Sef’s ‘Latisha’ alibi may have been in tatters, but his defence team was handed a gift during the six-week trial. It came in the form of evidence from Clodine’s best friend and Sam Dacillo’s little sister, Michelle Dacillo. This evidence revolved around a number of calls she made to Clodine’s mobile telephone, which police found on Clodine’s desk in her bedroom, hooked up to a phone charger, after the murders. Michelle made the calls while — according to the Crown — Clodine lay dead in her bedroom.
The evidence, in this writer’s opinion, was the only aspect of the trial that implanted a niggling doubt in the minds of those who had sat through the whole proceedings. The question would be: was it enough to create reasonable doubt in the jurors’ minds for them to acquit Sef?
Robert Gibbs told the court how, when he entered Clodine’s bedroom, he examined her mobile telephone. On the screen he saw a message that there were eight missed calls.
Detective Senior Constable Darren Murphy told the jury how he had obtained phone records for all the Gonzales family members for the day of the murders. These records showed that the last text message Clodine had sent from her mobile phone was at 4.04 pm, to a phone used by Clodine’s Melbourne friend Vanessa O’Mera.
Tedeschi questioned Murphy about Clodine’s eight missed calls, six of which were made by a telephone service in the name of Michelle Dacillo on the night of the murders. Michelle had made the calls while Sef was out on the town with her brother Sam, the only alibi of Sef’s that was rock-solid, Sam having testified to their movements — that they went to Planet Hollywood for dinner.
TEDESCHI: And in fact are there six calls which have been attempted by Michelle Dacillo’s mobile phone number to Clodine Gonzales’ mobile phone number with a duration of zero seconds?
MURPHY: That’s correct.
TEDESCHI: And they are at these times: 9.01 pm, 9.04 pm, 9.20 pm, 9.26 pm, 10.45 pm and 11.04 pm?
MURPHY: That’s correct.
The person making the calls took the stand. Michelle Dacillo, now twenty, was well-spoken with a cheerful face. Her family had known the Gonzales family since Michelle was seven years old, and she had maintained her close friendship with Clodine even though they attended different schools in different cities.
Michelle said she had organised to meet up with Clodine some time after 1 pm on 10 July 2001, but they never ended up doing this.
TEDESCHI: Why was that?
MICHELLE: She sent me a text message, between, like, around 10 o’clock [am], saying that she had to break our plans because she had to do something with her mum that afternoon, and that we’d organise to meet again maybe in the next few days.
Michelle said that she tried to call Clodine around 7 pm but could not get through to her, and she persisted throughout the night, including the period when Sef was out with Sam. Her next statement would make the ears of Sef’s defence lawyers prick up.
TEDESCHI: What happened when you tried to ring her?
MICHELLE: Well, I tried to ring her house, that was busy, tried her mobile and just, she didn’t pick up. I alternated between the house phone and the mobile, and at one point I called her mobile and after about three rings it, like, the call was rejected. I tried again and after one ring it was rejected. Tried again and it just kept ringing. And kind of carried on like that.
TEDESCHI: So you carried on till when, trying to ring her?
MICHELLE: Probably stopped trying to call her about ten o’clock.
Michelle had used the term ‘rejected’, which in mobile phone users’ parlance typically means someone does not wish to take the call and presses the ‘End’ or ‘No’ button. For a call to be rejected, it means someone is physically pressing a button on the phone. The Crown case was that all the Gonzales family members were dead at this point, and Sef was the killer. If Sef was with Sam, as he had been, then who was pressing the button on the phone? Was it the killer?
Michelle may have simply used the wrong term; it may have been a slip of the tongue. However, no-one would find out, because Tedeschi skipped on to his next line of questioning, rather than probing further.
TEDESCHI: At some stage did you ring your brother that night?
MICHELLE: No, he called me.
TEDESCHI: He called you?
MICHELLE: Yeah.
TEDESCHI: Did you tell him about your attempts to contact Clodine?
MICHELLE: Yes.
Michelle continued with her evidence, describing how Sef had come to the Dacillos’ house at about 8 pm on the night of the murders. She said she was still up when her brother returned home that night, around 11.40 pm.
