Sef did not make any further moves to shore up his alibi until 27 March 2002. This could possibly be explained by his meeting a young woman by the name of Linda Pham (not her real name), a university student, and becoming distracted.
She first met Sef on 9 January 2002, while at Bondi Beach with some friends. The two got to chatting, and she became his girlfriend. The relationship progressed so quickly that they became engaged just two weeks afterwards, on 21 January.
Sef had told Linda about the misery he had gone through at the hands of Kathy Wu, and another fictitious girlfriend called Daisy, the ‘mystery woman’ on the website he had created several years earlier. He was heartbroken, he told Linda, deeply depressed and considering suicide, and Linda wanted to make it all better.
Sef confided in Linda that he’d been going to take a particular poison on the night of his family’s murder, having concocted it using hot water and storing it in a bedroom. The poison would be untraceable in his system. He had gone to see a prostitute, he told her, because, filled with self-loathing, he had wanted to do the dirtiest thing possible before going home to drink the poison. He told Linda that even in the depths of his despair he had managed to perform well sexually with the prostitute; so spectacularly, in fact, that the prostitute had tried to give him a freebie, but he had pressed the money upon her, insisting that she be paid.
Sef told Linda he had been sitting around Chatswood near the taxi stand where, as luck would have it, after a few days he’d spotted the taxi driver who had taken him to the brothel. He asked her to post a photocopy of the statement to the taxi driver, which she dutifully did. She believed that Sef had been hardly done by, that the police were out to get him, and she wanted to do anything she could to help him.
On the night of 27 March, when Linda was about to take a shower, Sef told her to drop everything — they had to go and meet someone. ‘This might be the girl I was with that night!’ he told her.
That day, there had been a flurry of SMS messages between Sef and the prostitute Latisha — nineteen in all. Latisha had messaged Sef that she did not ‘do privates’ and could not talk, but Sef insisted on communicating with her.
Don’t even know ur real name . . . I don’t want any of that . . . I need ur help to prove my honesty . . . can I pls meet with you, with my girlfriend. Pls. Can I call u pls?
Late that night, Sef drove Linda to the New Orleans Café in Crows Nest, where he left her to order coffees while he and Latisha strolled to a nearby bus stop.
Latisha was not even sure she had been working on the evening of the murders, but Sef was insistent that he recognised her as the girl he had been with that night. He seemed nice, and Latisha wanted to help him. She told him that it would be his responsibility to check the brothel records to see if she was on that night, then they could take it from there.
Later, as Latisha hopped into the back of Sef’s car, Linda observed a look of relief on Sef’s face. He turned around and said to Latisha: ‘You remember me, don’t you?’ and Latisha replied, ‘Yes I do.’
In the days following, Sef persisted in sending Latisha SMS messages, putting pressure on her to check the records. Latisha began to get annoyed: if she approached her female boss, she would think Latisha was meeting clients privately and Latisha would get the sack. She had a young son to support. She urged Sef simply to visit the brothel himself.
Sef went to the brothel on the night of 2 April. He explained to the receptionist that he was Sef Gonzales, that his family had been murdered on 10 July 2001, and that he wanted to see the girls so he could recognise which one he had been with at the time. He said he thought the girl’s name was Latisha.
He then went through a charade with Latisha as a minidisc he’d strapped to his leg recorded their conversation. Sef wanted proof that Latisha remembered him. (After his arrest, Linda found the recording under his couch and provided it to the police, through her lawyers.)
SEF: So you do remember me?
LATISHA: Yeah, yeah.
SEF: So as soon as they check the record and they are 100 per cent sure that you were working, then you will be 100 per cent sure you remember me?
LATISHA: Yeah. I am worried.
SEF: But right now you are about 80 per cent, not 100 per cent.
LATISHA: I do remember, I do remember, but I am just not sure if I was working or not.
Before going, Sef left his name and number with the receptionist so he could speak to the manager about the rosters. He was told to expect a call back either that night or the following day.
