Mick Sheehy began taking Sef’s statement at 3.15 am. Preparation of the nine-page document, signed by Sef as a true and correct version of events, lasted almost five hours. It was a long night for all involved.
Sef told Sheehy he had woken the day before about 8 am, at which point his mother and sister were both at home. His father, an early riser, had already left the house. Teddy worked long hours at his law practice, T Gonzales & Associates, in the working-class suburb of Blacktown in Sydney’s west. Normally, he left the house around 7.30 am and did not get home until about 7 pm. Loiva, who worked as Teddy’s office manager, routinely left the house later than Teddy and arrived home earlier, between 5 pm and 6 pm.
Sef told police that after waking up he quickly began preparing to leave for Macquarie University, located near North Ryde, where he was studying law. His mother departed around the same time as he did. He did not know his sister’s plans for the day.
Clodine, a Year Twelve student who attended school in Melbourne, was home for the school holidays. She had been sent to Melbourne because she had been dating a man named Chris, an Australian aged about nineteen. Sef’s family was ‘very conservative’, he explained, and had wanted Clodine to break up with Chris. Chris had been a bad influence on Clodine, resulting in an ‘exchange of words’ between the Gonzales family and Chris about a year before, Sef said. After Clodine moved to Melbourne, Chris sent her gifts, such as a formal dress, which she sent back to him.
Jumping back to the events of 10 July 2001, Sef told police, ‘I returned from university about 12.30 pm to 1 pm. I had a quick lunch because my father had arrange [sic] for me to go to his office straight after lunch.’
He said when he went home for lunch, his sister was still there but there was no real conversation between them. He said he got to his father’s Blacktown office between 1 pm and 2 pm to identify a computer problem his father’s secretary was having. He couldn’t find or fix the problem. Soon after his arrival, the work started to pour in and Sef said he helped out by answering telephone calls.
‘At my father’s company I spoke with my father and mother. The night before I had sought permission from my mother not to eat dinner at home and had arranged to go out with Sam Dacillo. It was his birthday the previous week but I was sick and busy with university. We postponed dinner until this date.’
Sef told police that when he left his father’s office he ‘wasn’t really focusing on the time’ but definitely departed before the secretary left, about 4.30 pm to 5 pm.
He said he was on his way to meet up with Sam, who lived four blocks from his house in North Ryde, when he received a text message on his mobile from Sam.
‘He said that there was a change of plans, he had a basketball game. It was a bit unclear what he meant. I then tried to call my mother on her mobile to ensure she was aware that I was going out for dinner. I can’t remember if it was out of range or turned off but I did not speak to my mum. I decided to call home, as I assumed my sister was still there. Nobody answered the phone, it just continued to ring.’
By that time, Sef explained, he was near home so he decided to drop by and check that no-one was there. Sef said he got there about 6 pm and there was a light on in the kitchen area at the back of the house, which he could see through the front door.
After parking his green Ford Festiva with its vanity plates ‘SEF–80G’ in the carport, Sef got a call from Sam. During a three-minute conversation, the pair arranged to meet at 8 pm at Sam’s house.
‘I stayed in the car when I spoke with Sam, I didn’t get out because it was raining,’ Sef said.
The sight of his pet chihuahua, Snoopy, tied up confirmed to him that no-one was home. He said he tried calling the house from his car, and still the phone went unanswered. He was in the carport for about five to ten minutes in all, he said, before driving off, believing nothing to be amiss. There was simply nobody home, he thought.
Left with two hours until his meeting with Sam, Sef said he decided to visit a friend of his, Raf De Leon, at the house he had recently moved into at Kingsgrove. (Police later determined Raf actually lived in a suburb near Blacktown, Kings Ridge.) Sef had never been to Raf’s new home and decided he would have time to pop in and say hello, he told the police.
Driving to the Kingsgrove area through peak-hour traffic via Victoria Road, one of Sydney’s main thoroughfares, Sef looked for Raf’s address in his street directory. ‘I have an old street directory and couldn’t find it on the map. By this time it was already past 7 pm. As I had not made any commitment to Raf, I decided to return and meet Sam.’
