 16 enemies in one frame.
That he picks an insignificant-looking mouse as the hero who exacts murderous revenge probably reflects the killer's self image. And as an adopted child in an army family, he grew up at the Puckapunyal Base - at Seymour
.
Seymour the mouse guns down his enemies in Julian Knight's chilling high school cartoon. Photo: Supplied
In the final drawing the once skinny hero (reflecting Knight's own slender physique) has bulked up Rambo-style and is pictured with a machine gun surrounded by blood-soaked corpses. Two years later, Knight lived out this fantasy.
Prison officers say Knight sat chain smoking while watching reports on Martin Bryant, who in 1996 killed 35 people at Tasmania's Port Arthur.
The end of Seymour's shooting rampage, a grim harbinger of Knight's own massacre. Photo: Supplied
”He couldn't take his eyes off the TV. When reports said the death toll was more than seven he stormed off and slammed his cell door. He sulked so long he wouldn't come out for meals," one said.‘
Read more at:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/hodd...how-his-deadly-fantasies-20171108-gzh7c4.html
The Sydney Morning Herald
John Alexander
about 1 hour ago (as at 18:17 AEDT 11 November 2017)
‘For some time Knight wrote to me from prison, at first wanting a ghosted book, but mostly as part of a clumsy pattern of obtuse threats. Even now he writes to inmates informing them of anything I publish about them, one assumes to curry favour with them and build antipathy to me.
Knight claims he went on his rampage after he was bullied at the army's Duntroon officers college, where he was a failed student. But material published here for the first time would suggest he was having dangerous fantasies at least two years earlier.
A fellow Melbourne High School student recalls Knight as "bright, cheeky and funny but a bit of a weirdo. None of us anticipated he was capable of something like that” (the Hoddle Street massacre).
”In 1985 Knight was in the school cadets and obsessed with weaponry.” He also liked to dabble in cartooning, which gives an insight into his darkness. In one story, Seymour - The Six Million Dollar Mouse, a frail Seymour is shot several times while his military mates fly to his rescue.
”Seymour recovers with amazing speed, fighting injustice wherever he finds it." Knight's character (clearly based on him) then goes on a shooting rampage, killing 16 enemies in one frame.
That he picks an insignificant-looking mouse as the hero who exacts murderous revenge probably reflects the killer's self image. And as an adopted child in an army family, he grew up at the Puckapunyal Base - at Seymour
.
Seymour the mouse guns down his enemies in Julian Knight's chilling high school cartoon. Photo: Supplied
In the final drawing the once skinny hero (reflecting Knight's own slender physique) has bulked up Rambo-style and is pictured with a machine gun surrounded by blood-soaked corpses. Two years later, Knight lived out this fantasy.
Prison officers say Knight sat chain smoking while watching reports on Martin Bryant, who in 1996 killed 35 people at Tasmania's Port Arthur.
The end of Seymour's shooting rampage, a grim harbinger of Knight's own massacre. Photo: Supplied
”He couldn't take his eyes off the TV. When reports said the death toll was more than seven he stormed off and slammed his cell door. He sulked so long he wouldn't come out for meals," one said.‘
Read more at:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/hodd...how-his-deadly-fantasies-20171108-gzh7c4.html