In June 2004, while Sef was awaiting his sentencing, Detective Mick Sheehy received a curious two-page letter. It was addressed ‘Dear Detective Sheehy’, and was handwritten, and signed, by Sef Gonzales.
Sef had written the letter from jail, where, almost immediately after the verdicts, he had been placed in segregation. The segregation of inmates at greatest threat involves their being put into a cell on their own. Their movements within the prison are severely restricted. Sef was assessed as being in danger of violence from other prisoners.
Indeed, not long after his arrest, police had foiled a plot by two murder suspects at Sef’s jail to kill him. The plan was to stab him with a ‘shiv’ — a makeshift jail knife — but a bug in the inmates’ cell picked up their conversation. The following day, the inmates’ cell was raided by prison staff, who seized several ‘shivs’.
Suffice it to say that convictions for killing your family members, particularly your defenceless mother and teenage sister, do not endear you to many among the hardened prison population. According to the unofficial code among prisoners, people like Sef fell into the same category as child molesters and police informers.
The letter to Sheehy showed that Sef was again reaching out to the one Tawas officer with whom he seemed to think he had some sort of bond. It was disturbingly personal in nature. Sef, the master manipulator, was at work once again.
It read:
I know what you must think of me, so I won’t continue to plead my innocence to you. I know that you have made up your mind about me and I don’t blame you. It was my shortcomings, imaturity [sic], and weakness as a young person, which you were able to point out that convicted me.
Maybe I do deserve all of this because although I am no murderer, I should’ve taken greater care of my relationships specially as a son, or as a friend. I should have been a better person.
Through all of this experience, information has come to light which may provide us all with answers. Since no one would believe me, I was hoping to first gain some credibility, then pursue this after I was acquitted. I may never get that chance.
I believe that deep within each person is goodness. So I write this with faith and hope. We both know that despite the verdicts there are many questions left unanswered. Again, I don’t blame you if you just wish to throw away the key and forget about me. But I know that many years down the track, those unanswered questions will continue to haunt any good police officer.
Please don’t turn away from these doors which I hope by now have been brought to your attention. Doors which may answer those questions. It may turn out that we were both wrong about our suspicions. Please don’t let that stop you.
Whatever happens to me. Where I am or continue to be, I leave that to fate. I now believe that things do happen for a reason. If not for what we have been through, we wouldn’t know what we know now. These few weeks have been the longest I have been in segregation, yet this is the closest I have ever been to God. I have not understood my faith as much as I do now.
Understanding leads to forgiveness. And forgiveness is such a powerful thing. For the first time I have no blame, anger, or hate in my heart. It’s a liberating feeling.
Please do your best to find the answers to those remaining questions. If not for me or for you do it for my Father, mother, and sister.
P.S. If you are able to, please tell my relatives and friends that I do understand them, love them, miss them, and always pray for them. Thank you.
The meaning of this letter — the references to the unanswered questions and the ‘doors’ that might answer them — became apparent with a letter Father Paul Cahill sent to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, dated 2 July 2004.
Father Cahill made some startling revelations. He referred to the alleged confession of another jail inmate to the murders of the Gonzales family. The inmate concerned had allegedly made this confession to his former cellmate. Father Cahill supplied the inmate’s name — given to him on a scrap of paper by Sef — and criticised Sef’s defence counsel for not bringing up the matter in the trial. (However, if it had been brought up at the trial and turned out to be another of Sef’s creations, the Crown could have used it as further evidence of Sef’s ‘false trails’. As it is, statements made by prison informers are viewed as inherently unreliable in the courts.)
The DPP forwarded the letter to Tawas officers. Under the direction of Detective Inspector Geoff Leonard, the matter would be investigated over the course of the next few weeks. Despite the detectives’ strong faith in the proof against Sef, they could not very well ignore this new turn of events and hope it would go away.
The police went to interview the alleged confessor, who was incarcerated in a country New South Wales prison. The inmate was in his late teens when, in the company of his younger girlfriend, he stabbed a man to death in Sydney’s Northern Beaches. He had pleaded guilty to the murder, which occurred only two weeks after the Gonzales killings.