Driving straight to Sam’s house, he was welcomed inside by Sam’s family. Sam was not ready yet so Sef waited almost twenty minutes for his friend.
Sef farewelled the Dacillos about 8.15 pm and drove Sam into the city, where they decided to have dinner at Planet Hollywood in the George Street entertainment strip. Entering the restaurant about 8.45 pm, they had to wait fifteen minutes for a table.
During this period, Sam got a phone call from his younger sister, Michelle, a good friend of Clodine’s. ‘Sam asked me where Clodine was, as Michelle had been ringing and no-one answered the phone. When she tried again, the phone was then busy.’ Sef said he tried himself to telephone home during dinner, and again the phone was busy. He assumed someone was on the Internet at home.
After they finished their meal, Sef and Sam played a game of pool at Planet Hollywood, before going to Galaxy World amusement parlour next door and playing video games. About 10.30 pm, they started to head home.
The traffic was light, and after dropping Sam at his house, Sef drove into Collins Street shortly after 11 pm.
‘The first thing I noticed was the light in the guest room was on, from the front of the house it is the first-floor room to your right . . . I drove into the carport and heard both dogs barking and thought that was unusual, as they don’t bark when I arrive home.’
Getting out, Sef noticed his chihuahua still tied up outside the laundry door. He wondered about this, as he believed someone was awake inside. Putting his key into the laundry door, he entered the house. The white poodle that Betts had noticed, Angela, usually did not get out of her bed in the laundry, but she was up and barking at Sef. Opening the internal laundry door, he went into the house and saw his father lying in the foyer. Sef described the dramatic scene to police.
‘There was blood everywhere and there were papers scattered around him. My father was lying on his back and there was a lot of blood on his white shirt. I rushed over and started calling out to my mum to come and help. I was thinking that Mum was asleep, as the lights upstairs were off,’ he said. This conflicted with his earlier statement that the guest-room light upstairs was on.
‘I noticed holes in the chest and stomach area, I thought these were shots. I tried to cover up where it was bleeding using only my hands. I tried to lift his head to wake him up. I was hugging him and when I put him back down I tried to give him CPR.’
He went for the portable phone in the study to the left of the foyer, and tried dialling 000. There was no dial tone, so he used his mobile telephone to ring the emergency operator. As he spoke, he walked back towards Teddy and then noticed his mother in the living room.
He said he could not recall exactly what he said to the operator, but stayed on the phone as he went to his mother.
‘I was hugging her whilst I was on the phone. My mother was lying on the floor in the living room.’ Sef said his mother was on her back and there were large amounts of blood. As he hugged her, he put down the phone for ‘a little while’, and when he picked it up again the operator was still on the line.
Suddenly, he thought he should look for his sister. Running upstairs, still carrying the phone, he noticed that the door to his room was open and the light on, as it was in the guest room and his sister’s room. He opened the door to Clodine’s room.
‘As I opened the door, I think her leg was in the way. I opened it slowly and [there] was my sister lying on her side in an awkward position. There was blood everywhere. I grabbed her, trying to wake her up, and there was blood gushing out from her side. I tried to stop it using my hands. I checked for a pulse but I couldn’t really tell. I assumed her heart was still beating, as there was blood gushing out.’
At this point, he said, he heard a noise downstairs and thought his mother or father was recovering. With no idea where he had put the phone, he ran down the staircase, and as he did this, heard the side gate behind the carport close. Going for the front door, he found his father was in the way, so he rushed into the garage and pressed the remote door control. The door was painfully slow going up, so he crawled under it as it rose. As he straightened up, he saw someone running towards Ryrie Street, across the street to the right.
‘I’m not sure if I saw two people or one person and a shadow. I chased after them shouting something. I am assuming it was a male person, as I recall short hair and the way the person ran was like a male.’
