Pod Insights Criminology The Gonzales Family Murders About this episode In 2001, twenty-year-old Sef Gonzales called emergency services in Australia to report that his parents and sister had been murdered. There were no signs of forced entry, no apparent robbery, and so the attention quickly turned to Sef. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the murders of the Gonzales family. Sef told several different stories while under investigation which only piqued the authorities' interest even more. His story seemed to change whenever he was confronted with a different fact. But could the police put together the clues of the puzzle, and what would a jury make of Sef's claims?
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
0:37 Speaker 01 Hello everyone and welcome to episode 350 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.
0:43 Speaker 02 And this is Mike Morford.
0:45 Speaker 01 Mr. Morford, how you doing, buddy?
0:47 Speaker 02 I'm doing good. You just a second ago when you said episode 350, I was like, wow, that's time flies when you're having fun and talking true crime, huh?
0:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's a big number, 350 episodes. You know, sometimes it doesn't seem that long ago that we started the podcast and then other times it seems like we've been doing it forever. So I think it's kind of like being married. You know, sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday that my wife and I got married and sometimes it seems like it was a long time ago.
1:18 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's I'm right with you there. I think maybe the older you get, it seems that way.
1:24 Speaker 01 Well, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Jordan Raffle, Lil Caitlin, Rachel D, and Kelly Clark jumped out at our highest level. So that's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it.
1:36 Speaker 02 Yeah, thank you so much to all of you for that support. It really helps us out and for anyone else that would like to support the show, head on over to patreon.com/criminology to get started.
1:46 Speaker 01 And don't forget, Crime Con is closing in on us just about six months away and we hope to see you there on Podcast Row.
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2:05 Speaker 01 And if you're going to CrimeCon, why not save a few bucks? Head over to CrimeCon.com to get your CrimeCon badges before they sell out. Use our promo code CRIMINOLOGY at checkout to save 10% on your standard badges. All right, Moore, so now that we have all that out of the way, let's jump into this week's case. And for this one, we're heading back to the land down under, Australia. This case starts off with a frantic call to 911. According to the Townsville bulletin.com.au, just before midnight on July 10th, 2001, 20-year-old Seth Gonzalez called emergency services in New South Wales,
2:48 Speaker 01 and in a panic said, "Someone has shot my parents. Please come." Seth told the dispatcher that he had walked into his family home and entered a nightmare. His entire family, both of his parents and his younger sister, had been brutally killed. The house was a bloody mess. Seth ran outside looking for help. He ran across the street and frantically knocked on his neighbor's bedroom wall. The neighbor, John Atamian, was abruptly woken up from his sleep. So he ran outside to see what was going on. Seth explained the gory scene he walked into when he got home. Understandably, Atamian decided to wait with Seth outside the home
3:33 Speaker 01 instead of entering a crime scene.
3:35 Speaker 02 A second neighbor who had been awake and watching TV heard all the commotion outside and went to check on things. Once again, Seth explained what he had seen inside his home and that his whole family had been shot to death. The second neighbor, Shane Hanley, decided to investigate. He went inside the Gonzalez home with Seth following behind him. As they got to the living room area, Hanley could see the bodies of Seth's parents. His father, Teodora, or Teddy, and his mom, Louiva Gonzalez. They were clearly dead and had been for some time. Seth threw himself onto each of his parents' bodies, sobbing and calling out to them. In another room, his sister Claudine was dead.
4:16 Speaker 02 Soon, an ambulance arrived, but it was far too late to help any of the Gonzalez family members. And responding police began a homicide investigation immediately.
4:25 Speaker 01 And obviously, Morf, this would be a horrific situation for any family member to find, you know, loved ones shot to death in this horrible way. But I'm also kind of thinking about the neighbors. You're woken up by one of your neighbors in such a frantic way and being told that an entire family has been shot to death. And one of the neighbors actually walks in to see them. I just can't imagine being woken up to that kind of scene.
5:00 Speaker 02 And I think it's a little bit of a contrast between the neighbors because the first neighbor's like, nope, I don't want any parts of going to see that. But the second one's like, let's go check it out.
5:10 Speaker 01 Investigators quickly determined that three family members hadn't been shot, but rather stabbed. And the knives used to stab the trio were taken from the knife block in the Gonzalez kitchen. Whoever killed them had apparently taken their sharpest knife and their longest knife to cover all their bases. There was no sign of forced entry into the home. A screen in the kitchen window had been damaged. The screen had been ripped out of the frame, but there was no indication anyone had made entry to the home through the kitchen window. A few drawers were open, but it didn't seem that anything had actually been stolen from the home.
5:52 Speaker 01 In fact, there was still $700 in Teddy's wallet and another 200 in Louiva's purse.
6:00 Speaker 02 Robbery didn't seem to be the motive for the murders, but they quickly discovered a possible motive. The words "fuck off Asians" and "KKK" had been spray painted in blue paint on one of the walls. The Gonzalez family, a Filipino family, had moved from the Philippines to Sydney, Australia about a decade earlier, but they moved into their home in North Ryde, New South Wells. 1999, police wondered, could the family have been targeted simply for being Asian or Filipino? If so, this meant there could be a danger to other residents in the area who were Asian. Police knew that they had to get to the bottom of the murders as soon as they could, in case other lives were at risk. The neighborhood was on edge and authorities were hard at work to catch the violent killer
6:45 Speaker 02 or killers that were on the loose.