Terracini’s cross-examination of Michelle was meandering, revolving mostly around how Michelle and Clodine usually communicated by phone. He certainly did not ask her about the ‘rejected’ calls. Had he asked her, she may have made some clarifications or changes to her terminology.
Optus support liaison officer David Finlay was called later in the trial to explain the meaning of the ‘eight missed calls’ message on Clodine’s mobile telephone. (Her phone provider had been Optus.) Tedeschi kept his questioning brief, showing Finlay the missed call records.
TEDESCHI: A missed call is a call which is not answered, is that right?
FINLAY: That is correct.
Terracini took considerably longer. There was a lot of importance in this for the defence.
TERRACINI: Just on that note, sir, I want you to assume we have heard evidence in this case where the word ‘rejected’ has been used. In terms of your field does that have any meaning that is peculiar to mobile phones?
FINLAY: It’s not what we would say a technical term. But our — when we are — it is mentioned to us through customer service, about calls being rejected. To us that would indicate a call when it is ringing and someone hitting the end button or the reject button on their phone, ’cause they don’t want to take a particular call.
TERRACINI: Can it also mean that it’s dropped out?
FINLAY: Not the word ‘rejected’, ’cause to us that would indicate someone not wanting to take a call. For a drop-out call it would be just that, dropped out.
TERRACINI: In terms of the person who is on the other end of the phone, the person making the call, does something flash up on the screen of the Optus mobile phone service that tells you what’s happened?
FINLAY: Different handsets have different characteristics. I’m not an expert in what every handset would be able to show. My own particular handset doesn’t show anything at all if I make a call and the call drops out or is rejected. It just goes back to its ready state for another call.
Finlay agreed that North Ryde was not an area where Optus had any significant reception problems, limiting the likelihood of repeat call drop-outs.
TERRACINI: So we can basically eliminate, can we, almost every example of how a phone would appear to be rejected, excepting the one that somebody’s actually pressed a rejection button, that is, the disengaged button?
FINLAY: Yes, it’s a bit hard for me to say that’s what’s happened to any particular call, because I do not have records that would be able to indicate that for any call. If someone pushes the reject button or just lets the call ring out and it’s not answered, the results would show the same, a non-answered call, to us.
TERRACINI: But certainly if someone said they ring a number of times and it was rejected, that would normally mean at least that somebody’s been physically in control of the handset and pressed the reject or the disengage button?
FINLAY: That is a possibility. But, again, as I said, from the records I have I would not be able to indicate whether that happened or if the phone rung out to its maximum number of rings and then just terminated because the call itself wasn’t answered.
TERRACINI: I want you to assume we have heard evidence that a person by the name of Dacillo rang the relevant mobile, rang about three times, the call was rejected, and then she tried again and then after one ring it was rejected, and then she tried again, it was rejected. Obviously assuming that she is accurately recording what took place, the only rational interpretation of that is that somebody has the handset and is pressing the disengaged or —
Tedeschi objected to the line of questioning, saying Finlay could not be asked to interpret what another witness had meant when she referred to a ‘rejected’ call. Terracini said he would withdraw the reference to Michelle Dacillo, and continued his questioning.
TERRACINI: If you ring on a mobile phone and it rings three times and the call is stopped, that is consistent with somebody disengaging?
FINLAY: It is. That, or someone could just have a very short ring time on their phone.
TERRACINI: And if it only rings once and the same thing happens again, the most likely result of that is that somebody’s disengaging the call?
FINLAY: That’s a possibility, yes.
TERRACINI: If they ring back only moments later and the same thing happens on the same number, and it rings and it’s disengaged, the most likely reason for that is that somebody’s disengaging the call?
FINLAY: That is correct.
TERRACINI: Other than a dropped-out call, whatever, any other reasonable explanations?
FINLAY: There could be any reason why the call has terminated. It would depend on the number of calls, how many rings the customer has their phone set up to ring for.
Tedeschi rose to re-examine Finlay.
TEDESCHI: Is this the case, have you conducted an experiment to see what different records are created at the Optus exchange between a missed call — that is, a call that rings out without being answered — and a call which is rejected because somebody has pressed the no button?
FINLAY: There are no physical records as such, but I have, in conjunction with one of my colleagues in my office, had him ring my mobile and then let it, one, ring out, and then again have him ring the number and I then push the reject button.