He said he chased them until he reached the second house from the corner of Ryrie Street before thinking again of his sister, possibly still alive and needing help. He went to John’s house across the road to raise the alarm, crying. When he went back inside with a neighbour, he closed his father’s eyes and did the same for his mother.
Sef said he did not know of anyone who felt ill will towards his family. The only thing he could think of that might be relevant to his family’s murder was an incident on Monday, 9 July, the night before the killings. It was Clodine’s birthday and the family went out for dinner to celebrate. As Sef was driving his family home in his Festiva, doing about 70 kilometres an hour along Victoria Road, an old white four-wheel drive behind his car started to blow its horn. As the car, driven by a man and containing three or four people, passed, a male passenger yelled out, ‘Bloody Asians.’
‘He yelled this before he could see who was in the car, all our windows were closed. The car then pulled in front of us, cutting us off. Then he stopped suddenly and we had to stop behind him.’
Sef said he drove past the car and thought he had lost it, until he turned into Wicks Road in North Ryde, near his home. He stopped near the Shell service station because he saw the four-wheel drive in his rear-view mirror. The vehicle stopped a few metres behind his Festiva.
‘My father and I were going to get out of the car to see what was going on and my mother convinced us to stay in the car. The four-wheel drive then sped off. There was nothing distinguishing about this car but it may have been a Toyota, like a Land Cruiser.’
And so his statement ended. Having listened to his story, Sheehy thought the young man’s alibi was filled with details, times and locations that police would have no trouble confirming or ruling out. For example, the calls and SMS messages that Sef had referred to making or receiving could easily be checked. If he wasn’t telling the truth, he must have next to no knowledge of police investigative capabilities. To Sheehy, Sef seemed more intelligent than that. He would tell fellow officers of this belief at a briefing that morning.
AFTER THE INTERVIEW, Sheehy took Sef’s clothes and shoes so they could be sent for forensic analysis. Sef also underwent gunshot residue tests at the station that morning, as police were still under the impression a gun had been used in the murders.
The unfortunate Sam Dacillo, dragged into this whole messy affair due to the fact he was with Sef during what was meant to be a pleasant night out, was also under suspicion. He, too, had gunshot residue analysis done on his hands. Sam was Sef’s best mate, and the only one who could back up his alibi for a large part of the evening. Fortunately for Sam, his movements on the afternoon and evening of the murders checked out, and he was quickly eliminated as a suspect.
Obtaining CCTV footage of George Street that night, police confirmed Sam and Sef had indeed been there around 11 pm, and had left at 11.11 pm. Sam gave his own brief statement to police. Contrary to what his mate had told them, Sam said their 8 pm meeting time for the night of Tuesday, 10 July had been arranged the night before, Monday night. He made no mention of a telephone conversation with Sef around 6 pm on 10 July.
EMILY LUNA’S FIRST statement to police that night lacked a fair amount of pertinent detail. She outlined the family’s history before telling police about her visit to Collins Street at 6 pm. She told police she had seen Sef’s car in the carport, and a light on somewhere on the ground floor. She said she had rung the doorbell probably four times and got no response. Emily also told police she saw no movement inside the house whatsoever.
‘I then thought that there was nobody home so I left with my son.’
Emily wasn’t volunteering anything but the basic details to the police about her visit. In fact, she was holding back information that might have indicated a physical presence inside the house at the time when Sef’s car was in the carport. She was holding this back because Sef was her blood relative, and she wanted to give him an opportunity to explain himself before she got him into trouble with the police.
At one stage that night, she was allowed to sit in with Sef as he answered police questions, preparing to make his own formal statement. Emily was excused from the room after a period, while Joseph was allowed to stay.
While she was in there, Sef clutched her hand. Emily noted Sef’s mention of the fact it was raining at 6 pm as the reason he had not got out of the car. It jarred with her. Emily remembered not even needing an umbrella to approach the front door when she arrived.
On hearing her nephew’s version, Emily immediately let go of his hand. Her suspicions about his involvement in the murders had only been increased by this little detail.