When detectives visited the convicted killer, who was serving a lengthy prison sentence, he claimed he had only just become aware of the allegation of the confession from a friend, who had read the newspapers and told him about it during a prison visit.
The killer told Tawas detectives he had never known Sef or the Gonzales family members and that he had only recently learned of the matter through the news media. He denied making the confession. The prisoner’s male visitor, a decent sort of guy, later informed detectives the killer had told him the very same thing during the visit.
The police tracked down the former cellmate of the young killer. The confession took place in December 2001, when they shared a cell in a suburban Sydney jail. At the time, the cellmate was on remand for break-and-enter charges and the killer was still on remand for murder.
The cellmate was twice the young killer’s age and the young man seemed to look up to him as a kind of father figure. The killer was not terribly bright but was eager to impress the older man, boasting to him and referring to himself as ‘Johnny one murder one’. He made out that he was tough, and told the older man not to worry, if anyone tried to attack him in jail, he’d look after him.
Referring to the murder on the Northern Beaches, the killer said: ‘It’s not the first murder I’ve done. I did the Gonzales murders. I went there to get Sef but the family turned up and I stabbed the fuck out of them.’
The older inmate did not probe the killer for further information. In fact, he sat on it for some two years, until a chance meeting in late 2003 with an inmate from the Silverwater MRRC, where Sef was on remand. They were both in the holding cells of a suburban Sydney court, which they were attending for court appearances, and got to chatting.
The MRRC inmate mentioned to the other man that he knew Sef Gonzales. It sparked a memory in the man’s mind. He decided he might as well reveal the confession made to him by the killer about the Gonzales murders. He wrote down the killer’s name on a piece of paper and handed it to the MRRC inmate.
The MRRC inmate wasted no time in passing the information and the scrap of paper to Sef, back at the MRRC. Sef would dig out this scrap of paper for Father Cahill, who would send a photocopy of it along with his letter to the DPP following Sef’s murder conviction. Why Sef failed to alert authorities sooner remains a mystery.
TAWAS DETECTIVES HAD several problems with the alleged confession.
First was the obvious problem that the killer had said he went there to kill Sef but the family turned up and he stabbed them all. This was at odds with the evidence, which showed the Gonzales killer had waited for long periods of time between murdering Clodine, then Loiva, then Teddy, but that Sef was not attacked when he arrived home.
Equally troubling was the nature of the Northern Beaches killing as opposed to the Gonzales killings. They were poles apart. While the Gonzales killings were extremely well organised — the evidence having been staged by someone intent on evading detection — the Northern Beaches one was absolutely disorganised. It was planned in as much as the killer invited his victim to pick up his girlfriend and him in the victim’s car, on the pretext of going to buy some drugs. The killer believed the man had sexually assaulted his girlfriend. The killer and the girlfriend, sitting in the back seat, set upon the driver with knives and the man fled from the car into the street. They chased him and continued the attack, despite the fact it was broad daylight in a busy area. Then they stole their victim’s car and, covered in blood, stopped off at a service station with CCTV cameras. Not only that, but the killer then phoned a friend and confessed to the murder, as well as subsequently pleading guilty in court.
The third discrepancy was the clincher. The detectives examined the size of the lanky killer’s feet. They were four to five sizes bigger than the bloody footprints left by the Gonzales killer, who had worn size UK 7/US 8 Human brand shoes.
The police notified the DPP of their investigation and findings and their belief that the alleged confession just did not check out. The DPP wrote back to Father Cahill, letting him know the matter had been put to rest.
ON FRIDAY, 27 AUGUST, the old St James Road courtroom in central Sydney was packed for the sentencing of Sef Gonzales. Sef, who had beefed up considerably in jail, sat awaiting his sentence, his face puffy. He was wearing his green prison jumpsuit, and his eyes appeared cold and hard and his mouth set.