The next day, 3 April, the owner rang Sef, who explained what he needed. The police were onto him by this stage, and checked the rosters themselves. Latisha had been listed to work on 10 July 2001, but had cancelled all her shifts that week. Later, Latisha would remember that she had asked for the week off because it was school holidays and she needed to be home to look after her son.
Police enlisted an undercover female officer to contact Sef, posing as a book-keeper for La Petite Aroma. On 10 April, in her broad Aussie accent, she informed him there was no record Latisha had worked that night. Sef seemed taken aback, disbelieving, and incredibly disappointed. But he had committed himself, and it was too late to back out now. If his second alibi fell apart, he was in a world of trouble.
That day, as his desperation increased, he text-messaged Latisha. The previous day, 9 April, sick of his harassment, she had sent him the message:
Do not bother me any more, I’ve done what I can.
Upon hearing that the records did not check out, he adopted a more threatening tone:
[Latisha] I don’t know wat ur boss has said but what u r doing is unfair. I taped our conversations to prove I didn’t bribe. Will u help with a statement to end this?
Latisha, who was by now ruing the day she ever met Sef Gonzales, did not reply.
The next message from Sef came a little over a minute later:
Or do I just use the tape and do this the long hard way 4 both of us?
Sef’s barrister, Peter Kintominas, provided police with a signed draft statement containing Sef’s new alibi on 22 May. Although specified times were omitted, it allowed for the fact Teddy’s client had seen Sefs car parked at Collins Street around 4.30 pm (as Sef had been informed of by police), but that Sef had not been at the house at the time.
He said that after driving home from his father’s law practice he had parked in the carport, not going inside, as he did not believe anyone to be home. He left the car and walked down Collins Street into Wicks Road, and into the Shell service station. He got a taxi as it pulled into the service station. He went to Chatswood. He said he did not want to drive to Chatswood for two reasons: he did not want his car with its personalised numberplates recognised, and he would have trouble getting parking.
Entering the brothel, he was told he had to wait, and eventually requested a 40-minute session. After he left the brothel, he walked to the Chatswood taxi stand in Railway Street and hopped in a cab, travelling home. After being dropped off, he did not go inside the house, but drove straight to Sam Dacillo’s house.
BY NOW, PAUL AUGLYS felt he probably knew Sef better than anyone else in the world had ever known him. Every weekday, and most weekends, he would come into work and slip on the headphones, catching up with the ongoing soap opera that was Sef Gonzales’ life. From late July 2001, when intercepts were first granted on both Sef’s mobile phone and landline, until Sef’s arrest, Auglys would listen to some 8000 intercepted phone calls involving Sef Gonzales. It had become his entertainment, picking up the headphones of a morning and wondering what the little bugger was up to now.
He had never met Sef face to face and felt confident Sef would not pick him if he crossed his path in the street. But he felt he had got inside Sef’s head during the course of the investigation, and in his dealings with key witnesses. He knew where Sef liked to go out, sticking to his usual comfort zones, such as a Japanese noodle bar in Chatswood and the ground-floor café at Chatswood Chase shopping centre. He knew that Sef had only a small group of friends, including Don McGregor and Dennis Pedro. He knew Sef frequented Connections nightclub in the city. He knew Sef had gone to the club’s opening shortly after the murders, and felt comfortable there.
Once Auglys and Detective Gavin Wicks had gone to the club to check it out. The doorman had told him, ‘Mate, it’s $20 to get in.’ Auglys had said ‘No worries’, handing over the cash and entering with Wicks. The tall officers stood out like sore thumbs. The place was crowded with diminutive people — Sef was one of them — and he and Wicks seemed to be the only ones who drank beer. No wonder the doorman had tried to warn them. The officers soon decided they should leave; they did not really fit the scene.
