Mike Morford (2:49)

Yeah, I'm right with you there. I think maybe the older you get, it seems that way.

Mike Ferguson (2:54)

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.

Mike Morford (3:07)

Yeah, thank you so much to all of you for that support. It really helps us out. And for anyone else that like to support the show, head on over to patreon.com criminology to get started.

Mike Ferguson (3:16)

And don't forget CrimeCon is closing in on us just about six months away and we hope to see you there on Podcast Row.

Mike Morford (3:23)

Crime con is happening September 5th through the 7th in Aurora, Colorado. It's at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention center and it's your chance to see and meet all of your favorite people from the world of true crime.

Mike Ferguson (3:35)

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. More so now that we have all that out of the way, lets 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 townsvillebulletin.com just before midnight on July 10, 2001, 20 year old Seth Gonzalez called emergency services in New South Wales 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 Attamian, 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, Itamion decided to wait with Seth outside the home instead of entering a crime scene.

Mike Morford (5:06)

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 Gonzales 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 Teodoro or Teddy, and his mom, Louisva Gonzales. 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. Soon an ambulance arrived, but it was far too late to help any of the Gonzales family members. And responding police began a homicide investigation immediately.

Mike Ferguson (5:55)

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 know, 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.

Mike Morford (6:30)

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.

Mike Ferguson (6:40)

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 Gonzales 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, and 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. In fact, there was still $700 in Teddy's wallet and another 200 in Louisva's purse.

Mike Morford (7:30)

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 Wales, in 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 or killers that were on the loose.

Mike Ferguson (8:18)

And when you think about 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.

Mike Morford (8:44)

I think all the neighbors in the community there 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 they could.

Mike Ferguson (9:04)

Saf 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 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 Chatswick.

Mike Morford (10:09)

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 and Boyz II 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 Sef 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. K9 units were dispatched, but the dogs could not find any scent trails leading away from the home.

Mike Ferguson (10:53)

What was also a red flag for police was that the autopsies and timeline information would show that the 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 Stevenson, Seth's younger sister, was the first to be killed. She had just turned 18 years old. Her birthday was July 9, only one day earlier. 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.

Mike Morford (11:52)

Claudine stayed home while Seth and their parents went about their day at school and worked. She was alive and active on her cell phone, texting with her friends until at least 4.04pm she could have been attacked right then or as late as 4:30pm 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 bludgeoning. 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 are listed in her official cause of death.

Mike Ferguson (12:37)

Between 4:15 and 4:30pm 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. Louisva Gonzalez left the law office around 4:50pm 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. Louisva was a creature of habit. She always 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.

Mike Morford (13:40)

Just after 6pm 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.

Mike Ferguson (14:25)

Teddy Gonzalez called home at 6:23pm 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 10 minutes before 7pm 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. 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. So morph, as we are going through this, as we are 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. And I think it's very easy to see why Seth would be 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 have this financial aspect of things, things. 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 schedule was okay in kind of Waiting around, knowing that certain people were going to be coming home at certain times.

Mike Morford (17:32)

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 time frame of when these murders happen. 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?

Mike Ferguson (17:57)

And I just got done talking about, you know, 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.

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Mike Morford (18:36)

Can you imagine nowadays if they still had that and teenagers were using the Internet and their parents are trying to get a hold of them, it would be chaos.

Mike Ferguson (18:46)

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.

Mike Morford (18:57)

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 1pm 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.

Mike Ferguson (19:41)

Around 4:30pm, Seth left the office. He had prior plans with his friend Sam Dasillo, 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 6pm and parked, but didn t get out of the car because he received a call from Sam rescheduling for 8pm Instead of going inside, Seth decided to go see another friend, Raph deleon. He drove to the area that Raf 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 8pm as scheduled. Obviously, if 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 and 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 8pm after he got to Sam's house, they went to Planet Hollywood 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 11:30pm and then drove home. He claimed he had been gone during all of the murders. Scams are everywhere. On your phone, in your inbox, even on your television screen looking at you. Tindler Swindler what is it about scams that has pop culture so obsessed? Maybe it's because it can happen to anyone. Or maybe it's because we're all deeply fascinated by the psyche of someone who can lie with ease and cheat with no guilt and convince the world they are who they say they are, even when they're not. Scamfluencers is a weekly podcast that takes you into the world of deception, sharing the stories of today's most notorious scams, like the recent episode of Natalie Cochran, the pharmacist femme fatale. It seemed like she had it all a good job, loving husband and two kids. But behind the scenes, Natalie was scamming friends and family using fake contracts, fake government emails. She even faked cancer. But when the walls started closing in, she'll do anything to keep the lie alive until someone ends up dead. Listen to Scamfluencers now.

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Mike Morford (23:25)

Podcasts 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 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 SevenNews. Com au, Seth said that there was blood gushing from her side and that he tried to stop it using his hands.

Mike Ferguson (24:07)

Despite Sef 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. And 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 he 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 and left.

Mike Morford (25:17)

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 and morph.