6:47 Speaker 01 And when you think about, you know, this kind of crime in any community, it would be obviously very scary, but then you kind of have this added element on top of the crime, which is racially charged graffiti. Okay, I think that's going to add another level of fear to the community.
7:13 Speaker 02 I think all the neighbors in, in the community, they were probably freaked out by this, but if they're Asian, that probably was even more troubling, wondering if they'd be targeted too. And I think the police had their work cut out for them to try and get to the bottom of this case as fast as it could.
7:33 Speaker 01 Seth Gonzalez made a public plea for the killers to come forward. He even begged the police to offer a financial reward for information. After a few days with no leads, he announced a reward of $100,000. When he wasn't in the public eye, though, Seth didn't seem to be grieving the loss of his family, as much as he wanted people to think he was, just days after the murders, with no answers and their killer still walking free. Seth was meeting with the family's accountant, talking about money matters. We're not talking about conversations on figuring out how he was going to pay for bills
8:15 Speaker 01 and the funerals, that would be completely expected and understandable. Now, this was extravagant spending. He ended up putting down a $173,000 deposit on a Lexus and sold the family cars. He even pawned his mother's jewelry and watch and moved into an 11th floor apartment in a high-rise building in Chatswood.
8:39 Speaker 02 At the funeral for the family, Seth helped carry his father's casket. He also sang a few lines of the song "One Sweet Day" by Mariah Carey in "Boys to Men." Despite the show of emotion from Seth, police were suspicious of him and his lavish spending so soon after the murders. Investigators didn't feel that the murders were really a hate crime and felt that they had many reasons to pursue Seth as a suspect. At one point, Seth had tried to pretend that he had narrowly escaped being killed himself, claiming that after calling for an ambulance, he heard a noise downstairs. He chased the killer or killers out of the house. K-9 units were dispatched, but the dogs could not find any scent trails leading away from the home.
9:23 Speaker 01 What was also a red flag for police was that the autopsies and timeline information would show that something wasn't quite right about the murders. The victims had not been killed at the same time as one another. This wasn't a home invasion where the family was caught off guard and taken out quickly within seconds or minutes of each other. Someone had been in the house for hours, waiting for each member of the family to return, and they were killed one by one. Claudine Gonzalez, Seth's younger sister, was the first to be killed. She had just turned 18 years old. Her birthday was July 9th, only one day earlier.
10:06 Speaker 01 Claudine was still a student in high school, and during the school year, she lived with her aunt in Melbourne where she studied. She was visiting her family in Sydney for her birthday, which fell on a day during a break from school.
10:22 Speaker 02 Claudine stayed home while Seth and their parents went about their day at school and work. She was alive and active on her cell phone, texting with her friends until at least 4:04 PM. She could have been attacked right then or as late as 4:30 PM, based on her regular phone usage. But it was clear that she was ambushed in her bedroom while she was studying. She was bludgeoned with something like a baseball bat and hit over the head with it at least six separate times. There were actually dents in the wall from whatever was used to bludgeon including. She was stabbed at least five times in the neck and multiple times in the chest and abdomen. She was also strangled by her killer. Investigators aren't sure which order the injuries happened in, and they all were listed in her official cause of death.
11:07 Speaker 01 Between 4:15 and 4:30 PM, a client of Teddy Gonzalez's legal firm stopped by the house to drop off some documents. She put them in the mailbox and left. It's unknown whether Claudine was still alive when this happened, or if she had already been attacked. The client did recall that Seth's car was in the carport next to the garage, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary at the home. Luiva Gonzalez left the law office around 4:50 PM and headed straight home. She got there around 5:30. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes later that she was attacked. Luiva was a creature of habit. She always
11:50 Speaker 01 took off her shoes when she got home from work and placed her purse in its designated spot. On this day, she didn't have time to do either of those things before she was stabbed multiple times in the neck, face, abdomen, and chest. Her windpipe was completely severed.
12:10 Speaker 02 Just after 6:00 PM, Seth and Claudine's aunt, Emily Luna, stopped by the home with her son. She rang the doorbell, but no one came to the door, which was odd, since she could see the cars in the driveway. While she waited on the porch, she saw a dark figure moving through the frosted glass pane, but couldn't make out who or what it was. Her son told her that the shadow that they were seeing, that looked like a man wearing a jacket and a baseball hat, was just a coat rack. They waited at the door for about five minutes before giving up. Emily thought about trying the side entrance of the home, but she followed her intuition and left. She was later horrified when she realized that the shadowy figure moving in the home had likely been the killer standing there, waiting for her to leave.
12:55 Speaker 01 Teddy Gonzalez called home at 6:23 PM and got a busy signal. At the time, they had dial-up internet at home, which meant that if someone was on the computer using the internet, anyone calling would get a busy signal. It was likely he was already on his way home at the time he was calling their landline. He got home about About 10 minutes before 7:00 PM and was attacked only moments later. Just inside the front door of the home, Teddy was stabbed multiple times in the back, abdomen, chest and neck. The stab wounds inflicted on him were incredibly deep, causing additional injuries.
