In September 2001, Tawas detectives decided to take another crack at getting a confession from Sef. Leo, an undercover operative (not his real undercover name), managed to bump into Sef at a Chatswood coffee shop while Mick Sheehy was having one of his regular informal meetings with Sef. Leo casually complimented Sef on his cool threads. In the undercover business, it is called a ‘cold start’.
Leo portrayed himself as a gangster with connections in the police force. He was a man who could solve your problems for you. This was crucial, because police believed Sef would not confess to committing the murders to someone he saw as beneath him in the criminal pecking order. Tawas detectives wanted Sef to engage in a bragging contest with Leo — which he did to a certain degree. He told Leo he was a member of the White Dragons Asian crime gang — a gang police later ascertained did not exist, at least according to their databases.
In October, Leo was the man who got Sef into the exclusive Lexus stand at the Sydney Motor Show. Once a friendship of sorts had been established, Leo informed Sef that an inmate dying in jail would confess to his family’s murders. Sef gave Leo floor plans he had sketched of the Collins Street house, indicating where the bodies had been found and where the graffiti was on the wall. He even wrote ‘Fuck Off Bloody Asians’ on the plan.
None of this meant much to police, as Sef had discovered the bodies and had been shown photos of the racist scrawl, although the wording of the racist scrawl he wrote for Leo was slightly different. But they did compare Sef’s handwriting on the paper to that on the wall.
What was most intriguing was that Sef wrote down his family’s approximate times of death on the plan. He noted that Clodine’s was 3 pm to 5 pm, Loiva’s was 5 pm to 6 pm and Teddy’s was 6 pm to 7 pm. Police had carefully guarded the times of death, knowing it was a detail only the killer would be able to pinpoint.
In the end though, Sef did not take Leo up on the offer of an inmate’s confession. He did, however, make some interesting comments to Leo. On 15 October, he told Leo: ‘People don’t suspect me, it’s just Sef with the little baby face. I have a split personality, I can hide what I do.’ On 5 December, he said that his family had been murdered by contract killers due to politicking in the Philippines: ‘I’m pretty sure it’s all over, I’ve tied my loose ends really well.’ Then, on 12 December: ‘They’ve got nothing on me . . . I’m pretty confident on what they’ve got on me, it’s all circumstantial stuff.’
Yet on 20 December, Sef told Leo categorically that he was not involved in his family’s murders. The decision was then taken to can the undercover operation.
Some investigators, Paul Auglys included, thought Leo should have been set up as a nightclub guru, someone who could exploit Sef’s fascination with that whole scene and offer him the chance to become a big shot. Others, such as Sheehy, thought the outcome was to be expected. They wanted Sef to brag to Leo, to shoot his mouth off. Yet murdering your family wasn’t exactly the kind of crime you went around boasting about.
IN DECEMBER 2001, Mick Sheehy and Detective Paul Sullivan visited Queensland’s Gold Coast to interview the head of one of the seed suppliers whom ‘sef’ had e-mailed from the Gonzales’ family computer. During their stay, they spoke to Sef’s Uncle Edmund, who lived up that way, and Edmund convinced them to go to a psychic with him — one he had visited previously.
The psychic’s name was Rhiannon, and Sheehy and Sullivan, the trained psychologist, were extremely sceptical. They decided in advance they would keep poker faces and not volunteer any information that could influence what she told them.
Edmund had been asked by the woman beforehand to bring along something belonging to Loiva. Edmund brought along a large Global brand knife. Loiva had given it to him when the Gonzales family had bought the Global brand block, and no longer needed the single knife. As a black cat with intense green eyes wandered around her home unit, giving the cops the evil eye, Rhiannon touched the knife. She said she could feel some connection between the knife and the murder weapon.
She told them she had communicated with Loiva’s spirit and Loiva had told her that her son was the killer. Loiva had expressed her shock at having raised a son who was so evil. She mentioned that Clodine had been choked and also attacked with a silver cylindrical object. And the killer had worn running shoes that had no shoelaces, just like the Human brand shoes police believed the killer had worn. All these were details the police had witheld from the public.