Auglys knew that Kathy Wu, who had appeared appalled when police had informed her about Sef’s lies soon after the murders, had got on the phone to Sef straight afterwards and told him about the interview. She even continued seeing him for about a month before things fizzled out. He knew about the girls who followed, that Sef had a way of pulling the ‘poor me’ act to reel the ladies in. One of them, an immature schoolgirl, had not lasted very long. While Sef poured out his troubles, lamenting his family’s murders, telling her how alone he felt, the schoolgirl would cut in with a totally irrelevant, trivial remark, and Sef would complain she wasn’t listening to him. Better for her, Auglys supposed, that Sef soon grew tired of her. Not only for her own safety, but the phone bills — sometimes the calls lasted five hours — must have been through the roof.
He knew about Sef’s imaginary friend Rico, with whom Sef said he worked at a factory. Linda Pham would hear a lot about this mysterious — and nonexistent — friend, whom Sef would refer to as a really dangerous character, a real tough guy.
He knew of Sef and Linda’s arguments about her going out at night. One time when Linda went to a rave party at Homebush without Sef, he observed Sef trying to get his own back on her. Throughout the night, Sef would use his mobile continually to call Linda, pretending to be totally drugged out. ‘Help me, Rico,’ he would slur, before hanging up, then would do the same thing again and again. ‘My battery’s dying, Rico.’ He’d hang up again. The whole time he was calling from the Chatswood area, probably home in bed, Auglys surmised.
It wasn’t until 8 am the following day that Linda was concerned enough about Sef’s safety to tell him she was going to contact the police. Sef called her straightaway, telling her in a normal voice that he was fine and at home now. He told her he had been out at a North Sydney bar with his mate Rico and some girls had begun chatting to him. Rico had wanted to go home but Sef decided to stay. The girls must have slipped something into his drink, because the next thing he knew he was waking up in a strange house, naked. Pure fiction. Pure Sef, Auglys reflected.
Auglys also knew what Sef thought of him. Auglys was the shadow, the cop who stirred up trouble by approaching all of Sef’s friends and family, leaving his name and contact details, making them suspect Sef of murder. Whenever these friends would tell Sef about being approached by Auglys, Sef would explain that he was one of the new detectives assigned to the case, implying Auglys didn’t really know that much about it.
Auglys did not visit Linda Pham until a few months into her relationship with Sef, but in the end decided the police had a duty of care to warn her that Sef was strongly suspected of committing the murders, for her own safety. He was well aware that Sef had sucked her in, but he couldn’t quite believe that she did not suspect Sef’s guilt.
On 7 March 2002, Auglys and Detective Mick O’Brien had paid a visit to Linda at her university, to try to get it through to her that Sef was a suspect in a triple-murder investigation. Linda was not very cooperative, telling police she knew about Sef’s true movements on the evening of the murders, but would not tell them to the police until Sef himself was ready to give them the whole story.
Straightaway, Auglys had noticed Pham was wearing a pink diamond ring and earrings and he recognised them as having belonged to Loiva. As soon as he mentioned the jewellery, she put her hand protectively over the ring, obscuring it from the officers’ view. Auglys told Linda the jewellery had belonged to Sef’s mother and that he’d had no right to give it to her — it was part of the estate’s probate and not his to give. Linda replied that Sef had bought the items for her and refused to take them off.
To Auglys it was apparent they would get nowhere with Linda. The unpleasant meeting ended when she uttered the startling words: ‘Why are you harassing me? I don’t care what he did, I know that he won’t kill me.’
Not long after this meeting, Linda would lose her precious ring — an engagement present from Sef — when, during an argument with him, she began hyperventilating and, weakened by having the flu, passed out. When she woke up, Sef had taken the ring from her finger.
Nevertheless she would stay in the increasingly acrimonious relationship until at least a few months after his arrest. She would continue to visit Sef in jail. But they would fight bitterly over the subject of her freedom and Sef’s displeasure about her going out without him. Sef would pretend he had spies on the outside, and would know whatever Linda was doing and if she was seeing other men. In the end, it all became too much for Linda.