13:35 Speaker 01 His heart and one of his lungs were penetrated by the knife and his spinal cord was partially severed. Teddy Gonzalez was likely still holding his briefcase and closing the door when he was attacked. The contents of his briefcase had been spilled next to his body and his house keys were nearby in a pool of blood. Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi later described the crime scene to the courtroom by saying, "This was a slaughter by an angry amateur who wanted to make absolutely sure they were dead, but had no idea how many times he would need to stab them in order to cause death."
14:17 Speaker 01 So Morpha, as we're going through this, as we're laying out these attacks, I mean, you can tell how incredibly vicious they were, these stabbings. And it's very interesting to me to kind of walk through the timeline. Again, it was obvious to police, this wasn't someone who entered the home, found all three of the family members at the same time and attacked and killed them. This is a person who waited for hours as each family member got home and once they did get home, attacked and killed them.
15:00 Speaker 01 And I think it's very easy to see why Seth would be, you know, on police radar very quickly. Number one, he's the only surviving family member. That's going to put you on the radar all by itself. You know, you have this, the financial aspect of things.
15:22 Speaker 01 I think anytime someone goes out and starts spending lavishly on things in the wake of a loved one's murder, let alone your entire family's murders, that's going to be a red flag. And to me, just the way that the crime happened, this seemed like someone who was familiar with the home, knew the family's schedule, was okay in kind of waiting around, knowing that certain people were going to be coming home at certain times.
16:02 Speaker 02 Yeah. And the biggest red flag to me so far is that one of the employees that stopped by to drop something off had seen Seth's car in the driveway during this timeframe of when these murders happened. So, police had to have been taking that tip very seriously and wondering, what's his car doing there if he supposedly wasn't home during these murders?
16:27 Speaker 01 And I just got done talking about dial-up internet. Some people won't remember it at all because they're not old enough, but for those of us who are, dial-up internet was great back then because that's all you had. It was a marvel. Now you look back on it now and you think, oh my gosh, how did we do anything? You know, it took like minutes to download one webpage, which now comes up in an instant. But the one thing I forgot is that it did tie up your phone line.
17:05 Speaker 02 Yeah. Can you imagine nowadays if they still had that and teenagers were using the internet and their parents were trying to get ahold of them, it would be...
17:15 Speaker 02 Chaos.
17:16 Speaker 01 Well, I think it caused some chaos back then. I remember my roommate at the time being upset that I was tying up the phone line using the internet.
17:27 Speaker 02 As I just mentioned, there was one big issue that stood out to police regarding Seth's story to his neighbors and to them. He claimed he had arrived home after the murders, but not just one, but two witnesses spotted Seth's car at the house during the time of the murders. Before they had spoken to any of the witnesses, Seth had walked detectives through the day of the murders. He told them that in the morning, he was at Macquarie University, which he attended at the time. He stopped at home briefly for lunch before heading to his father's law office, where he was working part-time as a paralegal. He got to the office in Blacktown at around 1:00 PM and stayed for two to three hours. During that time, he made a few phone calls and tried to fix one of the office computers.
18:11 Speaker 01 Around 4:30 PM, Seth left the office. He had prior plans with his friend Sam DeSillo, but while he was on his way home, he received a text informing him that Sam was running late and wouldn't be able to hang out. Seth got home around 6:00 PM and parked, but didn't get out of the car because he received a call from Sam rescheduling for 8:00 PM. Instead of going inside, Seth decided to go see another friend, Raph DeLeon. He drove to the area that Raph lived in, but ended up not being able to figure out where his house was. He eventually gave up and just went to see Sam around 8:00 PM as scheduled. Obviously, if
18:52 Speaker 01 what Seth claimed was true, then his car could not have been at his home when Emily Luna stopped by and rang the doorbell. It seems like the stop at home where he didn't get out was meant to explain why Emily saw his car there, but it's extremely unlikely that he could have been sitting in his parked car when his aunt and cousin stopped by, and none of them noticed each other. As for the other sighting of his car, if his version of events was the truth, he still would have been at the office or just leaving when the client dropped off their paperwork and saw his car there. Seth claimed that around 8:00 PM, after he got to Sam's house, they went to Planet Hollywood
19:36 Speaker 01 in the Sydney Central Business District. After eating dinner there, they went to an arcade and played video games. He dropped Sam back at his house around 11:30 PM and then drove home. He claimed he had been gone during all of the murder. You know, there's probably a goal weight in your head and getting there on your own is the hard part. Weight Loss by Hers offers access to a range of FDA-approved GLP-1 medications, including the Wegovy pill and the Wegovy pen, plus support along the way. With Wegovy, you can lose up to 20% of your body weight. People lost an average of 14% body weight in 64 weeks in a clinical trial of Wegovy
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21:11 Speaker 02 Seth claimed that as soon as he walked into the house, he found his father on the floor and he knelt down trying to wake him up. He yelled for his mom, but there was no reply. When he walked further into the house, trying to make sense of things, he found her. He tried to help his mom, but there was nothing he could do. He remembered Claudine was there and knew he had to check on her. When he tried to open her door, there was a resistance, like something was in the way. Afraid to hurt her, he pushed the door open slowly and gently. That's when he saw her. According to seven news.com.au, Seth said that there was blood gushing from her side and that he tried to stop it using his hands.
