[1] After a police chase lasting more than 30 minutes, 19-year-old former Australian Army officer cadet Julian Knight was caught in nearby Fitzroy North and arrested for the shootings.

After a troubled high-school life at Westbourne Grammar School, Knight entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory on 13 January 1987 at the age of 18.

While a military career had long been a dream, he lacked self-discipline and performed poorly at his studies and only gained good results in weapons expertise exercises.

Upon returning to Melbourne, Knight found out that his longtime girlfriend would no longer see him and his mother, on whom he had always relied, had turned his childhood bedroom into an extra living room.

[5] At 11:30 on Sunday 9 August 1987, Knight, woke up in his temporary bedroom in the front room of his mother's house at number 6 Ramsden Street, Clifton Hill.

Between 13:10 and 16:10 on Sunday 9 August 1987, Knight attended a belated birthday party for his mother at his grandmother's house in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn.

He left the party in his own car and drove his younger sister home before driving aimlessly around the Clifton Hill area.

He limped the car home, where he changed clothes and drank another can of beer before walking angrily around to the nearby Royal Hotel, his local pub, at around 17:30.

Arriving back at his mother's house a few minutes later, he spoke briefly to his sister when she met him in the hallway outside the front room.

At 21:30 from the nature strip on the east side of the road, Knight commenced firing on passing cars with the Ruger rifle.

Rita received minor wounds and her husband drove on before stopping at a Mobil service station about 150 metres further south down Hoddle Street.

Following Gregory Elliott's car was a vehicle driven by Alan Jury and containing Monica Vitelli and Dannielle Mina.

[4] Knight fired rapid bursts at each car, and he reloaded with spare 10-round Ruger magazines as he moved north along the nature-strip towards the nearby Clifton Hill railway station.

The next three cars to be shot at contained Michael Pearce and Jacqueline Langosch, Issac Lohman, and Reginald Dutton and Dana Sabolcki respectively, and they all escaped injury.

The loud blasts of the shotgun alerted local residents to the shooting and the first calls were made to the Victoria Police's emergency communications centre, D24.

Soon afterwards, a car driven by Jayne Morris, alongside Kay Edwards and Cecilie Corless, drove south through the ambush zone.

[6] Further south down Hoddle Street they flagged down a police divisional van containing Constables Glen Nichols and Belinda Bourchier, and informed them about the shootings.

Knight continued to change position as he fired at a procession of four single-occupant cars which, in chronological order, were driven by Mathew Morrow, Edward McShortall, Trevor Robinson and Keith Wing Shing.

Tracey was killed instantly by a bullet to the face and Adam, who was on her lap below the window sill, received minor glass wounds.

[4] Following this, a local resident, Peter Curmi, and a friend of his, John Muscat, approached the scene from the western side of the street.

Immediately after this, the attendant at the nearby swimming pool, Steve Wight, ran to their aid and was seriously wounded by Knight's final shotgun blast.

At this point, Vesna Markovska broke cover from behind her car and made for the footpath on the eastern side of Hoddle Street.

Immediately afterwards Knight fired at the rider of a motorcycle, Kenneth "Shane" Stanton, who was hit in the left leg and fell onto the roadway.

Knight, who was by this time beside the southern end of the Clifton Hill railway station buildings, fired a shot at the front of the car.

Following his decision to withdraw, Knight turned around and climbed onto the western platform of the Clifton Hill railway station.

After firing at Larchin and Roberts's police car Knight moved into a nearby cluster of trees, sat down and smoked a cigarette.

Minutes later, police Aerospatiale Dauphin helicopter VH-PVA – call sign "Air 495" – arrived over the Clifton Hill area and began searching for Knight with a powerful searchlight.

The police car's headlights were on high beam facing the entrance to the laneway, which was also lit up by a nearby street light.