Emily Luna and Amelita Claridades were there but Annie Paraan had returned to the Philippines. Emily was accompanied by her grief counsellor, Kate Friis, from the Department of Forensic Medicine. Kate was a kind woman with a patient, gentle manner. She had seen Emily through the years of pain since the killing of her sister, niece and brother-in-law, and Emily relied heavily on Kate’s emotional support. Emily was having a bad day; she felt particularly stressed and emotional and was glad to have Kate and her mother by her side.
Shane Hanley, who had testified at the trial about entering the murder house with Sef, sat at the back of the court, sending Sef filthy looks, hoping to let Sef know with his eyes just how much he resented having been used, that he knew Sef was guilty, and that he deserved everything he got. The detectives from Tawas were packed into benches at the side of the court and the media were there in force.
Father Cahill was present too, of course. Sitting next to him were a slovenly-looking man and woman. According to police, the man, a government contractor who had helped remove the bodies from the Gonzales home after the murders, somehow thought he had a secret insight into the evidence because of this. It appeared that, due to the force of the attacks, he believed Sef could not have been the killer. Journalists watched, appalled, as the man refused to give up his seat at the front of the court for the arrival of the Gonzales relatives.
Sentencing submissions were made by both the prosecution and defence, and previous ranges of murder sentences were cited as guides. Tedeschi told the court Sef had no prior criminal convictions and tendered a copy of a pre-sentence report, carried out on Sef in jail. Tedeschi asked that, at the request of the Gonzales’ relatives, three victim impact statements be read aloud in court. Terracini objected, saying it was unnecessarily emotionally for all concerned. However, the judge allowed Kate Friis to take the stand and read the statements of Emily Luna, Annie Paraan and Amelita Claridades.
Emily Luna’s long-held composure broke as Kate read her statement. She mopped her tears with tissues. Her nephew Sef stared at her with a hard expression as Kate outlined the very personal effects of the case on Emily.
The statement described Emily’s fears and insecurities following the murders, and the fact that the tension and strain had seriously affected her relationship with her husband. ‘Our marriage had been through difficult times before but my sister, Loiva, had always helped us work through our differences and stay together. I no longer had my sister to support and help me as she had always done before and [my husband] and I just drifted apart’, it said.
The statement spoke about how her son Gerard had begun misbehaving, being surrounded by so much tension, and how she had to get him counselling on numerous occasions.
By Easter of 2003, she realised just how depressed she had become. ‘I had been pushing my family and friends away without realising it, as all I could think of was about the trial’, she stated.
She saw a doctor in April who prescribed antidepressants, which she feared taking but felt she had no choice. ‘I experienced quite bad side effects — trembling hands, drowsiness, low energy levels and very severe mood changes — and so my medication was changed. Fifteen months on, I am still taking antidepressants . . . my general health has undoubtedly been affected and I have had a number of hospital confinements. I have lost a significant amount of weight over the last three years.’
Annie’s statement was shorter, and almost poetic. It spoke about the pain, heartache, grief and loss caused by the murders, and the mixed emotions caused by the fact that Sef carried them out. ‘The mixed feelings I have experienced were just too much to bear that up to now I am clouded with profound sadness. Our cry for justice was answered and given to us wrapped in sorrow and tears . . . I never knew justice could be this cruel.’
She described how, at the trial, as she listened to the evidence about how the crimes were staged, she felt blood rushing to her face. ‘My hands, tightly clasped on my lap, were cold and sweating. I was trembling with fear and tears were rolling down my cheeks. I found the act so horrible and heinous that there were times after the trial I was having nightmares about my own death and each time I wake up moaning and struggling for breath.’
Amelita’s statement was the saddest of all. Maybe it was because she had shunned any and all publicity, retreating into the protective shell of her family. Finally, Amelita’s deepest thoughts and feelings were being spoken by Kate in open court, while she sat with her face composed and still. They were the thoughts of a grandmother who just wanted her family around her, but had been robbed of this simple and all-important joy.
She spoke about how the love, concern, attention and support she had constantly received from Loiva and Teddy over the years had been ‘more than any mother could ask for’.
‘They were always genuinely concerned and protective, and sensitive to the fact that I was now living on my own, my husband deceased and all my children married and living further away. I was never lonely.’