21:52 Speaker 01 Despite Seth describing throwing himself on his parents and trying to stop gushing blood to help his sister, there wasn't a lot of blood on his clothing. Even what he claimed on the call to emergency services didn't make sense. If he had walked in hours after the murders, Claudine would not have been gushing blood, as he claimed, especially since she had been the first one killed. What he described seeing was likely not a lie, but what was a lie was the timing or sequence of what he saw. In January of 2002, Seth started to change his version of the day of the murders. And by that April, he
22:34 Speaker 01 gave a written statement of his new alibi. Now, he claimed that he left the office just before 4pm and headed straight home. Again, he parked without going inside. Instead, he walked to a nearby gas station and caught a taxi to Chatswood, where he got out and walked to a brothel. He claimed to have picked out a specific sex worker there, used her services, and left.
23:02 Speaker 02 Of course, this wild change in Seth's story troubled police. But Seth explained that the reason he lied in his first story is that he didn't want anyone to know that he was at a brothel or associated him with a sex worker. According to him, it wasn't relevant to the murders. And if he could get away with keeping that a secret, he certainly wanted to. He found it embarrassing and didn't want his remaining family members to ever hear about it. He told police in the second story that after leaving the brothel, he walked to a train station where he caught another taxi back home. The versions of the story match after this, with Seth getting in his car and driving over to Sam DeSillo's house.
23:40 Speaker 01 And more if this is the part of, you know, any true crime story that really fascinates me, you have a person of interest, sometimes even a suspect who starts to change their story. Well, why does someone need to change their story? It's because their story doesn't match with the known facts that police have. You see it time and time again, someone trying to explain away the details that police are saying don't match. So they have a different story and then police call them out on some
24:24 Speaker 01 of the details in that story. They might need a third, fourth and fifth story because they're not going to stop trying to explain all of the inconsistencies away.
24:38 Speaker 02 And usually the truth is the truth. There's no need to change the stories because what happened, happened. Now, there are rare cases when somebody does lie to police. Maybe they're having an affair and they don't want their wife to find out. So they'll lie about a detail or maybe they're involved in drugs and they don't want the police to know that. So they'll lie about a detail, but it seems like overwhelmingly when somebody's changing their story in this kind of case, it's because they have something to hide that directly dealing with the case.
25:09 Speaker 01 Well, no matter what, it's going to, you know, put police on edge. It's going to sharpen their focus on the person who keeps changing their story. Cause like you said, more for the most part, the truth is the truth and you don't expect people to change their stories. There are legitimate reasons why people do sometimes, like you just pointed out, but either way, police are going to latch on to that and it's not going to help you get off their radar. That's for sure. If Seth was lying, the change in his alibi would make sense once he realized that his car had been spotted.
25:53 Speaker 01 This would have been a surprise to him, unlike the visit by his aunt Emily Luna, which he included in his first alibi. If he was inside the home just after killing Claudine, he would know that the doorbell rang. If he was just inside the door, visible through the frosted glass, as Emily recalled, then he likely knew who it was at the door. He would have heard them discussing whether or not he was a man or a coat rack. It's eerie to think about, would he have killed Emily and her son too? If they hadn't left, or if they had gotten in through the side door? This second story by Seth, the second version, would also quickly prove false.
26:38 Speaker 01 Detectives looked through employment records from the brothel and found the woman Seth was resting his new alibi on. The woman, he says, he was there to see the day his family was murdered, was not even at the brothel on July 10th, 2001. She was off that entire week. Seth had found a taxi driver and asked him to sign a statement confirming that he drove him to Chatswood the afternoon of the murders. He paid him $50 and asked him to put an earlier date on his statement so that it didn't look as suspicious. Unaware it was a statement to the police, the driver accepted the money to lie, but quickly confessed everything when contacted by a detective
27:23 Speaker 01 because he didn't want to lie in a murder investigation.
27:27 Speaker 02 Police not only had Seth's crumbling and changing stories, but they also had physical evidence. There was a small amount of blue paint found on Seth's clothes. It was actually found on the inside of his left sweater sleeve, which caught the attention of investigators because Seth is left-handed. They weren't focused on a speck of paint that could have happened as he ran through the house and bumped against the wall. This was on the inside of his clothing and was exactly where you might expect to find it on the sleeve of whoever spray painted those words as the paint came down on the sleeve. His attorney would later argue that it was not even the same paint used in the racist graffiti found at the scene and even went as far as to say that it had been planted to frame him.
28:11 Speaker 02 In addition, bloody shoe prints from the scene were a perfect match for the shoe that should have been inside a box in Seth's closet, but their shoes were missing.
28:21 Speaker 01 The walls seemed to be closing in on Seth and he was certainly getting more and more attention from police. But if all of those pieces of evidence and lies were just coincidences, was there someone out there with a motive to kill the Gonzalez family? One coworker claimed that about two months before the murders, they overheard Teddy on the phone, involved in a heated dispute regarding a $30 million property deal. Other supposed sources said that he had plenty of disgruntled clients who could be responsible for the murders. Police dug into that avenue, but didn't find any clear suspects.