TEDESCHI: When you say the reject button you mean the no button?
FINLAY: The no button. And what he got was the same response of beeps as if the phone you normally get if you make a phone call and the other person hangs up before you and you hear a couple of beeps. That’s what he received both times.
Finlay described how his colleague rang his mobile from a landline to see what would come up on his phone screen if he rejected the call.
TEDESCHI: Did it come up on your phone as a missed call?
FINLAY: No, not when I pushed the end button.
TEDESCHI: When you pressed the —
It was Terracini’s turn to object, but Tedeschi pressed the point.
TEDESCHI: My friend [Terracini] is attempting to create some sort of impression that these calls on Clodine Gonzales’ mobile might have been calls that somebody pressed the no button.
TERRACINI: Because the witness has given evidence about it.
TEDESCHI: And I am attempting to demonstrate in my re-examination that that is not the case. I press the line, Your Honour.
Tedeschi was given leave to continue this line, and showed a police photograph of Clodine’s phone found at the crime scene to Finlay. Finlay agreed that the screen showed eight missed calls.
TEDESCHI: Could I clarify it this way. The experiment you conducted where you pressed the end or no button to terminate the call, did that come up as a missed call on your phone, that is the receiver’s phone?
FINLAY: No, it did not. But also as I stated earlier not all handsets respond the same way to different things, so —
Terracini pressed the issue further.
TERRACINI: The experiment — I am not being critical of you, Mr Finlay — was conducted with another bloke on a landline?
FINLAY: That is correct, yes.
Terracini went on to question the nature of Finlay’s ‘experiment’.
TERRACINI: And to use a landline to compare what shows up on the landline as opposed to what shows up on the mobile, what significance is that?
FINLAY: I was only really doing it to see what was on my phone. Not from the person making the call.
TERRACINI: In fact, from the point of view of the person making the call, no assistance whatsoever?
FINLAY: That is correct.
TERRACINI: What is going to show up on his landline phone?
FINLAY: Nothing would show up on that.
Terracini probed the call rejection scenario once more.
TERRACINI: I suggest that laymen have got experience in this as well, in that most people use telephones. When you are ringing somebody and it just goes ring once and it stops, that tends to suggest that somebody stopped the call, doesn’t it?
FINLAY: From personal experience that’s what I would believe, yes.
TERRACINI: And if you tried again a second or two later and exactly the same thing happens, that’s what you’d think as well, wouldn’t you?
FINLAY: Yes, it would.
TERRACINI: And if you kept on trying eight times and exactly the same thing happens, consistent with somebody stopping the call?
FINLAY: It would. I’d probably start worrying they might have had a faulty handset too.
TERRACINI: I assume the police never asked you anything about a faulty handset?
FINLAY: Well, I wasn’t asked anything about any particular handset.
Terracini had proven that the police never got Finlay to actually examine either Clodine’s or Michelle’s actual handsets to see how they worked, and sat down, his job done. The rejected call scenario had not been resolved one way or the other. It was up to the jury to decide whether this question would be enough to outweigh the mass of incriminating evidence presented against Sef in the trial.
SEF GONZALES HAD been sitting in the dock listening intently to each piece of evidence — sometimes studiously taking notes, sometimes scowling and shaking his head as witnesses gave particularly unfavourable evidence, and sometimes resting his head on his hands dramatically, as if overwhelmed with sadness. Now he wanted his say in court.
The young man who had seemingly manipulated people so well in the past backed his own ability to sway the jury. He was the defence’s only witness.
On 10 May, after all the other evidence had been presented, Terracini began his opening address outlining the case for the defence. Terracini reminded the jury that Sef did not have to take the stand, and in doing so was exposing himself to a grilling on a vast range of evidence. He said Sef would tell the jury he had told lies about a number of matters. The question for the jury to decide was: was he telling the truth now, in this, his murder trial?
‘Please don’t impose a burden on him that perhaps you could not bear yourselves. In this way, there probably — I emphasise “probably” because some of you may have standards of integrity and honesty far beyond that of mortal men. But I bet that all of you perhaps have told at least a white lie or fudged the truth at least once in your life.
