Frank Vitkovic

He was born in 1965 to a Croatian father and an Italian mother. A friend of his family described Vitkovic as: "an excellent student, a good tennis player, friendly and helpful, over six feet tall and very good looking". He apparently had a troubled adolescence, where he was socially isolated and quite likely bullied, writing in his diary: "I know one thing for certain ... I am hated very much by many people, but they don't know anything of my hatred which is twice as much as theirs . . . everyone will pay for their sins". Later diary entries contained similar accounts of despair and misanthropy, with Vitkovic writing: "I see those people in the city and I admire them, and yet I hate them cos they've been the ones who've lumped shit on me all these years. . . they have all the things I want but will never have ... those greedy businessmen and women in the city... They are all pigs. And pigs always end up in the slaughterhouse." He attended a Catholic college in Melbourne, Australia, before dropping out due to poor performance. While a student, he had sought counselling for his problems, to no avail. He was an avid Tennis player, however he had frequent anger issues, he was reported as having frequent violent tantrums on the court when things didn't go his way. Immediately before the massacre, he had reportedly suffered a leg injury playing tennis that was serious enough to warrant surgery. This apparently caused Vitkovic to sink into a deep depression. The surgery had failed to fix the problem, leading to him being partially lame when he committed the massacre, a fact which likely saved his friend Con Margelis (who had knowledge of the injuries effect on Vitkovic), who he targeted on the day of the massacre.