She told how her daughter and son-in-law always made her feel safe and tried to make things easier for her. ‘Whether it was a trip to my doctor’s appointment, a trip to and from the airport, an operation that I was scheduled for, or simply moving my furniture from house to house, I could always count on their support.
‘They gave me strength and peace of mind. I felt safe and secure that nothing would go wrong because they were a strong, loving, and reliable couple I could always depend on.’
She spoke of how, before their deaths, she had planned to move to Queensland with Teddy and Loiva for their retirement, once Sef and Clodine finished university. She stated that she and Clodine, a talented cook, dreamed of teaming up one day to run a small bed and breakfast, where Amelita could sell her arts and crafts.
‘To this day, I am struggling to cope with the emotional pain and trauma of what has happened. I miss all of them every day. And the depression is something that prevails and visits constantly. I miss them in small yet familiar incidents, and in the faces of strangers who resemble them.
‘I still live on my own today, with my remaining children concerned and also coping with the loss. However, the love of Clodine, and the love and presence which Teddy and Loiva selflessly provided and shared with me when they were alive is something I find irreplaceable.’
The woman who had prepared Sef’s pre-sentence report, probation and parole officer Karen Langdon, was asked to read a particularly important section of her report from the stand.
According to Langdon, while holding discussions with Sef in jail to prepare the report, Sef had vigorously maintained his innocence but stated he felt he could have prevented the murders if he had been a better son, continued studying medicine or listened more attentively to his father’s concerns about threats that had been made against Teddy.
Then Sef had told her of information he possessed that differed from that he had previously provided. He admitted that it was he who had cut the cable to the family’s downstairs telephone.
‘The offender stated that upon entering the house on the night of the offences he had discovered his father’s body and did not call for assistance immediately. He stated he had found his mother’s and then his sister’s body before attempting to call for help. Mr Gonzales stated he attempted to use the portable home phone but thought that it did not work and then called for assistance on his mobile phone.
‘He stated that he cut the line to the home phone in an attempt to conceal the fact that he had not called for assistance immediately upon finding his father’s body. He stated that in hindsight his behaviour in that regard was not rational or reasonable.’ Langdon stated Sef had told her that upon entering the house that night that he felt ‘like a suspect’.
Langdon said Sef had also admitted to her that he now believed he did not see an ‘image’ fleeing the house that night. ‘Mr Gonzales stated he now believed that he told the police he saw the “image” because he feared there could have been a person in the house on that night.’
These admissions raised the question: why would Sef be saying these things now, if he planned to appeal against his conviction? Was he edging closer to admitting he killed his family, and just testing the reaction from others by making a few confessions peripheral to the actual killings? Or was he trying to manipulate Ms Langdon, take her into his confidence so she would write a favourable report for him? Only Sef would ever really know.
However, in cross-examination, Terracini at least had Ms Landgon attest to the fact that since Sef had been in custody, jail staff had described him as ‘polite and unproblematic’.
SEF GONZALES, OF course, wanted to have his say in court that day. Winston Terracini, SC, called him to the stand.
When Sef first began speaking, it seemed he was leading up to a public confession. ‘I will be the first to admit that nothing I say will really hold any weight,’ Sef began in a breathy, halting voice. ‘Although three years seems like a long time, I look back at my life before the murders and before I was arrested and I accept that there are so many things I’ve done that I am not proud of, so much that I wish I could take back. So much I wish that I could do differently but I can’t.’
Questioned by Terracini as to whether he still protested his innocence, Sef maintained that he did. He said he did not blame people for looking at him the way they did, for ‘judging’ him the way they did. He said he had constantly been told that if he pleaded guilty he could receive a lesser sentence, that if he showed remorse he could still be released from prison. He said he was sorry to all the people he had ever hurt or lied to. ‘I believe I was put on trial for being a bad person and not for murder,’ Sef said.
He said when he looked back at the trial, if he had been on the jury he probably would have convicted himself. ‘But I’m not going to plead guilty for something I didn’t do, just to make people happy . . . but I believe that in time things will make more sense.’