‘So when you assess that perhaps — and it is up to you ultimately to assess the evidence for yourselves. It is not what I say or what the Crown says, or indeed — and I don’t expect he’s going to — but even if the learned trial judge said he had a view. It is your view that counts and only your view.
‘But when you come for instance to the somewhat amateurish bragging to young women and things like that, or trying to make out as if you’re a strong fellow or a wealthy man or a genius or a tae kwon do expert or you went to the Olympics or you’re flying to meet somebody in New York because you’ve got a multimillionaire business. Even if you find that a lot of that was just nonsense, that doesn’t mean that he’s guilty of killing his parents and his sister. Not more complex than that.
‘You have to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that he did those things. Not because you’re suspicious. Because reasonable doubt does not mean I don’t like the look of someone. It does not mean why can’t he prove his alibi? It does not mean he’s told lies repeatedly about a whole range of things in the past.’
Terracini, in his deep, rumbling voice, sombrely reminded the jury of the great responsibility resting upon their shoulders. They must reach their verdicts within the confines of the law, and must be unanimous in their belief of Sef’s guilt if they were to convict him of these three murders.
‘And having said that, I will call the accused,’ he finished.
Tedeschi watched keen-eyed as, 23 minutes before court was due to finish for the day, Sef was released from the dock and walked to the stand. He watched as Sef swore an oath before God to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Tedeschi was eager for the chance to cross-examine, to expose Sef’s character to the jury, to give them a first-hand glimpse of Sef’s dishonesty. It was one thing to hear about Sef’s lies in court; it was quite another actually to witness the lies spilling from his mouth.
Sef took the stand and his evidence in chief was extremely brief.
Terracini had Sef state his full name then launched into the key questions.
TERRACINI: Mr Gonzales, did you murder your mother?
SEF: No, sir, I did not.
TERRACINI: Did you murder your father?
SEF: No, sir, I did not.
TERRACINI: Did you murder your sister?
SEF: No, sir, I did not.
Terracini led Sef through his version of the day of 10 July 2001, starting with Sef’s microwaving a meal for lunch at home around midday. Sef then left for his father’s Blacktown office, arriving about 1.30 pm, and leaving before 4 pm. He headed home to North Ryde, parked his car in the carport, walked to the service station on Wicks Road and caught a taxi to Chatswood railway station. From there he walked to La Petite Aroma brothel where, after having to wait for a period of time, he selected the prostitute Latisha. He said he had never met her before. After leaving the brothel he walked back to Chatswood station and caught a cab home, arriving back in North Ryde about 7.45 pm. From there, he got in his car and drove to Sam Dacillo’s house and they drove together into the city, arriving just before 9 pm.
TERRACINI: What time, then, did you arrive home back at North Ryde and find that your family had been killed?
SEF: I think it was some time after 11.30, sir.
Sef’s evidence-in-chief only took a couple of minutes. Terracini sat down, and Tedeschi rose from his seat.
Tedeschi was skilled at picking up visual clues from witnesses that indicate they are nervous and may be lying. With Sef, Tedeschi observed, it was the rapid blinking. It was a dead giveaway. Tedeschi would soon have Sef blinking frantically.
Tedeschi began, his manner abrupt, his voice hard.
TEDESCHI: Mr Gonzales, were you distressed on the night of 10 July that your parents and sister had been murdered?
SEF: After finding them, sir?
TEDESCHI: Yes?
SEF: Yes, sir.
TEDESCHI: Were you anxious to assist the police as much as you could to help them catch those who were responsible?
SEF: Sorry, sir, could you repeat the question?
TEDESCHI: Were you anxious to assist the police as much as you could to help them to catch those who were responsible for the deaths of your family members?
SEF: Very much, sir.
TEDESCHI: Yet you remained sufficiently composed, did you not, to tell the police a litany of lies about your movements for the period between 4 pm and 8 pm that evening, did you not?
SEF: Sorry, sir, could you repeat the question?
TEDESCHI: You remained sufficiently composed when you were interviewed by the police to tell the police a litany of lies about where you had been between 4 pm and 8 pm on the night of the deaths of your family members, did you not?
SEF: No, sir, I was not composed, I was crying in the first interview.
TEDESCHI: You were sufficiently together, were you not, to tell them an intricate story about where you had been?
