Source : Perth Now news
Newly released police bodycam footage has surfaced showing celebrity dentist Dr Steven Lin in bizarre circumstances months before he was shot dead by police during a violent incident in Sydney’s east.
The 41-year-old was killed by officers on March 3 after allegedly attacking two women at a building in Potts Point about 10.50am.
Police say he was armed with a knife when he entered a communal laundry area, where one woman was stabbed in the face before he forced his way into another unit and attacked a second resident.
He was later shot after allegedly lunging at police following an attempted Taser deployment. He could not be revived at the scene.
The incident came amid a long history of alleged violence, including stalking, assault, choking and repeated breaches of apprehended violence orders. Friends say his behaviour deteriorated significantly following the breakdown of his marriage, with claims of drug use and increasingly erratic conduct.
It has now emerged Lin was on bail at the time of the fatal incident, following a separate alleged assault on a stranger just 10 months earlier.
That earlier incident, in May 2025, involved Wollongong homeowner Nick Skarvelis, who has since spoken publicly about the encounter. He recalled to Nine seeing Lin emerge from bushes near his property before an altercation unfolded.
When Mr Skarvelis approached him to check if he was okay, Lin allegedly responded: “I’m going to kill you”.
Mr Skarvelis said Lin then struck him with a metal pole, causing serious injuries. “I had a fractured scapula, five broken ribs. I broke a pinky [finger], broke a toe… and a fractured cheekbone,” he said.
He told reporters he tried to escape up stairs to his balcony, but Lin allegedly threw him over the railing. Mr Skarvelis was later able to get inside his home and call police. Lin fled the scene before officers arrived.
Police located him around an hour later hiding in a nearby backyard, partially buried and stripped to his underwear in what appeared to be an attempt to conceal himself.
In bodycam footage released to A Current Affair, Lin denied attacking Mr Skarvelis and gave a different account of events.
“I was just going for a run and then there was police. I just felt a bit weird … I just kind of skipped into the bush and I laid down,” Lin told officers during his arrest.
Mr Skarvelis later described the footage as surreal, saying Lin had buried himself in the yard in an effort to hide. “Dug a hole in the garden and buried himself with leaves and everything… it was just his eyeballs you could see. It was like the movies,” he said.
Lin was charged over the Wollongong incident and released on bail.
Ten months later, he allegedly carried out the fatal knife attack in Potts Point.
Both surviving victims from the March incident, Chloe Paul and Christine Campeau, have questioned why Lin was not kept in custody following the earlier assault.
“I’m glad he’s not still out there because there’d be more victims, for sure,” Ms Paul said.
Before his downfall, Lin had been a high-profile dentist and author of the bestselling book The Dental Diet, which promoted links between oral health, nutrition and brain function. He had delivered TED talks, ran two dental practices on the NSW Central Coast, and appeared on international media programs.
However, his career later unravelled amid what has been described as a severe methamphetamine addiction, relationship breakdown and escalating personal instability. During that period, he allegedly made violent threats against his ex-wife, the mother of five of his children, and other individuals connected to his personal life.
“I will slit your throat and rip your head off and hang your body in the garage,” Lin had told his wife in September 2024 during an earlier ice bender.
By that stage, the couple had separated, and she continued running their dental practice while also caring for their children in the family’s Central Coast home.
Weeks after the death of Lin, his ex-wife Cassandra shared a deeply personal letter, describing both the love they once shared and the events that led to the breakdown of their relationship.
“Dear Steven, I never imagined I would be writing you a letter like this,” she wrote in a post shared to Instagram.
“I always thought if we grew old together, the words I’d say to you would be over a kitchen table, or whispered across a pillow, not spoken out loud to a room full of people who loved you.”
She described the early days of their relationship as a time of stability and connection.
“When I met you, something in me settled. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had found peace… like I had finally found home,” she wrote.
“You weren’t just the man I loved, I thought you were my soulmate, the person I believed I would walk beside for the rest of my life.”
The couple built a life together and had five children, which Cassandra said was the “greatest part” of their relationship.
“We had it all,” she wrote. “And the greatest part of that life was becoming parents.
“Watching you become a father is something I will always treasure. Our children were the apple of your eye. You loved them fiercely, proudly, completely.
“The way you looked at them, with wonder, with joy, is something I will carry with me forever. In those moments, our little family felt whole and unbreakable.”
But she said that sense of stability eventually unravelled.
“The truth is that my world came crashing down when I discovered the life you had been living behind my back,” she wrote.
“The affairs. The secrets. The abuse. The child you fathered that I knew nothing about.
“It shattered the trust I had placed in you and the future I thought we were building together. The pain of that betrayal is something I’m still learning how to carry.”
Cassandra said Lin’s death had left her grappling with complicated emotions.
“Standing here today, I’m reminded that people are never just the worst thing they’ve done, nor only the best,” she wrote.
“You were complicated. You were flawed. You made choices that hurt me deeply and changed our lives forever.
“I had to stand back and let you fight your secret war. A war which you lost in the end.”