By this stage, Emily was outside collecting herself, while Amelita sat by herself in the court in a front seat. Sef looked at his grandmother and dealt a sickening blow. He said he wanted to tell his relatives, particularly his grandmother, that when they ‘abandoned’ him he had felt angry for a long time, but that anger had enabled him to get through this ordeal. He said people had accused him of being cold-blooded but that he had ‘run out of tears to cry’.
Still addressing Amelita, Sef said: ‘If you don’t think I am feeling any pain then you are wrong. I want you to know that any pain that you are feeling, I’m feeling it much worse than you.’
Tedeschi, who had pulled Sef apart on the stand during his trial, rose for his cross-examination.
Tedeschi asked Sef if he felt sorry for killing his sister, mother and father. Sef replied that he did not kill them.
Then Tedeschi launched into the new Karen Langdon evidence. Sef immediately began to deny that he had made the admissions about not having seeing the image, and about cutting the phone wire, saying Ms Langdon had misunderstood him.
He said he had gone over and over in his mind the image he thought he had seen run from the house that night. ‘I said that after the trial and all the evidence I accept it is possible it was just my fear playing with my imagination.’
TEDESCHI: Did you tell Ms Langdon that it was you that had cut the telephone line downstairs in your house?
SEF: No, that’s not what I said.
Tedeschi continued his attack, and Sef retreated further into denial. He denied saying that he had found all three bodies before attempting to call for help, or that he had cut the line. ‘I told her it was suggested to me so many times that I cut the phone line . . . and I go back to that night and I start to doubt myself.’
On the subject of feeling like a suspect immediately upon entering the house, Sef explained, ‘I told her that I felt there was something wrong straightaway.’
Tedeschi, in an exasperated tone, concluded his cross-examination.
TEDESCHI: Mr Gonzales, I suggest to you that you would just as easily tell a lie as to tell the truth.
SEF: That’s not true. You are forcing me to say something that I don’t want to say.
In his submissions, Tedeschi told the judge it was hard to imagine a more heinous crime than killing one’s parents — except for killing one’s little sister so as not to have to share one’s inheritance. He said there were a number of aggravating factors associated with the murders, including the fact there were three killed, the relationship of the killer to the victims, the brutality, the clear premeditation, the fact he lay in wait between each of the murders, and the numerous steps he took to hide his involvement in the crimes.
There was a lack of contrition that would reflect on his chances of rehabilitation and likelihood of reoffending. The report submitted for the defence, by forensic psychiatrist Dr David Greenberg, who analysed Sef, found no evidence of any significant psychiatric condition that could mitigate his deeds. On the objective facts of the case, the crime fell into the most serious category of murder and a life sentence was warranted, Tedeschi concluded.
Sef’s young age was the only subjective factor that might be to his advantage, and was something the judge had to consider, Tedeschi said. ‘But there are some crimes so heinous, so callous, that the youthful age of the offender does not have any significant mitigating effect,’ he continued.
He added that the evidence of Ms Langdon was only consistent with Sef’s guilt and could be seen as exhibiting ‘a desperate need to confess’ to the murders. By making the admissions and then lying about them, he was almost demonstrating a wish to punish himself, Tedeschi argued. ‘To use the vernacular, one could conclude the accused has just lost the plot by making confessions like that.’
Terracini then made his submissions for the defence, saying a maximum sentence of 30 years would be appropriate in such a case. ‘I am not going to retreat from the fact that this is, on its facts, an extremely wicked offence. But the time spent wasting one’s life away [in jail] doing nothing is a very very serious punishment indeed.’
He said the sentence, by law, must be approached on the basis of the jury’s verdicts, despite the fact Sef maintained his innocence. ‘[But] he doesn’t have the benefit of a plea of guilty, he doesn’t have the benefit of expressing his sorrow.’
He said Sef would not have been the first person to tell lies in court. And Dr Greenberg’s report on Sef was not about to enlighten anyone as to why Sef committed the murders. ‘We’re in a position where we’re able to explain nothing. We are able to put before the court little if any explanation that would give some glimmer of . . . what has moved this young man to do what he did.’
