Sef returned to Chatswood police station for a second interview two days after his first interview. He did not know that, compared with the interview he was about to undergo, 1 August had been like a walk in the park. The police had only been getting started on the inconsistencies in his statements.
Sef was accompanied the second time around by a grief counsellor, who sat quietly in the corner of the interview room, observing the action. Sitting in another room of the station, waiting to watch the interview via video-link, other investigators and psychologists were ready, if necessary, to recommend Sheehy and Sim hit Sef with all their ammunition if it appeared Sef was vulnerable to making a confession.
Sef told police he had been back to Collins Street to look for the missing baseball bat after the first interview, but could not find it. He thought it had probably been left in his father’s Toyota Camry, which had been written off in an accident.
The police then dropped a bombshell. As well as Emily’s statement about seeing Sef’s car in the carport at 6 pm, they had information that a client of Teddy’s had dropped some documents off in the Collins Street letterbox between 4.15 pm and 4.30 pm on 10 July. She had told police she observed a small blue-green car parked in the carport — could Sef explain this?
‘No. I have no, I have no explanation for it,’ Sef replied. Around that time, he would have been travelling from his father’s Blacktown office to Collins Street. He left his father’s office, to the best of his recollection, about 4.30 pm.
Sim next produced Sef’s street directory, seized by police from his car. Sef had earlier told the police that he had looked in the street directory to find Raf De Leon’s address, but it wasn’t in his old directory, as the suburb was very new. He had also told police he did not have Raf’s new phone number on him to call and ask for directions.
Sim informed Sef that Raf’s street, Crestview Drive, was listed, and Sef agreed but said the suburb of Kings Ridge was not. Sim informed Sef police had found both Raf’s current home and mobile numbers recorded in Sef’s mobile telephone, but Sef replied he’d thought they were the old ones.
Sim’s tone became harder as he pushed Sef on the issue of why he had not looked to see which suburbs had Crestview Drives listed, to see which was the closest to Raf’s description of where he lived, near Blacktown.
SIM: So am I correct in saying you drove out there, got yourself lost. Is that right?
SEF: Yes.
SIM: And then you turned around and went home?
SEF: Yes.
SIM: When you say you got yourself lost . . . did you use your street directory to get yourself unlost? [Sim’s voice drips with sarcasm.]
SEF: No, I was lost in the sense that I wasn’t sure how to get to this place, not lost in the sense that I didn’t know where I was. I knew where I was but I didn’t know how to get, I didn’t know how to get to this place.
Sheehy took over from Sim, and brought up the subject of the 000 call, his tone soothing. He produced the tape and played it as Sef sat, looking shell-shocked, hearing his screaming and crying voice played back for the first time.
The tape concluded and silence hung thick in the air. If there was ever a point when Sef could excuse himself from the interview, too distressed to continue, this was it.
SHEEHY: Are you all right, Sef?
SEF: Yeah.
SHEEHY: Do you wish to continue at this time?
SEF: Yeah.
Sef agreed with Sheehy that he made the call when he had found his father, and that it was during this call that he found his mother’s body. Some time later he found his sister, he said.
Sheehy continued in his conciliatory tone.
SHEEHY: In the opening of that 000 call you actually say that someone’s killed your family, then killed my parents. I know this is difficult, but are you able to say how you’ve determined that, when at that stage you’ve only located your father?
SEF: You don’t, well, while I was on the phone, I guess I was rambling, and I just, I wasn’t picking the right words to say on the, on the phone. I was just, you know, to the effect I was just saying, you know, my family had been hurt, and I think that I said they were shot. And that’s the first time I’ve heard that, and I have, I mean, till now, I don’t even. And I, I never could recall what I said to the operator, I was just, just remember rambling to the operator. In terms of what I saw, I just, you know, that’s what [I] say in my statement and that’s, that’s just the best of my recollection.
Asked why the family’s cordless phone, usually kept in its stand in the downstairs study, was found at the top of the stairs when he had made the 000 call on his mobile phone, Sef answered that he had probably clipped the phone to his belt automatically, even though the phone line had been dead.
Sef denied ever having seen the painted racist scrawl inside the house, and said he did not know what colour the paint was. Shown a photograph of it for the first time, he told police he wrote with his left hand and that he did not see many similarities between the scrawl and his handwriting. He denied he had written it. He said he had not used blue spray paint recently.
It was revealed to Sef that police had found what appeared to be a small amount of blue paint on the sleeve of the jumper he was wearing the night of the murders. Asked if he had an explanation for this, Sef said there were decorative blue-painted woodchips on the side path of the Collins Street house. The dogs sometimes tracked blue chips onto the garden pebbles nearby and family members were constantly picking the chips up and depositing them back in their rightful place. He would have handled the chips within the last week, and could not remember the last time he had washed his jumper.