She said that, after the murders, the killer had washed in open ground where there were buildings and a water supply. To Sheehy, it sounded like it could be Truscott Street Public School, which bordered nearby Ryrie Street. Rhiannon said that the killer had deposited a black bag containing a weapon and clothing in an open drain, within 2 kilometres of the Collins Street house. The bag would be found one day, she was sure, by a child playing with a ball. This event would have some connection to the name ‘Lily’. It could be the child’s name.
The two detectives walked away from the psychic if not converted, extremely impressed. So impressed that when they got back to Sydney they looked in the phone book to see if anyone living in the area had the last name of Lily (of various spellings). They found a female florist who lived right near Truscott Street Public School. The detectives visited her house and asked if they could have a look in the back yard. The woman was very good-natured about it. The detectives didn’t find anything but a freaky connection. The florist said she had helped provide the beautiful floral arrangements for the Gonzales funeral.
STRIKE FORCE TAWAS was hearing murmurs from the Philippines, via Annie Paraan and Annie Gonzales-Tesoro, that Emily Luna knew more than she was saying. The relatives suggested via letters to investigators that they ask Emily again what she knew about the night of the murders. But they did not tell police what this extra information was.
On 7 December, Paul Auglys called Emily into Gladesville police station. He laid all his cards on the table, telling her he knew she had more to say. ‘Let’s just finish this,’ he said to her.
Emily confessed she had not told him everything, that she had walked to the carport the night of the murders and had seen that Sef was not inside his car. Emily again mentioned seeing the coatstand through the glass panels.
Tawas Detective Michael O’Brien, who was sitting in on the discussion, realised the significance of this with the aid of his fresh perspective on the investigation. The pair showed her an electronic interactive display of the crime scene, at which point it dawned on Emily that the coatstand was not visible through the front glass panels of the house, but was located further back behind a pillar. If it wasn’t a coatstand that Emily had noticed, what was it?
Emily had given police a number of statements already, spilling out more detail each time. Auglys decided that to clear things up once and for all. They would conduct a re-enactment at the crime scene of what Emily had seen. It began at 8.50 pm on 19 December, in about the same daylight conditions as would have existed at 6 pm on 10 July 2001, in the dead of winter.
Emily revealed several things on the night of the re-enactment. She told police that as she drove into Collins Street and parked her car on the street outside the home, she saw a swift movement from right to left behind the glass panel to the left of the front door. She said the back kitchen light had shone through to the front of the house. Repeatedly an officer attempted to replicate the movement until Emily said it was exactly how she remembered it as she pulled up on 10 July.
Paul Sullivan, 190 centimetres tall, was asked to stand behind the left-hand pane of glass to see if he resembled the coatstand-like object Emily had seen. No, he was too tall. Then a female constable, 159 centimetres tall, was asked to stand there. Her height was about right. The figure also looked like it had been wearing a cap, Emily said.
The female constable then sat inside Sef’s car, which had been brought back to the house for the reconstruction, and Emily admitted she could not see whether anyone was inside when the light was off. Maybe the car had been in a slightly different position. She could make out a headrest, however. But she thought it did not replicate what she had seen that night. By that stage it was dark. The reconstruction ended at 9.38 pm.
The police had tipped off the Daily Telegraph to come to the scene and take a photograph of Sef’s car parked in the driveway. They told the Telegraph’s reporter that they had a fresh line of enquiry that revolved around a green hatchback. The story ran the next day. It would get tongues wagging. One of Sef’s mates, legal clerk Don McGregor, would hear the news repeated on the radio that day and call Sef to let him know.
IN DECEMBER 2001, and then the following month, January 2001, Sef had two telephone conversations with his grandmother, Amelita. In these calls he would suggest that his Uncle Freddie was involved in the murders. Tawas detectives thought Sef told her this because he believed her to be a soft touch.
What Sef was probably unaware of was that his grandmother, like her daughter Emily, had by this stage become highly suspicious of Sef. The dignified, intensely private woman had been left with a deep sense of loss and sadness after the deaths of her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter. The grief had etched itself on her face. But she was far from a soft touch. The 67-year-old woman’s mind was sharp as a tack.
