On the first three days and nights after the murders, Emily Luna did not sleep, eat, or leave her home.
Wearing the same pair of pyjamas, Emily sat on her couch, staring into space. Her thoughts kept returning to the visit she had paid to the Gonzales home on the night of the murders and the fact she had seen Sef’s car outside. She thought of the veiled accusation she had made to Sef at the police station that night. She wondered whether visiting the house that evening, becoming a witness, meant she had endangered her safety and that of her immediate family.
All she was concerned about was the safety of her husband and child. It was all right if they slept, as long as she was awake to watch over them.
Her eight-year-old son could not understand the depth of her fear. Occasionally, he would give her a hug, trying to comfort her with words of childish innocence: ‘Everything will turn out okay, Mum.’
Emily did not think anything would be okay, ever again.
On the night of 11 July, the night after the bodies were discovered, Emily got up to search for a photograph of Teddy, Loiva and Clodine. She could only find one, an old one from a family get-together. Placing it on an altar in the living room, she lit some candles and said a prayer for the souls of her family. Then, summoning up her courage, she made a promise to her three dead family members that she would fight until their killers were brought to account.
‘I promised the three of them I will not stop until justice is served, basically even if I had to risk my own life, I will not stop until justice is served.’
It was easier said than done, though. Emily did not trust the police not to repeat anything she said to them about her nephew back to him, and put her at greater risk.
That was the main thing playing on her mind, the risk. She made sure the burglar alarm at her house was armed 24 hours a day, regardless of whether she was home or not. She thought about how her house was raised off the ground, how easy it would be for her nephew to crawl underneath and up into the house, and be waiting for her when she got home. She stopped going to the Holy Spirit Church in North Ryde, keen to avoid the media, that were sniffing around in the hope of speaking to relatives of the murder victims.
Most of all, she didn’t want to speak to her nephew, or even lay eyes on him. It occurred to her that if he had murdered his immediate family, if her suspicions were true, then he would have no compunction about harming his other relatives.
Later, when she allowed herself some sleep, she dreamed of Loiva and Clodine. They were terrifying, vivid dreams, full of violence. In one, Clodine was explaining to Emily where she had been stabbed, and as she pointed to each wound, Emily would feel the knife go into her own body.
In another, Loiva was lying in a coffin, then she stood up holding a knife, and began chasing Emily with it. This dream made Emily fully understand the terror her sister must have experienced before her death. ‘I just felt how she would have, when she had been chased by someone with a knife,’ says Emily.
TEDDY’S AND LOIVA’S relatives in Baguio had received news of the murders within hours. Annie Paraan, Sef’s aunt, received the news via SMS text message from her brother Edmund about 6 am in the Philippines (8 am Australian time) on the day after the murders. At first she thought the message was some kind of cruel joke, then she asked her husband, Dr Ronnie Paraan, to read it over for her, just to make sure it was real.
Later that day the news flashes about the murders began airing on Annie’s television. They were repeated frequently, and showed the scene from Sydney the night before. Annie says the local TV stations were reporting that Australian police wanted the Filipino relatives of the dead family to ‘let themselves be known’.
Annie had a soft heart by nature, and was quite emotional. She was also close to her sister Loiva and brother-in-law Teddy. She would speak to Loiva maybe twice a month and exchange SMS messages in between. She watched the television footage and saw her nephew curled up in a foetal position outside the family’s garage. He was an orphan now, she realised, and with Loiva dead she was the eldest of the Claridades siblings. Annie was struck with a strong sense of responsibility for Sef, heightened by the fact she was his godmother.
‘My heart really felt for him and I said I wanted to do something for him because he’s alone there . . . when I first saw him on TV, my initial reaction was to go there and help wherever I can, and also find out why this thing happened to them, what is the reason?’
Annie began making immediate plans for some time off from her manager’s position at a major Baguio bank, so she could go and assist Sef in Sydney. Her husband Ronnie didn’t want her to go, but Annie insisted. She had visited Sydney in May that year, and her one-year tourist visa was still current. She could leave as soon as she got her luggage in order and arranged some time off from the bank. That weekend, she flew out of Manila, Sydney-bound.
Freddie Gonzales, his daughter Monica and his sister Annie Gonzales-Tesoro also made arrangements to catch a flight to Sydney. Their elderly parents stayed behind. Evelyn Gonzales was not in good health.
On Friday, 13 July, the Gonzales and Claridades family members from interstate and overseas arrived in Sydney. Amelita Claridades returned from Melbourne with her daughter Liza. Edmund Claridades arrived from the Gold Coast. Freddie and Monica Gonzales, Annie Gonzales-Tesoro and Annie Paraan arrived from the Philippines.
Police forensics officers had arrived at Amelita’s house on the night after the murders to search for signs that the killer had washed up in her yard. They found no evidence, but Amelita was not comfortable returning home.
She and her daughters Annie and Liza stayed at the Ryde home of Cecile Ferrer, who had taken the first call from police on the night of the murders. The Gonzales side of the family stayed with close family friends at Turramurra, on Sydney’s North Shore. Edmund stayed at Emily’s home in North Ryde.
That Friday evening, Joseph rang Emily and said, ‘I think there’s something you have to clarify with Sef.’ Joseph asked her to come to the Ferrer residence, where Sef was being comforted by relatives. Emily agreed to go.
The first thing Sef said to her when she arrived was: ‘Aunty Emily, it was raining very heavily that night, wasn’t it?’