29:04 Speaker 02 On March 1st, 2002, Seth was likely feeling the heat from investigators and needed to divert attention away from himself. So he made a new suspect up and a new story. This time, he claimed he was pulled into a van and had a plastic bag placed over his head. He was hit in the head with something hard, maybe a piece of wood, and warned to rescind the $100,000 reward that he was offering for information in the case. He was also told to stop speaking out in the media. He was then pushed out of the van, barely conscious. A passerby found him lying in the gutter next to a plastic bag at around 8:30 PM. An ambulance arrived and transported him to the hospital when it appeared that he had amnesia.
29:47 Speaker 02 He claimed that he didn't know his name or what year it was, and he also asked for his dad. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, doctors at Royal North Shore Hospital found no evidence of head trauma, and investigators believe that Seth faked the entire thing. Police also found out that Seth wrote a fake email to himself, claiming that a disgruntled businessman had hired a hitman, telling Seth that he should look into his father's financial records for clues.
30:12 Speaker 01 And we talked earlier about, you know, Seth changing up his story to kind of fit with the, what police had gathered during their investigation. Well, he's really going out swinging on this one. You know, he's feeling the heat. I think he knows that the walls are closing in on him. So what does he do? He comes up with a new story. Often what we see from a lot of suspects, but this one is very elaborate. And this is, you know, after the murders, someone pulls him into a van, hits him in the head,
30:56 Speaker 01 says, hey, stop offering that reward, stop speaking to the media. And then, you know, he has this kind of act, I'll call it an act of amnesia. And it reminds me so much more, if I don't know if you watch the show Breaking Bad, it's one of my favorite shows.
31:18 Speaker 02 Yeah, I love Breaking Bad.
31:20 Speaker 01 Well, if you remember, there's a, there's the one part where Walter White goes into what he calls his fugue state and is found in his underwear. If you remember that, it's like he doesn't remember what happened. This kind of reminded me so much of that part of the show.
31:42 Speaker 02 And I think it just proves that these stories, as they keep getting changed and keep getting made, they just get more and more hard to believe. I don't even know that Seth realized how outrageous these stories are that he's telling police, but they had to be by this point, just saying, okay, this guy's totally lying to us.
32:04 Speaker 01 Well, my thought is, you know, by this point, he's probably feeling so trapped and he's run out of, you know, halfway legitimate ways to change his story that he's just kind of got to go for broke. And I feel like that's what he did.
32:25 Speaker 02 Yeah. And, you know, the, the bottom line is if these people were so ruthless that they killed three of his family members, why wouldn't they just kill him too? Why would they let him live? It just doesn't make any sense.
32:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm right with you. And police didn't believe, you know, his outrageous claims. And when they felt that they had enough to make a case against him, Seth was arrested in June 2002, just before the one year anniversary of the murders. And there were some letters that Seth faked that we'll talk about later. One of them actually threatened his extended family. And because of that, investigators didn't feel that they could wait any longer. He had already faked his own abduction. What would happen if he tried to escalate things and involve a family member? Upon being arrested, Seth denied any involvement in the murders,
33:19 Speaker 01 telling the press, he wouldn't take the fall for something he didn't do.
33:23 Speaker 02 From behind bars, Seth fought for his inheritance, claiming that he needed $1.2 million for his legal defense. Teddy's parents would not agree to release any money to him. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, they said, we refuse any part of the estate of our son Teddy to be used in any manner, directly or indirectly, for the defense of Seth. But Seth's attorney, Brian Raymond, countered, saying, you can't presume someone is a murderer. That's a revocation of the presumption of innocence. If he's not a murderer, he's entitled to the estate now. In the end, Seth didn't get any of the estate for his legal defense.
34:03 Speaker 01 And how can you blame Morph, his grandparents, his dad's parents for not wanting him to get his hands on this money? You have to believe at this point, they had a very strong indication. He was involved in the murder of his parents and sister. So they're dealing with that grief, those losses. If Seth really had something to do with it, if he was behind it, the last thing in the world you would want is for him to get his hands on this extraordinary amount
34:41 Speaker 01 of money. We know what a lot of money can do when it comes to in terms of mounting a legal defense. It makes a huge difference when you can pay for some of the best attorneys out there.
34:58 Speaker 02 And I think most grandparents spoil their grandchildren and never see the worst of them, even in the worst situations. But here it seems clear that Seth's grandparents saw through all the lies that he had been telling and they wanted no part in him being able to use some of this money that was probably blood money.
35:20 Speaker 01 So now the prosecution felt that they had a strong case and investigators were sure that Seth was responsible for the murders. But why would Seth kill his family? What possible motive was there? It seems like it boils down to the fact that his parents weren't willing to support him through another failure. Macquarie was his second university. He had already failed his medicine courses at the University of New South Wales. Seth was clearly feeling the pressure of finals at Macquarie, according to court documents, just days before the murders. On July 4th, he had asked the school for special consideration
36:04 Speaker 01 regarding two exams he just never showed up for. Grades would be posted on July 20th, and Seth knew this. He had to act quickly or he would be cut off. His parents had already warned him that they would take away his car, which was his prized possession, if he didn't get it together. Claudine was sent to return to Melbourne on the 11th. The day the family was killed was the last day. They would all be in the home together. If he waited, he would have to admit his failing grades or split his inheritance.