Amelita had suffered considerable hardship in life. She had raised and provided for six children in the Philippines. She had cared for her husband, Simeon, when he suffered multiple strokes late in life, gradually resulting in complete paralysis and later in a permanent vegetative state. This caring had worn her down, causing her to become ill, and there were times when she had to be hospitalised alongside her husband. Her concerned children convinced her to apply for a visa to the country she had visited and loved — Australia. While residency for herself and her children Edmund and Liza was approved, her husband’s application was refused on medical grounds. Her children assured her that the move would be good for her, and Annie said she would care for Simeon in the Philippines. It was a tough, painful decision to make, but she separated in 1987 from her life partner, who died in 1992. Amelita Claridades had known adversity, but she was a survivor.
If she did not want to let on to Sef that she thought he was involved, it was because she was extremely fearful of her grandson. This, however, did not stop her from assisting police with some tantalising clues to possible motives for the murders. Aside from Emily, Amelita knew more than anyone about the dynamics within Loiva’s family. Living only metres from their Collins Street home, she popped in all the time. Loiva would confide family problems to Amelita — sometimes in secret, if Teddy had asked her not to tell anyone outside the immediate family.
Amelita had made a statement to police on 16 July 2001 — the same day as Sef was doing his walk-through reconstruction at the murder scene — in which she told police that Clodine had been sent to Melbourne because she was caught out lying to her parents about her relationship with Chris Fernstat. However, she told police, she believed Teddy, Loiva and the children had all got along well since then and ‘there were no problems within the family’. She had not wanted to believe her grandson could have had anything to do with the killings at that time.
Over the following two months, Paul Auglys had been heartened by the fact that Emily was coming around to trusting the police. So he gave Amelita a call, using his dealings with Amelita’s daughter as a reference, and asked whether Amelita would mind attending Gladesville police station.
On 18 September, Amelita, who by this stage had moved to Melbourne due to her fear of Sef, was back in Sydney staying with Emily. She went into Gladesville police station to speak to Auglys. He could see, beyond the slight language difficulty, that the grandmother was no fool, and he found her quite cooperative.
Amelita told Auglys that day that she now believed her former statement that the family had not been experiencing any problems was untrue. She told Auglys that Loiva had often confided in her about ‘issues’ within the family, in particular problems she was experiencing with her children, and the methods she and Teddy adopted to deal with these problems. Amelita had told Loiva she disagreed with some of these methods, but her headstrong daughter had continued to do what she thought best in raising her children.
‘One of the ways that Loiva and Teddy would show they were not happy with Sef and Clodine was by disowning them,’ Amelita told Auglys in her second statement. She said she did not know of any occasion in which Sef was ‘disowned’ but she did know Loiva and Teddy were ‘very disappointed’ with Sef just before the murders due to his poor university grades.
‘Sef had been caught by Loiva and Teddy changing his university grades after he offered to Clodine to do the same for her,’ Amelita revealed. ‘When Sef said this to Clodine she told her mother, who told Teddy, and they were very angry with Sef. Loiva told me that if Sef’s grades didn’t improve by next grade time then they were going to take the green Ford Festiva off Sef and make him catch the bus. Sef loves his car and would have been devastated if they took it off him. I know that he spent quite a bit of his money making modifications to the green Ford and he loved it.’
Amelita revealed she had spoken to Teddy about this issue and Teddy had expressed extreme disappointment in Sef, telling her he did not know why he worked so hard when Sef did not. ‘He said that he was thinking of selling his business and moving to Queensland and leaving Sef and Clodine to live by themselves. I do not know if Teddy had said this to Sef and Clodine.’
Police got their first clue as to the timing of the murders when Amelita said that Sef’s term grades were due to be given to his parents just after the time the killings occurred. At the end of June, Loiva had discussed the issue of Sef’s results with Amelita and said she and Teddy were waiting to see them before deciding whether to discipline Sef. ‘I do not believe that Sef had a very happy childhood in the Philippines or in Australia because of the pressure his parents put him under,’ Amelita explained.