Terracini argued that Sef was from a good background and had had a reasonably bright future, but had now lost everything. He pointed out that Sef was only 23 and there was at least some prospect of rehabilitation during such a lengthy prison term. If the judge chose to give a determinate sentence, it would mean Sef would eventually be released and given another chance to make something of his life.
Justice Bruce James wanted time to ponder both arguments. He reserved his judgment.
ON 17 SEPTEMBER 2004, Sef Gonzales received three life sentences, one for each murder, to be served concurrently, of course. This meant Sef would die in jail. According to New South Wales law, life means life.
Justice Bruce James delivered his reasons for sentencing to the court. While the jury had delivered their verdicts, they had never had the opportunity to explain why they reached their verdicts; which evidence they accepted as true and which they rejected as being false. Indeed, each member of the jury did not need to rely on the same evidence as the others to reach their verdict. However, Justice James had presided over the whole trial, heard all the evidence, and by law, had to make findings of fact.
It was chilling to hear the judge describe what he found had happened that day when Sef arrived home from his father’s work, while the prisoner himself, in his regulation green tracksuit, scowled.
‘At approximately 4.30 pm the prisoner entered Clodine’s bedroom, where she was studying,’ Justice James said. ‘The prisoner was armed with a baseball bat or a bat similar to a baseball bat and with one or two kitchen knives which the prisoner had taken from a knife block in the kitchen of the house. These two knives were the longest knives in the set of knives in the block.
‘Inside Clodine’s bedroom the prisoner, not necessarily in this order, compressed Clodine’s neck endeavouring to strangle her, struck her at least six separate blows to the head with the bat and stabbed her many times with one or both knives.’
He described Loiva arriving home at about 5.30 pm. ‘Very shortly after Mrs Gonzales entered the house, the prisoner attacked her with one of the kitchen knives, while Mrs Gonzales was in the living room of the house.’
He said the multiple stab wounds resulted in her windpipe being completely severed, and the fact she was stabbed very soon after her entry to the house was shown by the fact she was still wearing the shoes she had worn to work and that her handbag was found close to her body. Her usual practice was to stow these items upon her entry to the house.
The judge said that Sef had remained in the house. ‘A few minutes after 6 pm the prisoner’s aunt Emily Luna came to 6 Collins Street. She saw the prisoner’s car parked in the carport. She rang the front doorbell of the house but no-one answered and she left. Although no-one answered the front doorbell, the prisoner was still inside the house.’
Justice James said Teddy arrived home about 6.50 pm. ‘Very shortly after [Teddy’s] entering the house the prisoner attacked Mr Gonzales with one of the kitchen knives, while Mr Gonzales was still close to the front door . . . vastly more force was used by the prisoner than was necessary to kill Mr Gonzales.’
The judge found that Teddy had just arrived home because he was dressed in the clothing and shoes he had worn to work, and his briefcase was near his body.
Justice James found that, at some time during the evening, Sef had spray-painted the words ‘FUCK OFF ASIANS KKK’ on the family room wall.
‘After killing the three victims the prisoner disposed of the knife or knives he had used in stabbing the victims, the bat he had used in striking Clodine and the shoes and clothing he had been wearing at the time of committing the murders. The shoes and clothing had become bloodstained. None of these items have ever been found.’
The judge also found that, based on the trial evidence, Sef had indeed poisoned his mother, which indicated premeditation in the killings of his family members. She did not die, due to the fact that Sef’s attempt to extract poison from the seeds was only ‘partly successful’.
‘I am satisfied to the requisite standard that Mrs Gonzales’ illness was not due to food poisoning but was due to the administration to her by the prisoner of poison he had extracted from the seeds he had received by the supplier.’ He said he rejected the suggestion that Sef had made the Internet searches about poisons and ordered the poisonous seeds in order to commit suicide.