36:42 Speaker 02 It wasn't just Seth's bad grades that his parents disapproved of. His mother was especially disappointed in his choice of a girlfriend, thinking that the girl he was dating was far too old for Seth. She was just four years older than Seth. But Louiva felt that the difference was too big at their age. Just four days before the murders, Seth and Louiva had an argument and Louiva put her foot down. If Seth wanted to continue to see this woman, he could, but he would no longer be welcome in the family. He would need to find a new car, a job, and a place to live because they wouldn't be providing it for him anymore. He had seen how serious his parents were about things like this. When they sent Claudine to Melbourne with their aunt because she was seeing a boy who didn't have a steady job
37:26 Speaker 02 and because her parents disapproved of him. She was sneaking out at night to see him. She was shipped off to focus on her education. Seth didn't want to be controlled like that.
37:35 Speaker 01 So there does seem to be, you know, somewhat of a controlling atmosphere within the family. I think to some degree, that's fairly normal in any family. And for the most part, parents tried to guide their children. But more of, you know, at, at a certain point, when kids aren't doing what is expected of them. A lot of parents start to say, hey, you know what? If you want to do certain things, that's up to you, but we're not going to pay for it. And I think they were well within their right to do that. But if you're Seth and you've been pretty privileged.
38:22 Speaker 01 As it seemed that he had, the thought of losing all of those things, right? Your prized car, the funding, it's hard not to think that that played a huge role in his mindset and what he, you know, ultimately was accused of doing.
38:45 Speaker 01 So the motive was pretty clear as to why Seth might kill his parents. But besides having to split the inheritance with his sister, Claudine, why kill her? There may have been multiple reasons motivating Seth to kill her that day. They had always been in competition for their parents' approval, affection and attention. Maybe he just decided he didn't feel like competing for their inheritance too, but he may have been a bit angry at her, blaming her for the situation he was in. When he had tried to forge a passing transcript to show his parents, Claudine told them it was fake, which is what got him in trouble.
39:28 Speaker 01 Seth had a lifelong issue with wetting the bed that he refused to seek any treatment for. Since Louiva did the household laundry, she would automatically know each time it happened. And if that wasn't enough, when Claudine found out each time he wet the bed, she would apparently announce it to other family members. He clearly may have had a long festering anger towards Claudine. And more, you know, you and I both have kids of varying ages. Kids wet the bed. All right. That's just a fact. It happens to everyone.
40:07 Speaker 01 What doesn't happen to most people is that you're still wetting the bed during your college years. Now, there might be nights where you go overboard, you drink too much, stuff like that. But this sounds like a Not that situation. This sounds like it was very common, an issue that he had that he just never got help for. But if you think about, you know, brothers and sisters, kind of often at each other, picking at each other. Is this something that, you know, Claudine sometimes kind of reveled in? Telling people that he had wet the bed, right? That might
40:52 Speaker 01 have been a very contentious point for him.
40:57 Speaker 02 That definitely could have been humiliating for him and caused him to be very upset with her long-term. And I go back to some of the cases we've covered in the past where we've talked about some killers had patterns of wetting the bed, growing up, you know, maybe at older ages than than most kids do. So I wonder if that means that Seth was predisposed to have some kind of violent tendencies. I know there's been some research on that and some different theories, one way or the other, but just something that jumped out at me.
41:33 Speaker 01 But for me, you know, the splitting of the inheritance, I kind of always go back to the money, because it's such an important factor in so many cases, right? Husbands don't want to get divorced because they don't want to give up their money. So they make the decision that, well, they're better off to kill their spouse. So to me, maybe the inheritance, because there was quite a bit of money at stake, was probably the overriding factor. There might have been other ancillary factors, but I always go back to the money.
42:13 Speaker 02 Seth had time to work harder and apply himself to raise his grades, make his parents happy. But it looks like he made no attempt to do that. By February 2001, five months before the murders, and five months before his grades would be coming back in, Seth was researching poisons. It seems safe to say that he had decided to kill his family by then. It could have been a Decision he made even earlier, but due to his online searches that police found. The plan starts to become clear in February, proving a long lasting premeditation. In June, the month before the murders, Seth finally decided which poison to use and how he would do it. The names of the poisonous plants that he was researching aren't widely known.
42:56 Speaker 02 Due to a court order keeping them under seal because of how dangerous they are.
43:00 Speaker 01 So he's working hard and he's applying himself. In researching poisons and figuring out how he's going to kill his family. But he won't do it to raise his grades and make his parents happy.
43:14 Speaker 02 Yeah, it makes no sense to me.
43:17 Speaker 01 On June 24th, Seth ordered seeds of a poisonous plant online. The next day, he wrote an email to the supplier, asking them to expedite the shipping. He had apparently ordered without realizing that the seller was on vacation and there would be a delay. Seth gave a bogus story about why it was time sensitive. He claimed it was his mother's 60th birthday. And that she had wanted this specific plant since she first saw it on a trip to Florida. Louiva Gonzalez was only 43. It was not her birthday and she had never taken that supposed Florida vacation.
43:58 Speaker 01 The seller did end up shipping the seeds and they arrived on June 29th. Two days later, Louiva began to feel sick. On July 3rd, she was admitted to the Adventist Hospital at Warunga for an overnight stay. Her illness was chalked up to food poisoning from a dish at a restaurant. The family went to on June 30th. Seth pretending to also have stomach pain, agreed with the diagnosis. He suggested it might have been the tap water they served. Seth probably expecting that his mother was going to die. Tried to make sure that no one would look at him as a potential suspect in the poisoning.
