By Sid Astbury
Sydney - Back in July 2001 things were not going well for Sef Gonzales.
The baby-faced 20-year-old was failing his university course, his girlfriend had ditched him and his rich Philippine-born parents were threatening to stop his allowance and take away his flashy new car unless he got his life in order.
Three years later matters could not be worse. Gonzales is on trial for the murder of his whole family and faces the prospect of a life-long jail term.
'This was no professional killing' Teddy Gonzales, 46, wife Mary Loiva, 43, and their 18-year-old daughter, Clodine, were found hacked to death in their four-bedroom family home in a leafy Sydney suburb in July 2001.
Continues Below ↓
"All three were attacked with vastly more force than was necessary," Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi told the Supreme Court trying Gonzales.
"This was no professional killing; it was the slaughter of an angry amateur who wanted to make sure they were dead and had no idea how many times he needed to stab them in order to cause death."
The motive for wiping out his family, the court was told, centred on the millions of dollars he stood to inherit if he were the sole surviving Gonzales.
The accused killer's account to police was that he returned home after a night in town to find his father bashed to death on the garage floor. After ringing for emergency help, he rang the emergency number and, according to a transcript of the call, told the operator that "they are all bleeding there on the floor". As Tedeschi told the court, Gonzales phoned for help after seeing only one body but intimated he had seen all three.
'It was the slaughter of an angry amateur who wanted to make sure they were dead' The case has attracted widespread media attention because many people find it hard to believe that Gonzales could be capable of such a diabolical act.
At the funeral, he sang a solo and gave a moving eulogy to his lost loved ones.
Continues...
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