SEF: No, sir.
Asked whether his first statement to police was ‘all lies’, Sef replied he had been panicking.
TEDESCHI: Well, you did tell them a whole series of lies, didn’t you?
SEF: Sorry, I did, sir.
TEDESCHI: You told the police a whole series of lies, didn’t you, that night?
SEF: Yes, sir.
TEDESCHI: That very night, the night of the deaths of your family members, you told them a litany of lies, did you not?
SEF: Sir, it wasn’t a litany, it was one lie that I said in that statement.
TEDESCHI: Let’s just have a look at how many lies you told. Would you have a look at a copy of your first statement to the police dated 11 July 2001.
With ruthless persistence, Tedeschi went through the statement, outlining the false Raf De Leon alibi, pointing out untruth after untruth, followed by the question: ‘That was a lie, wasn’t it?’ Sef’s response to most of these questions was a meek ‘Yes, sir.’
TEDESCHI: You identified 20 or 21 lies that you’ve told the police in this first statement. You agree that they’re all lies?
SEF: Yes, sir, but it was all regarding the same account.
Sef said he had lied to protect himself from ‘embarrassment’.
He then admitted that in his videotaped interviews, shown to the court, he had lied about not knowing who had researched and ordered poisonous seeds on the computers seized by police. Sef said he placed several orders but only ever received one batch of seeds.
TEDESCHI: I suggest to you that you told those lies that we saw on the videos unhesitatingly, without hesitating. What do you say to that?
SEF: In my mind, sir, I was hesitating.
TEDESCHI: In your mind you were hesitating?
SEF: Yes, sir.
Sef agreed he had lied about both big things and small things.
TEDESCHI: I suggest to you that you kept up these same lies repeatedly for at least six months during your police interviews and during numerous conversations that you had with family and other people.
SEF: Yes, sir.
TEDESCHI: And you tell the court, do you, that you are telling the truth now?
SEF: Yes, sir.
The clock struck 4 pm and Sef was returned to the jail, where, on the advice of police that he might be a suicide risk, he was put in a ‘dry’ cell with the light on and a video camera monitoring his movements throughout the night. Sef complained he could not sleep, and that he was without his asthma medication and the freshly painted cell was inflaming his illness.
The next morning in court, Sef appeared pale and drawn and Sef’s defence team hit the roof. Terracini saw the dry cell incident not as showing the police’s concern for Sef’s life, but as an attempt to break the young man down and disorientate him for what was to be a lengthy day of cross-examination. Justice Bruce James agreed it would be entirely inappropriate to put Sef in the stand considering the circumstances, and sent the jury home for the day. The jury was not told the reason, as the argument was held in closed court.
THE DAY AFTER, 12 May, Sef was back in the stand. If his first fifteen minutes of cross-examination two days earlier had discredited him severely, by the end of this day he was left without a shred of credibility. By the time the court adjourned, jury members were rolling their eyes or stifling giggles at Sef’s answers and explanations, which was never a good sign for an accused.
Among the more unbelievable highlights of that day was when Sef explained that he gave his first false alibi to police because of the potential embarrassment if his extended family found out he had been with a prostitute. He explained it as a complete moral violation which, if his mother had still been alive and found out about it, would have broken her heart.
TEDESCHI: You preferred to be considered a suspect for the murders of your parents and sister rather than for it to be generally known that you had been with a prostitute; is that what you are saying?
SEF: I don’t think I have a preference, sir. I think, I think the best way to say it is that they’re just both as bad.
TEDESCHI: So they are equally as bad, are they?
SEF: I don’t know how to rate them, sir.
TEDESCHI: You can’t rate them? [Sef doesn’t answer.]
TEDESCHI: You don’t know which one is worse, is that what you are saying?
SEF: They were both bad, sir.
TEDESCHI: Are they both equally bad?
SEF: I’m not sure, sir.
TEDESCHI: You are not sure which is worse, that is what you’re saying?
SEF: It’s hard to explain the feelings, sir. I can’t put my feelings into words.
Sef was struggling.
TEDESCHI: I’m asking you now, do you have difficulty saying which is worse, being a suspect for the murder of your parents and sister, or it being generally known that you were with a prostitute?