44:44 Speaker 02 According to court documents, on July 2nd, an unnamed but well-known food manufacturer received an anonymous threatening letter that claimed three products had been tampered with and were already on the shelves in the stores. The writer seemed spiteful, writing, "This is what you get for treating employees like garbage." Around the same time, letters were also sent to the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service. The letters were anonymous, but supposedly from concerned employees of the food manufacturer, claiming that management refused to enact a recall or take any preventative measures after being warned that their products had been dangerously tampered with.
45:26 Speaker 02 We now know that the author of these letters was Seth Gonzalez. His fingerprint was found on the envelope of the letter sent to the Australian Federal Police. Drasts of these letters were recovered during a search of Seth's laptop. During the first search of the house, investigators found a jar of liquid in Seth's room. Later tests revealed the presence of one of the poisonous plants that he had researched.
45:48 Speaker 01 So is it just me, Morph, or is Seth Gonzalez not looking good here? I mean, you'd have to say, he looks guilty. I get it, innocent until proven guilty, but just from the outside looking in, with everything we've talked about, it's hard not to believe that he had something to do with the murders of his family.
46:15 Speaker 02 Yeah, all this stuff shows some serious premeditation for weeks and months. He could have changed course and put the brakes on this, but he kept going and moving forward until they were ultimately dead. So it's hard not to look responsible for this stuff.
46:34 Speaker 01 At trial, Seth pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His explanation for researching poison was so that he could use it to end his own life. It went hand in hand with another story he had been telling his friends for months before the murders. He had claimed to have cancer, and eventually, when they got curious about why he looked so healthy and still had all his hair, he claimed to be in remission. Seth said that he was planning on making his suicide look like natural causes.
47:07 Speaker 01 When it didn't look like insanity, please might work. Seth's attorney tried to cast doubt that it could not have been Seth that Emily Luna saw through the frosted glass because from what she could remember, the figure she saw inside the house was taller than her and Seth was exactly the same height.
47:28 Speaker 02 The jury wound up seeing through all of Seth's lies and in May 2004, he was found guilty of all three murders. He received three life sentences with no possibility of parole. Seth's Aunt Emily Luna told the Sydney Morning Herald, "It's actually a very sad day because we love Seth very much. We will always love him." Another aunt, Annie Parren, said, "I think justice has been done, but it would have been easier to accept if it were a different person." She added, "I just wish it wasn't him." Detective Inspector Mick Sheehy, one of the investigators in the case, said, "Unfortunately, there are no winners in this sort of case and the family, three of which were murdered, have now lost another one who will serve life imprisonment."
48:12 Speaker 01 Three years after the murders, a poisonous plant, the same one Seth ordered seeds of, began growing in the backyard of the Gonzalez home. This showed that Seth most likely threw the rest of the seeds into the backyard. After he abandoned his plan to poison his family, it was a grisly reminder of the terrible things that happened there. The home at 6 Collins Street remained empty for three years. Those who knew what happened inside on July 10, 2001, didn't want anything to do with the property or the negative energy that they thought was probably lingering there. The couple that did put a down payment
48:57 Speaker 01 on the home had no idea about the murders and backed out of the sale once they learned the news. The would be buyers, a Buddhist couple from Taiwan, believed that the home would bring bad luck and that it was haunted. Their $8,000 down payment was eventually refunded, but they weren't going to change their mind, even if it meant losing out on that money.
49:23 Speaker 02 Two agents from the real estate company LJ Hooker North Ride who were involved with the sale were fined almost $21,000 for their failure to disclose the relevant history of the home, since it would obviously have an effect on the value of the home. The law on New South Wales was also changed as a result of the couple changing their mind about the sale. According to findlaw.com/au, Fair Trading Minister Riva Meeger said, "Homebuyers have a right to know the details about a property that may affect the value of that property or their decision to buy it." She also called the purchase of a home, "the largest and most important investment decision most consumers will ever make."
50:02 Speaker 01 And I totally agree with that. I think if you go to look at a house, you ought to know if there was a murder there, if an entire family was slaughtered there. I know we have a lot of laws here in the US about that, certain things that have to be disclosed. I just don't know how many people would be comfortable living in a home where, you know, such a grisly set of murders occur. I know I wouldn't.
50:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think a lot of people wouldn't. I think many of them just wouldn't want that energy, that history to be part of their, their family's home. And while I think some other people could look past that and live in that home, they still have a right to know because if they ever want to sell it, the next person that potentially buys it may not want to pay that much money because of the history. So I think it's only right to fully disclose that kind of stuff.
51:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, there could be some people who would say, "Well, you know, I'm getting such a great deal on it because of this. I'm willing to overlook it." But I feel like people should have the information. Finally, in 2005, the Gonzalez home sold. The family was aware of the murders, but were able to look past the horror to see the beauty of the home. The new owner, Pat Aliva, who still lived there as of 2017, told Women's Day Australia, "This is my home. I get really annoyed when people ask me about what happened here because it happened before. I know the Gonzalez's were a good family and would have liked to know.
51:45 Speaker 01 We've taken care of their home and we've been very happy here." Co-owner Jeremy Mumford added, "You get a feeling from a house and it was a really good feeling from the very first time I stepped inside."
