| Sef Gonzales | |
|---|---|
| Born | 16 September 1980 Baguio, Philippines |
| Alias(es) | Seffy Weffy |
| Conviction(s) | Murder x 3, threatening product contamination |
| Penalty | Life imprisonment x 4 |
| Status | Incarcerated |
| Parents | Teddy Gonzales, Mary Loiva Josephine Gonzales (both deceased) |
| Children | Benjamin and Liam |
Sef Gonzales (born 16 September 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 Gonzales, 46, mother Mary Loiva Josephine, 43, and sister Clodine, 18.
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Sef Gonzales was born in Baguio, Philippines to a prominent local family.
After the 1990 earthquake, Teddy, Mary Loiva and their two children emigrated to Australia, where Teddy carved out a career as an immigration lawyer. The Gonzales family appeared to be close-knit, the parents being strict, devoutly Catholic and having high hopes for their children. Later court evidence suggested, however, that the Gonzales enforced harsh discipline on their children had they not met their parents' high expectations. In particular,Teddy and Mary Loiva had hoped Sef would perform well academically, but he did not score well enough in his Higher School Certificate to be accepted into medicine or law.
After high school Gonzales attended the University of New South Wales, where he stayed in Warrane College for a time. Performing poorly in his courses, he tried to cover up his academic failure by falsifying his results, but when this was discovered by his parents they threatened to withdraw certain privileges, such as use of his car. He had also argued with his mother over a girlfriend of whom she disapproved, and his family had threatened to disinherit him.
This, along with the desire to inherit the family's fortune (estimated at between A$1.5 million and A$10 million), were established by police as motives for Gonzales killing his parents and sister.
On July 10, 2001, about 4.30pm Gonzales entered Clodine’s bedroom, where she was studying. He was armed with a baseball bat or a bat similar to a baseball bat and with two kitchen knives he had taken from a knife block in the kitchen. These two knives were the longest knives in the set of knives in the block. It was found that he compressed Clodine’s neck trying to strangle her, struck her at least six separate blows to the head with the bat and stabbed her many times with one or both of the knives. He inflicted five major stab wounds to Clodine’s neck and two major stab wounds to her chest or abdomen. The cause of Clodine’s death was the combined effect of the compression of her neck, the blunt force head injuries and the abdominal stab wounds.[1]
Mary Loiva arrived home about 5.30pm. Immediately upon entering the house, Sef attacked her with one of the kitchen knives in the living/dining room. Gonzales inflicted multiple stab wounds and cuts to her face, neck, chest and abdomen. Her windpipe was completely transected in the attack.[1]
Teddy arrived about 6.50pm. Very shortly after he entered the house, Sef attacked him with one of the kitchen knives and inflicted multiple stab wounds to his neck, chest, back and abdomen. One of the stab wounds penetrated his right lung, another penetrated his heart and another partially severed his spinal cord.[1]
After killing his family, Gonzales disposed of the knife (or knives) he had used as well as the bat he had used in striking Clodine and the shoes and clothing he had been wearing at the time of committing the murders, which had become blood stained. At some time in the evening, he also spray painted the words “Fuck off Asians KKK” on a wall in the house in an attempt to fool investigating police into believing that his family had been the victims of a hate crime.
After committing the murders, Gonzales drove to a friend's house, arriving there about 8pm. Sef and his friend, Sam Deilio (who neither knew or was told anything about the murders), went to the city, where they went to Planet Hollywood and then to a nearby video games centre. Later in the evening, after dropping his friend off, Gonzales returned home. He called police to say he had discovered the bodies on his arrival at the house, and that he had chased off intruders.
Gonzales attracted sympathy after he sang "One Sweet Day" at the funeral and appeared on television asking for the killers to come forward, saying he wanted justice and offering a reward of $100,000 for information.
However, police investigating the murders began to believe that he was the perpetrator. In December, 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 murders. Gonzales then constructed a second alibi, claiming he had visited a brothel at the time of the murders, but this was proven to be false by the prostitute who he claimed to be with at the time.
Other false trails were the fabrication of an e-mail that implicated a business rival of Teddy in the murders, the fabrication of threatening e-mails, and the staging of an attempted burglary and an abduction. Sef also put a deposit on a $173,000 Lexus, telling the dealership he would be using his inheritance to pay for the vehicle, traded in his parent's car and pawned his mother's jewellery.[2]
On 13 June 2002, detectives from Strike Force Tawas of the NSW Police arrested Sef Gonzales and charged him with three counts of murder and one count of threatening product contamination. He was refused bail and held in remand in Silverwater Correctional Centre. He was also denied access to the family's estate to fund his defense.
The murder trial took place during April and May 2004. The trial revealed that Gonzales had planned the murders for several months before they took place. Initially Gonzales researched the idea of poisoning his family, which led to an elaborate contamination hoax. The court heard of numerous lies told to his friends, family and police regarding his whereabouts at the time of the murders.
It was found that he had committed the murders because he was fearful that, because of his poor performance in his university studies, his parents might take his car away from him and might withdraw other privileges which had been granted to him and that he wished to be the sole beneficiary of his parent's property, estimated to be worth $1.5 million.
On 20 May 2004, the jury found Gonzales guilty of all four charges. He was sentenced on 17 September 2004 (the day after his 24th birthday) to three concurrent life sentences without parole for the murders, Justice Bruce James remarking "I consider that the murders show features of very great heinousness and that there are no facts mitigating the objective seriousness of the murders and hence the murders fall within the worst category of cases of murder at common law." [3] Gonzales is now serving his sentence as a maximum security inmate at Lithgow Correctional Centre, and maintains his innocence.
In June 2007 Gonzales was granted approval to appeal his conviction and his sentence. The Supreme Court determined that statements taken from Gonzales by police on the night of the murders may be inadmissible, as he was not cautioned.[4] On 27 November 2007, Sef Gonzales' appeal was dismissed as there had been no miscarriage of justice, and his convictions remained.[5]
The North Ryde house where the murders took place was put on the market, arousing controversy in October 2004 when the prospective buyers, a Buddhist couple, learned of the home's history. They 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 incident was publicised the NSW government made it illegal to sell a house without disclosing murders that took place in it. The agents eventually refunded the buyer's deposit on their purchase due to the bad publicity it caused for LJ Hooker. The real estate company was also fined $21,000. In November 2005 the house was sold for $720,000 ($80,000 less than the initial sale) to a buyer who was aware of its history.[1]