SEF: Well, to fully answer that question, sir, I guess back then it was worse, that I was with a prostitute, but after what I’d been through in the past three years I’ve realised that this is worse.
TEDESCHI: So you have only just worked out in the last two years, have you, that it’s worse to be suspected of the deaths of your family members; is that what, are you saying, that you only worked that out recently?
SEF: No, sir.
TEDESCHI: You have been with prostitutes on numerous occasions, have you not?
SEF: No, sir.
Sef, surprisingly, did admit to faking the 3 August 2001 e-mail in which he was told about the wealthy Filipino businessman’s alleged involvement in the murder. Sef said that while he created the e-mail on his own computer, the content was information that he had been informed of shortly after his family’s funeral. It is unclear why Sef confessed to doing this of all things — it may have been due to the overwhelming computer evidence at the trial that pointed to his having created it, together with the businessman’s evidence at the trial that he had never even met the Gonzales family.
Sef admitted he knew it was illegal to create false evidence but he felt he ‘had no choice’.
TEDESCHI: So you created some false evidence?
SEF: It’s false in the sense that —
TEDESCHI: Just answer my question. You created some false evidence, didn’t you?
SEF: Yes, sir.
TEDESCHI: To try and divert suspicion away from yourself and onto [the wealthy businessman] or his organisation?
SEF: That’s not true, sir.
Quizzed about the ‘image’ he claimed he chased down the street from the house on the night of the murders, after he heard the side gate slam shut, Sef maintained this was the truth.
TEDESCHI: And you chased after him, or them?
SEF: I said it was an image that I chased after.
TEDESCHI: An image of what?
SEF: I assume it was a person.
TEDESCHI: It was not an image of an antelope?
SEF: No, sir.
TEDESCHI: It was not an image of . . . a dog or a horse or a unicorn, it was an image of a person?
SEF: I can’t recall, describe, what I saw, but as I was tilting my head up, I don’t know if I was oversensitive, but I saw an image moving in that direction.
Tedeschi asked if Sef felt any fear for himself while he was in the house with his dead family members.
TEDESCHI: Why did you assume it [the gate shutting] was someone leaving? Why didn’t you think it might be the killers coming in to get you?
SEF: I don’t know, sir. That’s what I assumed.
TEDESCHI: That was a real possibility, based on your version?
SEF: It is equally possible.
Sef said he did feel fear but did not alert the emergency operator to the fact the killers might still be in the vicinity. He was more concerned about his family than himself, he said.
TEDESCHI: Because that thought never entered your head, that the killers might be coming in to get you?
SEF: I never thought of it, sir.
TEDESCHI: And the reason why you never thought of it was because there was no person there, because you were the killer?
SEF: No, sir.
Tedeschi set about proving just how preposterous it was for Sef to claim he made the fast-acting poison in his bedroom not to kill his mother but to commit suicide, which Sef said he had tried to mask by telling friends he had cancer the year before the deaths. Sef admitted he had never had tests for cancer.
TEDESCHI: Cancer doesn’t kill in three days, does it?
SEF: No, it doesn’t. I told them months before.
Asked by Tedeschi whether he thought his mother had slipped up to his bedroom and sipped his poison, Sef said he did not think so.
TEDESCHI: Have you got any explanation for why she got the symptoms which are consistent with [the two types of ] poisoning?
SEF: Sir, I did not poison my mother.
Regarding motive, Sef said his parents were not as demanding on him as they were made out to be. ‘My mother and father were to some degree strict in their own way but not the way that they have been unfairly portrayed in this court.’ He went on to say his parents were ‘not here to defend themselves’.
For Tedeschi, it was too good an opportunity to pass up, and his voice rose with accusation.
TEDESCHI: They’re not here to defend themselves because you killed them.
SEF: That’s not true, sir.
Tedeschi wrapped up the cross-examination by putting to Sef a series of ‘coincidences’ that all pointed to Sef’s guilt.
TEDESCHI: Mr Gonzales, there’s been a lot of coincidences and sheer coincidences, hasn’t there?
SEF: Yes, sir, that’s probably why I was arrested.
Tedeschi asked Sef if he believed he was a ‘very unlucky man’.
Sef replied, ‘Yes, sir.’
