Gunfire, Bloodshed, And A Missing Child: One Jewish Family’s Nightmare At The Bondi Beach Massacre

A distraught Jewish couple shared the harrowing and heartbreaking circumstances during the Bondi Beach terrorist attack in Australia, when they couldn’t find one of their daughters amidst the bloodshed and chaos.

Wayne and Vanessa Miller, whose daughter Capri is four years old and daughter Gigi is three, spoke to Erin Molan in a highly emotional interview.

“In Australia, we’re such targets; the government’s not doing much about it,” Wayne began.

“Capri wanted to get a balloon, so I left Vanessa, and I walked up to the balloon stand, which was actually on the west end of the whole event, closest to where the shooter was, shooting from the bridge,” he recalled of the massacre. “And we were waiting in line for the balloons, and the next thing I feel something hit me in the face like a ricochet or something. I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, they must’ve set off a firecracker. How unsafe.’”

“And then it was a big bang, then I heard it again, and then I was just — I took Capri up, I picked her up and … I dived under a table, and I was just I smothering her. She was completely underneath me. No part of her body was exposed,” he continued. “So much was going on … two arm lengths away, there was a guy lying there shot. I couldn’t do anything about it, and then the next thing Vanessa phones me and she says to me, ‘Have you got the kids?’”

“I said, ‘I’ve just got Capri,” he said. “I said, ‘Where’s Gigi?’ She said she doesn’t have Gigi. And at that moment, I put my head out into the field to see if I could see her, and there was just shooting … the shots were going off, and people were shouting, ‘Get down! Get back!’ And I just went and laid over Capri, and I said to Vanessa, ‘We’ll get her back. We’ll get her.’ Gunshots were going off, and I couldn’t even move to go find my little baby. It was the longest five minutes.”

Wayne said a man lying down near him said he didn’t know where two of his own children were. After the shooting stopped, he grabbed Capri in his arms and ran to the car park where Vanessa was, handed her Capri, and said, “I’m going in to look for Gigi.”

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“There was blood, and people lying on the floor, and dead bodies,” he remembered. Gigi was wearing a rainbow skirt and a pink top, and Wayne saw his daughter underneath a lady, “this hero of a person,” who had seen his daughter crying and pulled her underneath her, protecting her. When Wayne saw his daughter, she was covered with blood from a woman near her who had been shot in the head.

Finding Gigi was “the best moment of my life,” he wept.

“I knew Wayne had Capri,” Vanessa said. “I was looking around. I couldn’t find Gigi. I’m standing around screaming, ‘Where are you? Where’s my family? Where are my girls?”

“There were two policemen; one was hiding behind a car; one was shot in the head, bleeding from his face. … I tried to grab one of their guns, he says no. I’m trying to grab for his gun. … These police officers were hiding behind a car,” she said. “They were just standing there, listening and watching this all happen, holding me back.”

“My little three-year-old was saved by a pregnant woman who saw her crying and screaming, ‘Mummy, Daddy,’  running around while everyone was on the floor. She’s lucky to be alive, and I know that today,” she continued.

Wayne told Molan, “Last night, putting Capri to bed, we’re lying under the table, she said, ‘Daddy, when we’re lying under the table, I have to wee in my pants because I don’t want to go to the toilet and get dead.’”

Speaking about the Australian government, Wayne said, “It’s appalling the position they’ve left the Jewish community in.”