As to the motive for the murders, Justice James found it was a mixture of Sef’s fear of sanctions from his parents and his greed. ‘I find that the motives for the prisoner committing the murders were that he was fearful that, because of his poor performance in his university studies, his parents might take his car away from him and might withdraw other privileges which had been granted to him and that he wishes to succeed, without delay and as sole heir, to his parents’ property.’
The judge then spoke of Sef’s mental state. He referred to Dr Greenberg’s report in some detail. He said Dr Greenberg had been instructed to assume Sef was guilty in making his assessment for the sentencing.
He said Dr Greenberg reported Sef as saying that in the six months prior to his family’s murders he felt suicidal and depressed. Yet Sef told the psychiatrist that during this period he had not stopped attending uni classes, or going out with friends or dating young women. There was no reported loss of weight or appetite, although Sef complained of some loss of energy and poor concentration. The doctor reported he thought Sef was in a ‘depressed mood’ around the time of the murders but could not diagnose a major depressive illness.
As for personality disorders, Dr Greenberg found: ‘There is insufficient evidence to diagnose Mr Gonzales as suffering from a personality disorder at this time.’
Dr Greenberg also found that following the 1990 Baguio earthquake Sef may well have been suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, but Sef denied suffering PTSD symptoms just before the murders, or afterwards.
Dr Greenberg found that Sef’s repeated ‘flu-like’ illnesses were possibly linked to an ‘undifferentiated somataform disorder’ (in which psychological conditions cause symptoms of illness that have no physiological cause) or incipient schizophrenia (a personality disorder that warps perception, thought and behaviour, but is not as severe as schizophrenia). But Dr Greenberg found both these possibilities unlikely.
After presenting these findings from the psychiatric assessment, the judge concluded: ‘Having regard to Professor Greenberg’s report, I do not make any finding that at the time of committing the murders the prisoner had any delusional beliefs or suffered from any psychiatric illness or personality disorder or from post-traumatic stress disorder, or from some as yet undiagnosed mental condition or any undifferentiated somataform disorder or incipient schizophrenia . . . I do not accept that the prisoner seriously contemplated suicide or that he was seriously depressed in the period leading up to the murders.
‘I find that at the time of committing the murders the prisoner was not suffering from any mental illness or any mental disorder or any mental abnormality which might, to some degree, mitigate his objective criminality.’
The judge found the murders to be of ‘very great heinousness’, not mitigated by any of the objective facts. In relation to Sef’s personal circumstances, he took into account Sef’s age, but found that Sef had misled investigating authorities and that he posed a risk of reoffending and ‘future dangerousness’. The murders fell into the ‘worst case category’ of common law.
In the final sentence of the judgment, Sef was told he was to serve life imprisonment. There were no histrionics this time. Sef showed absolutely no emotion when confronted with his fate.
BY MID-SEPTEMBER 2004, Sef had lodged his notice of intention to appeal, in a form he filled out from jail. It appeared he was already laying the groundwork for lodging his grounds of appeal, which would be the next step in the appeal process.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Father Cahill stated that Sef had told him he had suffered from memory ‘blackouts’ since he was a child, in fact from the moment of the earthquake. He claimed his father knew of these blackouts, and that his father would ask Sef if he was cognisant during these periods. Father Cahill explains that it was not a split personality disorder. It was not as if Sef did not know what he was doing during these periods, it was more that he could not remember what he had said, that he was in another world.
If Sef told lies during these blackouts and was informed of the lies he had told afterwards, Sef would continue to affirm the lies to cover up for the fact he did not remember.
‘I think with the earthquake . . . he thought he was going to die, and I don’t think he had any trauma treatment,’ Father Cahill says. ‘Perhaps there’s some element that causes some mental amnesia sometimes. There might be blackouts — not loss of consciousness, but things happen and you don’t remember them.’
Father Cahill said Sef had not made these ‘blackouts’ public previously because he did not want people to think he was confessing to committing the murders. Father Cahill said Sef clearly remembered what he had been doing during the period of the murders — that he was with the prostitute Latisha. According to Father Cahill Sef was to undergo a fresh psychiatric assessment in jail.
What Father Cahill described could very well have been the grounds Sef planned to lodge for his appeal.