THE CROSS-EXAMINATION was continued into a third day, and was devastating to Sef’s case. Then, all that was left for Tedeschi was the formalities.
TEDESCHI: Finally, did you kill your parents and your sister?
SEF: No, sir, I did not.
Sef then turned to the judge and asked to say something. He said it was ‘important on the oath that I made and the evidence that I have given’.
Tedeschi objected, saying it was not the accused’s role in a trial to make speeches. Terracini, obviously concerned by this unusual request by his client, rose to his feet and managed to cut it short.
TERRACINI: Does it go to whether you murdered your mother and father and sister?
SEF: No, sir, it relates to the oath that I have given and —
TERRACINI: Well, you say you have been telling the truth?
SEF: Yes, sir.
The uncomfortable moment passed, and Sef Gonzales left the stand and returned to the dock. He was unable to make the dramatic speech he had obviously prepared in advance to sway the jury. One could assume he was going to tell the jurors how important God was to him, and how seriously he took his oath before God to tell the truth.
AFTER LENGTHY CLOSING addresses and the judge’s summing up, the jury retired to deliberate at 12.55 pm on Wednesday, 19 May. Those hoping for a verdict that afternoon were disappointed.
The jury left the court at 4 pm and came back the next morning at 10 am to resume deliberation. A flurry of activity soon arose outside the court when the lawyers were called back in, but it was for a question from the jury. Being particularly observant, the jurors were querying which mobile telephone numbers were used by Michelle Dacillo. (The list of eight missed calls to Clodine’s phone included six from Michelle Dacillo’s mobile number, one from Clodine’s friend Vanessa O’Mera’s number, and one from a different number which, it turned out, was also used by Michelle to call Clodine, meaning she had actually made seven calls to Clodine’s mobile phone on the night of the murders.)
Sef appeared heartened, smiling and nodding as he talked to his defence team, and hope could be seen in his eyes. Journalists who had covered every day of the entire six-week trial exchanged shocked glances. Perhaps the jury was buying the rejected call scenario. If so, the jury could not possibly convict.
It was not to be. A little after 11 am, the jury came back and the foreman, a serious-looking man in his 50s, was asked whether the jury had found that Sef murdered his sister, mother and father. ‘Guilty’, ‘Guilty’, ‘Guilty’, the foreman replied softly for each count.
The first conviction came like a physical blow to Sef, who was standing for the jury’s verdict. He gasped and collapsed into his seat, his head resting on his hands. But by the time the jury was ushered from the court to resume their regular daily routines, Sef Gonzales seemed to have collected himself. Already he was planning an appeal.
THE GONZALES’ EXTENDED family were relieved but still shattered by the guilty verdicts. Emily, who had watched the evidence in court for almost every day of the trial, remained calm as she chatted to the cops, who were jovial and relieved that their worst fear — acquittal — had not come to pass. Emily felt that somehow her fight for justice, her persistence in spite of her pain and fear, had been rewarded with these convictions. Justice has been served, she thought, and she felt she had been part of that process.
However, other relatives, Annie Paraan in particular, could not stop the flow of tears. It may have been hard for others to understand, but the family, Emily included, still loved Sef despite the terrible crimes they now knew he had committed. Outside the court, Annie would try to explain it to the media pack. With the convictions, she said, they had just lost a fourth member of their family.
Father Paul Cahill visited Sef in custody following the convictions. He could see young Sef was devastated. As far as Father Cahill was concerned, Sef was still the lovely boy he had known at the Chatswood parish years ago, so full of life. Father Cahill was impressed by the way Sef, since the murders, had carried his own cross with dignity, like the Lord, who had also been disbelieved and persecuted.
But after the verdicts, even Father Cahill needed his faith in Sef reaffirmed. He had invested so much time in supporting Sef while he was in jail, and needed to hear from Sef once again on the subject of his guilt or innocence. Father Cahill would support him no matter what Sef’s answer was, as the Lord had not died just for saints, but for saints and sinners alike.
‘You’ve got to tell me the truth now,’ Father Cahill told Sef. ‘I’ve stuck by you and I don’t like to think you’d leave me hanging on a limb.’
Sef looked Father Cahill straight in the eye and told him: ‘Father, I would never do that.’
For Father Cahill, this was enough. He believed him.