51:59 Speaker 02 In 2007, Seth was branded an appeal due to the fact that investigators did not warn him that he was a suspect before they interviewed him, but it was ultimately denied. Applications for a special inquiry in 2018 and again in 2019 were also denied. In 2021, Seth made a third request for a special inquiry and pardon, but there were, according to the court's response and legal docs, no special facts or circumstances that would justify the taking of further action. According to the most recent court docs, Seth Gonzalez maintains his innocence, saying, "I was put on trial for being a lousy person."
52:39 Speaker 02 According to theaustralian.com, in 2021, Seth admitted that 20 years earlier, in 2001, he was a foolish dumb kid, did a lot of silly things. He also said, "I forgive my young self for whatever I did in the past," but he didn't own up to the murders he had committed. Investigators have never found the weapons used to kill the Gonzalez family or the shoes and clothing Seth was wearing that night.
53:04 Speaker 01 "I was a foolish dumb kid who did a lot of silly things." Yeah, you did a lot more than just silly things. I get it. He doesn't want to own up to the murders. But saying you did a bunch of silly things is just ridiculous from my point of view. Now, as a side note, back in the Philippines, before coming to Australia, Seth's dad Teddy worked as a lawyer, but the family also managed a brand new 40-room hotel where they lived on site. In 1990, 9-year-old Seth was buried in the rubble of their hotel after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked the Philippines.
53:47 Speaker 01 His father heard him calling out and ran back into the building and dug him out of the ruins, saving Seth's life, only for Seth to repay him by taking his life years later, along with his mother's and sister's lives. So it's kind of an interesting side note. Yeah, that's a, that's a pretty sizable earthquake. But here's a father who, as many parents would, is not thinking about his own safety, is only concerned with saving his son's life.
54:27 Speaker 01 And then years later, more if you have a son, who is the exact opposite. He's only concerned about himself. And not just that, he's willing to kill his entire family.
54:42 Speaker 02 Yeah, there's a cruel irony there that had Teddy not rushed to save Seth back in the earthquake and Seth didn't make it, then Teddy, his wife, and his daughter might still be alive today and would have never been murdered. But I think he did what any father, what any parent would do for their child that needed help. And ultimately, you know, he paid the price years later.
55:11 Speaker 01 But as we wrap up this case, it's really the reasons behind the murders. Yes, the murders were grisly. They were terrible. But the reasons behind it are what really grabbed me. You know, I get the picture of Seth Gonzalez as, you know, a pretty spoiled kid. He was privileged and it seems as though he probably had the aptitude. He just didn't have the drive or the willingness to put forth the effort to get good grades, to do the things that, you know, he was supposed to do.
55:51 Speaker 01 So when things were going south for him and he knew that, you know, all of this was going to come out to his family, that he was failing. And he thought, you know, he was going to lose his car. He was going to lose this kind of posh lifestyle that his family had been supporting. Then he makes a decision that, you know, most of us can't even fathom. He's going to kill his parents and his sister. One, so they'll never find out, right? What's going on in his life that he's failing? But I think for me, more importantly, for the money.
56:36 Speaker 01 So that he can continue to live the way that he wants to live. I mean, it's the ultimate act of narcissism, selfishness. I mean, just look at his actions after the murders. We talked about him spending a great deal of money on a Lexus. Is that really what you would be focused on in the wake of your entire family being murdered? A new car?
57:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, it bothers me and really stands out to me in these kinds of cases or similar cases that we talk about is the decision that these people make that murdering their family is the best way to go. It, and so many times too, they're, they're caught because they have to spin lie on top of lie until the lies are so ridiculous that the police can see right through them. And somehow they feel this is the best path to go down and I never understand it. I never will, but it happens more frequently than we think, I guess.
57:45 Speaker 01 And yet we're always shocked, right? When it does and the reasons come out why this young person made the decision that they did.
57:58 Speaker 02 And this was so premeditated too. He had been thinking this for months and then when he actually murdered them, it wasn't like he just swept in and did it all at once in one act of rage. He had space several minutes or hours between each murder, where he had to do this over and over and over again, until three of his family members were dead. And I don't know how he could do that to someone that he presumably loved or they loved him, yet he was able to do this.
58:28 Speaker 01 Well, the thought that I always have is the reason why some of these people can do it is because in their minds, I think it's all about them. You know, what's good for them? How do they get what they want? And that's where I think the narcissism, the just unbelievable selfishness comes in. You know, some people it seems can justify doing the most horrible things. If it gets them what they ultimately want. Again, it's part of the fascination of true crime, right? You and I don't understand it.
59:11 Speaker 01 People listening don't understand it, but somehow Seth Gonzalez rationalized this in his mind, that it was worth. Killing his entire family in order to protect his lifestyle. And again, if it made sense to us, then I think we'd have our own set of problems. But that's it for our episode on the Gonzalez family murders. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a rating, leave us a review. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the criminology podcast really helps us out.
59:54 Speaker 02 If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with the handle at criminology pod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com/criminologypodcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans.
1:00:10 Speaker 01 So that's it for another episode of criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike.
1:00:20 Speaker 02 And Morph.
1:00:21 Speaker 01 We'll talk to you next week.
1:00:22 Speaker 02 Take care, everyone.
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