Then police learned of Sef’s bed-wetting, and the fact that he had refused professional help for the problem. Amelita told police that Loiva had informed Sef he could never get married until he stopped this habit, as ‘it was grounds for divorce’.
‘Loiva told me that Sef thought that she was not supporting him and that she was putting him down.’
Amelita also gave police an insight into Sef and Clodine’s sibling rivalry, particularly in relation to their scholastic results. ‘I know that Loiva and Teddy put pressure on both Clodine and Sef equally and because of this Sef and Clodine turn everything into a competition. Clodine told me about a week before she was murdered that Sef was trying to interrupt her studies. She said that Sef would bang on her door while she was trying to study and come into her room and constantly interrupt her.’
The period Clodine was referring to was when Loiva had been taken to hospital for food poisoning. Sef would come into Clodine’s room and ‘pretend’ to be sick.
‘In my opinion Sef was interrupting Clodine because Teddy and Loiva were very pleased with the way that Clodine’s studies were going and he did not want her to get a higher grade than he did in the HSC,’ Amelita said.
She mentioned the incident that Emily also recalls, in which Sef took a knife from the kitchen and ‘pretended to be crazy in an attempt to scare Loiva’, stabbing the table with the knife. According to Amelita, Loiva told Sef to ‘stop acting like he is crazy and that she is not scared’.
Amelita also suggested Sef’s statement to police — that when he saw his chihuahua tied up outside the night of the murders he knew no-one was home — was a lie. She herself had often seen the dog tied up outside until late at night when the family was home.
She also poured cold water on the idea that the wealthy Filipino businessman whom Sef had implicated in the murders would have reason to know Teddy. ‘[This businessman] is very wealthy and I doubt if Teddy would have ever dealt with him due to our middle-class status in the Philippines,’ she said.
The final paragraph of her statement was the most intriguing of all.
‘The only other thing I can think of that I think the police should know is that I remember that Loiva told me that Clodine was able to get around Sef’s passwords in his personal computer and see what he had been doing on it. Loiva told me that Clodine found something on the computer that Sef was doing and she told her about it. I cannot remember what she found but I don’t think it was a very big matter.’
Clodine might simply have found out that Sef had been accessing pornography on the web. Had she discovered the web searches later found by police, she would have been in for a much bigger shock. Sef’s research on poisonous seeds and how to kill someone had continued up until 9 July, the day before the murders. However, he was knowledgeable, to a certain degree, about how to protect various documents inside his computer from prying eyes.
It will probably never be known whether Clodine found these searches on poisons, or told her parents about them. It is important to note, though, that Clodine would have had every opportunity during the day of 10 July 2001, while she was at home and Sef was at his father’s law office, to search his computer. As mentioned previously, police obtained telephone records that showed she would have had telephone contact with her parents that day after Sef left home for his father’s office. A call to Cumberland Psychiatric Hospital from Teddy’s workplace followed this contact with Clodine.
Police could only speculate on what Clodine had told her parents in this telephone contact. It could have been about perfectly pedestrian matters. But police knew she had a tendency to ‘dob’ on Sef in order to curry favour with her parents; she had already told them he faked his grades, and she let them know when he wet his bed.
Had Sef found out about his sister’s snooping on his personal computer — whatever she had found — it most likely would have sent him into panic, and filled him with rage towards his sister. This rage may have festered inside him as he drove home from his father’s office to 6 Collins Street on the afternoon of 10 July, while Clodine sat studying at her neatly arranged bedroom desk, with her back facing the door.
According to Detective Paul Auglys, the theory that Clodine’s ‘dobbing’ had sparked Sef to go into a violent frenzy that day was kicked around between Tawas officers a number of times. They thought it was more likely Clodine had told her parents that day that Sef had been accessing pornography, or wetting his bed again, than about her having discovered the poisons material — and that Teddy had called Sef to account for this while Sef was at his office.
Unfortunately, all but one of the people who could explain to police what really happened were dead. And Sef certainly wasn’t likely to tell them.