Sef Gonzales
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Sef Gonzales (born September 16, 1980) is an Australian who was convicted and sentenced in the Supreme Court of New South Wales to life imprisonment for the murder of his father, Teddy, 46, mother Mary Loiva Josephine, 43, and sister Clodine, 18.
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[edit] Background
Sef Gonzales was born in Baguio, Philippines to a locally prominent family. After the 1990 earthquake, Teddy and Mary Loiva emigrated to Australia with their two children. Teddy carved out a career as an immigration lawyer. The Gonzales family appeared to be a close-knit family, the parents being strict and devout and having high hopes for their children. Later court evidence suggested that the Gonzales were a controlling family who would enforce harsh discipline on their children had they not met their parents' high expectations. In particular, Teddy and Mary Loiva had hoped that Sef would perform well academically, but he did not fare well in his HSC and performed poorly in his university courses. Clodine had been sent to Melbourne to complete high school, after her mother disapproved of her boyfriend. Some observed that Sef had a penchant for stretching the truth and outright lying to impress people, with Walter Mitty-like fantasies in which he imagined himself to be a successful businessman, model and singer. (A website supposedly run by the daughter of a family friend, Daisy Diaz, as a "tribute" was in fact set up by Gonzales himself.) Others have remarked that he had an essentially narcissistic personality and was a compulsive or pathological liar. However, to many people the lies were believable because of his apparent sincerity. He also falsely told friends that he was suffering from cancer.
Sef attempted to cover up his academic failure by falsifying results, and when this was discovered by his parents they had threatened to withdraw certain privileges such as use of his car. At the same time, he had argued with his mother over a girlfriend she had disapproved of. This along with the desire to inherit the family's fortune were established as motives for Gonzales killing his parents and sister.
On July 10, 2001, Sef Gonzales murdered Clodine, Mary Loiva and Teddy. Initially he claimed to the police that he had discovered the bodies when he arrived home, and that racist graffiti was sprayed on the wall (which was later proven in court to have been written by Gonzales himself). Gonzales managed to inspire some sympathy from the public, particularly when he sang "One Sweet Day" by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men at the funeral. However, around this time the police investigating the murders began to believe he was a suspect in the crime.
Later that year, investigating police were able to disprove Gonzales' first alibi when they were told of sightings of his car in the driveway at the time of the murder. He then constructed a second alibi, claiming he had visited a brothel at the time of the murders, but this was also proven to be false by the prostitute who he claimed to be with at the time. Other false trails included fabricating an email to implicate a business rival of Teddy in the murders, and staging an "abduction" to prove his hitman theory.
[edit] Murder trial
On June 13, 2002, after advancing two false alibis, police arrested Sef Gonzales and charged him with three counts of murder, holding him in Silverwater Correctional Centre. He was denied access to the family's estate to fund his defence.
The murder trial took place during April and May 2004. Apart from the above-mentioned motives, the trial had revealed that Gonzales had planned the murders for several months before they took place. Initially he intended to carry out an elaborate contamination hoax, searching the Internet for poisonous plants. The trial also heard of numerous lies to his friends, family and police surrounding his whereabouts at the time of the murders, which some feel was consistent with his characteristic lying. On May 20, 2004, the jury found Gonzales guilty on the three counts of murder. He was sentenced on September 17 to three life terms without parole, making him one of the youngest "lifers" in Australia. Gonzales is now serving his terms as a maximum security inmate at Goulburn Correctional Centre.
The case, which has since become one of Australia's most notorious murder cases, may draw comparisons to California's Menendez Brothers case.
[edit] Sale of Gonzales home
The North Ryde house where the murders took place has since been put on the market, arousing controversy in October 2004 when the prospective buyers had not been informed of the events that took place there, finding out from a newspaper only when the balance of the sale value was due. After this was publicised, the state government made it illegal to sell a house without disclosing murders that took place in it. The agents eventually refunded the deposit on their purchase and the house was re-sold in November 2005 to a buyer who was aware of the house's history for $80 000 less than the initial sale.
