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Sef GONZALES

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 
 
 
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Parricide
Number of victims: 3
Date of murders: July 10, 2001
Date of birth: September 16, 1980
Victims profile: His father, Teddy, 46, mother Mary Loiva Josephine, 43, and sister Clodine, 18
Method of murder: Stabbing with knife
Location: North Ryde, New South Wales, Australia
Status: Sentenced to three life terms without parole on September 17, 2004
 
 
 
 
 
 

photo gallery

 
 
 
 
 
 

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.

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.

The murders

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.

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.

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.

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 the murders

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.

The investigation heads up

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.

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.

Appeal

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. On 27 November 2007, Sef Gonzales' appeal was dismissed as there had been no miscarriage of justice, and his convictions remained.

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.

Wikipedia.org

 
 

Family killed because they were 'in the way'

By Lee Glendinning

April 6, 2004

Looming in front of Sef Gonzales was a life that seemed to him to be falling apart.

To deal with it he decided to kill his family with poisonous beans because they were proving a threat to the life he wanted to lead, Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, QC, said yesterday.

Gonzales, 20, had failed a bridging course in medicine at University of NSW and was facing expulsion from a "pre-law" course at Macquarie University.

The girl he believed he was in love with had returned to her boyfriend after a brief liaison and his mother had warned she disapproved of her.

Killing his parents would also mean Gonzales would inherit considerable wealth, Sydney's Darlinghurst Criminal Court was told. So, logging on to the internet, he typed into a search engine: "Methods of killing".

It was there he learned of the poisonous beans that would kill in three days and leave no obvious sign of how death occurred, the court heard.

The sites explained how to mix the beans with food, and the way symptoms - such as convulsions and severe viral pain, would gradually set in and cause a slow and painful death.

The court was told Gonzales placed orders for the beans from a site in the US and a company in Byron Bay.

To set up a "smokescreen", the Crown alleges, Gonzales decided to create a false food contamination scare at a major company, typing a letter: "3 of your products have been poisoned. By now they are on supermarket shelves. This is what you get for treating employees like garbage. Good luck finding infected cans before someone dies. Go to hell!!!"

He sent similar letters to the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service and the Australian Federal Police pretending to be an employee who had heard the products had been sabotaged, the court heard. These letters were received on July 2, 2001.

Eight days later, his sister Clodine Gonzales, 18, his mother, Mary Loiva, 43, and his father, Teddy, 46, were stabbed to death in their home in Collins Street, North Ryde.

Gonzales had failed to kill his family with his first plan - despite his mother being admitted to hospital with what they thought was food poisoning, Mr Tedeschi told the court.

So he decided instead, the court heard, to stab his family to death.

Around lunchtime on July 10, 2001, he went to his father's Blacktown office to help fix a computer. He left that afternoon, arriving home some time between 4.10 and 4.30pm, the Crown alleges.

His sister, Ms Gonzales, was home alone. He bashed her viciously and stabbed her multiple times, Mr Tedeschi said.

Gonzales next killed his mother when she arrived home, stabbing her in the lounge room, the court heard. Teddy Gonzales was killed last as he walked in to the house.

All three, the court heard, were attacked with much more force than was necessary to kill them. "This was not a professional killing," Mr Tedeschi said. "This was a slaughter by an angry amateur who wanted to make absolutely sure they were dead but had no idea how many times he would need to stab them in order to cause death."

Gonzales then went out to dinner in the city with a friend and returned at 11.45pm, the court heard.

After seeing only the body of his father, he rang triple 0.

"Please come, someone has, someone is at my parents, killed my family... they are all bleeding there on the floor."

Painted on the wall was a message: "F--k off asians. KKK."

Mr Tedeschi says Gonzales then began his litany of lies to police, his family and friends.

He told them after calling triple 0 he had heard a noise downstairs and ran to see who it was. He chased one or two men, he said, but they disappeared.

The trial continues.

 
 

'Family killer' wanted to poison himself, court told

April 6, 2004

A student accused of slaughtering his family told his then girlfriend that he had bought poisonous seeds not to kill them but himself and make it look like cancer, a Sydney court heard today. But the prosecution described the claim as an "absurdity"

Sef Gonzales has pleaded not guilty in the NSW Supreme Court to murdering his parents, Teddy and Mary Loiva, and his 18-year-old sister Clodine at their North Ryde home on July 10, 2001.

Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, QC, said the now 23-year-old stabbed to death his family, one by one, over a three-hour period.

He also said that a week before the murders the then student tried to poison his family with highly toxic seeds he bought over the internet.

The court today heard that Gonzales told his then girlfriend in early 2002 he had bought the seeds to commit suicide and thought they "would destroy his internal organs to make it look like cancer".

"Apart from the obvious absurdity of someone feigning death from cancer from poison that took effect in three days there are other facts that show he had no intention of killing himself at all," Mr Tedeschi said.

He said Gonzales had falsely told his friends for years he had cancer to elicit sympathy.

 
 

Sef Gonzales

Gonzales lay in wait and stabbed his lawyer father Teddy, mother Mary Loiva and 18-year-old sister Clodine to death at their home on July 10, 2001.

Senior crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi, QC, yesterday began outlining the case in the Supreme Court against the 23-year-old, who faces three murder counts.

Gonzales, who clutched rosary beads and prayed quietly in court yesterday, answered "not guilty" to all counts.

Mr Tedeschi told the jury that Gonzales killed his parents because his life was "unravelling".

Gonzales' parents placed very high expectations on their son, who they believed could become a doctor or laywer, but he was a poor student and faced expulsion from his university course.

He had also just had a brief fling with a girl four years his senior. While she broke up with him after they had sex, he saw that as only a minor hurdle in their relationship. :blink:
Mr Tedeschi said Gonzales was concerned his mother did not approve of the girl.

The final motive, it is alleged, was Gonzales would have access his parent's $1.5 million estate. Mr Tedeschi said Gonzales asked his father's accountant, within a week of the murders, how much the estate was worth.

Shortly after the murder he pawned his mother's jewellery and the family's three cars.

He then put down a deposit on a $173,000 Lexus SC 430, which he was unable to buy because he could not access his parent's estate.

Mr Tedeschi said Gonzales sent the letter to the food and beverage company in conjunction with another note to quarantine authorities and Australian Federal Police, purportedly from "concerned employees".

The letter stated the food and beverage company was covering up the threat and putting public safety at risk.

Mr Tedeschi said Gonzales searched the internet for methods of killing before deciding on two highly toxic poisons which could be made from seeds.

He discovered instructions, such as how to make the poisons, how to mix them in a person's food, and recognising symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhoea and death, he said.

There were also e-mails ordering the seeds placed from Gonzales' e-mail address.

On June 3, 2001, Mrs Gonzales was hospitalised with bleeding to the gut, a fever and in "absolute agony" with stomach pain, Mr Tedeschi said.

Doctors diagnosed it as severe food poisoning but were unable to isolate any bacteria or virus as the cause.

Mr Tedeschi said the crown alleged Gonzales had poisoned his mother.
 

 

 
 
 
 
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