Asked about the Human brand shoebox in his room, Sef said it had been left behind by his cousin Monica, who had visited Australia that year, in April or May. Sef said he had never owned or used a pair of these shoes, and could not explain why they had left bloodied prints in the house. It was possible, Sef said, that his father had owned a pair of the shoes; he was trying to remember if he did.
‘What you’re saying, are you saying that you think your father may have had a pair of these shoes?’ Sim asked him.
Sef agreed.
‘Where do you think those shoes may be now?’ Sim pressed.
‘I don’t know, they may have been taken. They may have been, I don’t know, just, I’ll have to check the house. I mean, if, if you’re saying it doesn’t match it, I’m just guessing, you know, what if whoever did this took the shoes as well, and ’cause just putting things together, they’ve taken some of my clothes from what it appears, that you’re saying the police didn’t take my clothes. And it just occurs to me, maybe if they took my clothes, they may have taken, you know, a pair of shoes as well, or more than a pair of shoes.’
Towards the end of the interview, Sim began to question Sef about the computer searches for poisons. At first Sef had nothing to say, but as Sim asked him about the various searches made, Sef began to imply that possibly it was another family member who had made the searches.
‘Just with the plants, in case I might forget, the only possible explanation I guess is that my dad used the computer as well, and we just, we just put topsoil on the perimeter back yard . . . and we were planning to plant different plants there, and I remember accessing those, if my dad were researching plants . . . and if he was to, he was trying to make, to ensure that none of them was poisonous, that may be an explanation for why [he] would look up those particular sites. But that’s, you know, that’s the best thing, that’s the best guess that I could . . .’ His voice trailed off.
Sim let him know he thought this was an unbelievable explanation. He pointed out there were a number of searches on one specific poison, telling Sef what the poison was.
SIM: Could you give me a reason why your dad might plant a poisonous plant in your garden?
SEF: I wouldn’t know, no. And I don’t think he would.
SIM: Does that sound like a reasonable explanation to you?
SEF: Well it’s the best guess that I could make of . . .
SIM: Sorry, it’s the best what?
SEF: It’s, it’s the best guess that I can . . .
SIM: Guess? [Disbelief rings in his voice.]
SEF: . . . make of, what, what’s here.
The interview concluded at 3.13 pm. At no stage had Sef shown a sign of being close to breaking into a confession. Just before the interview ended, Sheehy uttered the words Sef must have known were coming, considering everything he now knew the police were aware of.
‘Sef, I have to ask you . . . did you have any involvement in the murder of your mother and father and sister?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Do you know of any person who may have had any involvement?’
Sef said he could only speculate. But he mentioned the name of a high-profile, extremely wealthy Filipino businessman. ‘As I mentioned, yeah, that person . . . may have had something to do with it. After having heard, you know, different accounts from different people, that’s all I can come up with right now.’
Sef left the station, never to participate in another recorded interview. However, his discussions with police were far from over, and he would continue to deal with Mick Sheehy, who he obviously felt was more sympathetic to him than Ritchie Sim, who did not seem to believe anything he said.
PERHAPS IT WAS sheer coincidence that on the day of his last nerve-racking interview with police — 3 August 2001 — Sef claimed to have received an anonymous e-mail nominating the same wealthy Filipino businessman he had mentioned in his interview as being behind the family’s killings. The businessman cannot be identified due to a suppression order from the New South Wales Supreme Court, but suffice it to say that he is extremely wealthy and influential.
The e-mail, which Sef gave to Tawas investigators on 20 August, was written partly in Tagalog and partly in English. It nominated the businessman as having taken out a hit on the family. ‘They were paid to kill three’, it said, and went on to add that Clodine’s being in Sydney had saved Sef’s life. The e-mail said it was Teddy’s good principles that had resulted in the deaths, and advised Sef to go through his father’s papers for clues. It warned Sef to be careful.
On 6 August, Sef had contacted his cousin Monica Gonzales, Freddie’s daughter, in the Philippines and asked her to make enquiries at her end about the businessman’s activities. She did not even bother. She found the suggestion that the businessman was involved patently ridiculous.
Much later, an earlier, all-English version of the e-mail was found on a computer seized from Sef’s Chatswood apartment.
Sef had moved into the high-rise, one-bedroom, $380-a-week apartment around the beginning of August 2001, telling his relatives the police had decided the high-security unit was necessary for his safety. (In reality, the police had said no such thing.) His family paid his rent and bills.