Emily put up a good front. Not wishing to upset family members or further provoke Sef, she agreed. She realised she had been too confrontational that night at Gladesville police station. She wanted Sef to think she believed the explanation he had given police for why she had seen his car in the carport of Collins Street at 6 pm that Tuesday.
‘I told him that I was sorry I scolded you that evening, and sorry that I didn’t realise that you were in the car when you were making a phone call,’ she says.
Sef seemed appeased. He told his aunt it was all right, that he understood. Emily made herself give her nephew a hug.
Emily wasn’t the only family member to question Sef about the subject of his guilt or innocence. After his arrival in Sydney Freddie Gonzales also tried to confront him.
Freddie recalls giving his nephew a hug and telling him, ‘You can be honest with me, whatever happened.’ He says Sef paused, then replied, ‘No, what I said happened, happened.’
Freddie felt a deep disappointment. He thought Sef was evading him. Later, Freddie would puzzle over the fact that all Sef had to do was ask for help, financial or otherwise, from his uncle, and he would give it to him. He was a wealthy man. So why wasn’t Sef asking for help? Was it an admission of his guilt? He did not know that during that period Sef was telling Sam Dacillo that Freddie probably wanted to get his hands on Teddy’s ‘millions’.
Annie Paraan also remembers comforting Sef, who appeared to be sobbing. ‘I can’t be 100 per cent sure because every time [there was] the action of sobbing, but I can’t remember seeing tears falling.’
It was inevitable in that stressful time that tempers would begin to fray. Freddie remembers a spat occurring about two nights into his stay in Sydney, when a lot of relatives and friends were assembled. He recalls that Emily and a couple of others stated their belief that Sef was guilty, and that the family should not extend help to him. However, the rest of the family took the attitude that of course the family should help Sef.
Emily recalls that an argument erupted when Freddie was talking to Sammy Dacillo, Sam Dacillo’s father, about the circumstances surrounding the timing of the events on the night of the murders. There was a discrepancy between what Dacillo was telling Freddie, and what Sef had told Freddie that afternoon, and Freddie commented on it. Annie Paraan got upset. She felt that her godson was being unfairly accused of having something to do with the murders.
Difficult though it was, the extended family was forced to push these issues aside and prepare for the burial of their loved ones.
THE FUNERAL WAS scheduled for 20 July, ten days after the murders. A viewing of the bodies in open caskets was arranged for family members by the funeral home, several days before the funeral.
At the viewing, Sef kneeled beside Teddy’s coffin and held his father’s hand. He stayed there a good five minutes, with his head bowed. He repeated this with Clodine and Loiva.
The family members observed the shocking injuries to Teddy, Loiva and Clodine, which, despite the best efforts of the funeral home, were still visible. Freddie and Annie Gonzales-Tesoro noticed Teddy had stitching across his hands and wrists. They thought this was because he had tried to defend himself, Freddie says. Emily observed that Sef appeared to be praying beside each family member and she wondered: was he asking God for forgiveness? but she didn’t notice any sign of tears on Sef’s face. However, Annie Paraan says the viewing was the first time she saw Sef lose control of his emotions. ‘When the bodies were released to us, it was then I saw him really sob.’
The relatives wanted a burial, but Sef told the family that he recalled Teddy mentioning to him that he wanted to be cremated after death. However, it was pointed out to him that as there was an ongoing police investigation into the murders it would be wiser not to cremate the bodies in case further forensic tests were needed. Sef agreed.
But he would not bend on the issue of who was to give the eulogy for his father. Freddie wanted to speak about his brother at the funeral, but Sef was adamant, Emily recalls. Sef wanted to do it, and he wanted to be the only one to do it. It was agreed that if Sef got too emotional at the funeral then Freddie would take over reading the eulogy. Annie Paraan volunteered to say the eulogy for Loiva, and Liza Carroll agreed to say Clodine’s. She was extremely fond of her lively niece, who had lived with her in Melbourne for the year before her death.
SEF HAD EXPRESSED fears for his own safety, saying that his family’s killers would come after him next. On the morning of 18 July, two days before the funeral, the police checked him into a motel on Victoria Road, Ryde. Later that day, they helped Sef change the personalised numberplates of his car.
The room Sef was first checked into was quickly changed. Sheehy told Sef he had hand-picked the second room because it provided better security. But safety wasn’t the real reason for the choice, unbeknownst to Sef. Covert police surveillance of Sef Gonzales was about to start. It was a low-key way to determine whether Sef really was an innocent victim or was just playing the part. Sheehy knew the room he had chosen would best allow the surveillance officers to follow Sef’s comings and goings. But Sef would only stay at the hotel for a couple of nights, with his family paying the bill.
SEF WAS EATING very little, telling his relatives he was not hungry. Emily suggested he should try some soup, and went and bought it for him to take back to the hotel.
One night — when he had just got his car back from police — Sef told his relatives he just wanted some time alone, to go for a drive. He had an appointment at a family friend’s house to get a haircut before the funeral. The appointment was for midnight, but Sef failed to show up. When the friend telephoned the family to let them know Sef had not arrived, there was panic and the family telephoned police to say they had ‘lost’ him.
Sef later said he had gone to a park in West Ryde to contemplate all that had happened. Emily would soon hear that he had been spotted around that time tucking into a meal at a Lane Cove steakhouse, alone.
After he moved out of the hotel, Sef was scheduled to stay at the Ferrers’, and the next night at the Dacillos’. Both cancelled on him, as they were concerned about getting too involved and putting their families at risk. Emily did not want Sef to stay at her home either, and told him she too did not wish to get involved. She had a young son to protect. Sef said he understood, then said words to the effect of: ‘At least I know who my true friends are.’