Mike Ferguson (25:56)

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 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.

Mike Morford (26:54)

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.

Mike Ferguson (27:25)

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. Because like you said, morph, 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 onto 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. 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 laughed? We or if they had gotten in through the side door. This second story by Sef, the second version would also quickly prove false. 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 10, 2001. He she was off that entire week. Sef 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 because he didn't want to lie. In a murder investigation, police not only.

Mike Morford (29:43)

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 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. 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 those shoes were missing.

Mike Ferguson (30:36)

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 co worker 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.

Mike Morford (31:19)

On March 1, 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 consciously. A passerby found him lying in the gutter next to a plastic bag. At around 8:30pm an ambulance arrived and transported him to the hospital when it appeared that he had amnesia. 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.

Mike Ferguson (32:28)

And we talked earlier about, you know, Seth changing up his story to kind of fit with 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, 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.

Mike Morford (33:34)

Yeah, I love Breaking Bad.

Mike Ferguson (33:35)

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.

Mike Morford (33:57)

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. They just telling police, but they had to be by this point just saying, okay, this guy's totally lying. To us.

Mike Ferguson (34:19)

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. Yeah.

Mike Morford (34:41)

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.

Mike Ferguson (34:52)

Yeah, I'm right with you. And police didn't believe 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, Telling the press he wouldn't take the fault for something he didn't do.

Mike Morford (35:39)

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 state for his legal defense.

Mike Ferguson (36:18)

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 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.

Mike Morford (37:13)

And I think most grandparents spoil their grandchildren and Never see the worst in 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.

Mike Ferguson (37:35)

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. McQuarrie was his second university. He had already failed his medicine courses at the University of New South Wales. Sepp was clearly feeling the pressure of finals at Macquarie. According to court documents, just days before the murders, on July 4, he had asked the school for special consideration regarding two exams he just never showed up for. Grades would be posted on July 20, and. 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 set 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.

Mike Morford (38:57)

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 Louisva 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, 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.

Mike Ferguson (39:51)

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 Morphino 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 SAF and you've been pretty privileged, 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 ultimately was accused of doing. Scams are everywhere. On your phone, in your inbox, you, even on your television screen looking at you. Tindler. Swindler. What is it about scams that has pop culture so obsessed? Maybe it's because it can happen to anyone. Or maybe it's because we're all deeply fascinated by the psyche of someone who can lie with ease, cheat with no guilt, and convince the world they are who they say they are, even when they're not. Scamfluencers is a weekly podcast that takes you into the world of deception, sharing the stories of today's most notorious scams. Like the recent episode of Natalie Cochran, the pharmacist femme fatale. It seemed like she had it all. A good job, loving husband and two kids. But behind the scenes, Natalie was scamming friends and family using fake contracts, fake government emails. She even faked cancer. But when the walls started closing in, she'll do anything to keep the lie alive until someone ends up dead. Listen to Scamfluencers now, wherever you get your podcasts. Morning, Zoe. Got donuts. Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage? Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you teach me. So Dana. Oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at T Mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system. Wow, impressive. Let me try. T mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network.

Mike Morford (42:32)

Nice.

Mike Ferguson (42:32)

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Mike Ferguson (42:40)

So what are we having for launch? Dude, my work here is done.

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Mike Ferguson (43:32)

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. Seth had a lifelong issue with wetting the bed that he refused to seek any treatment for. Since Louisa 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 Clody 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. 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 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 Claudine sometimes kind of reveled in telling people that he had wet the bed? That might have been a very contentious point for him.

Mike Morford (45:43)

It 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 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.

Mike Ferguson (46:20)

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.

Mike Morford (46:59)

Seth had time to work harder and apply himself to raise his grades and 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 due to a court order keeping them under seal because of how dangerous they are.

Mike Ferguson (47:47)

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.

Mike Morford (48:01)

Yeah, it makes no sense to me.

Mike Ferguson (48:03)

On June 24, 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. Louisva Gonzalez was only 43. It was not her birthday, and she had never taken that supposed Florida vacation. The seller did end up shipping the seeds, and they arrived on June 29. Two days later, Louiva began to feel sick. On July 3, 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 30. SAF, pretending to also have stomach pain, agreed with the diagnosis. He suggested it might have been the tap water they served. Saff, 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.

Mike Morford (49:30)

According to court documents. On July 2, 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 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 Queen 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. 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. Drafts 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.

Mike Ferguson (50:36)

So is it just me, morph, or is Seth Gonzales 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.

Mike Morford (51:02)

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, moving forward until they were ultimately dead. So it's hard not to look responsible for this stuff.

Mike Ferguson (51:20)

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. Sef said that he was planning on making his suicide look like natural causes when it didn't look like insanity, please might work. Sef's attorney tried to cast doubt that it could not have been Seph 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.

Mike Morford (52:14)

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 Parrin, 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.

Mike Ferguson (52:59)

Three years after the murders, a poisonous plant, the same one Seth ordered seeds of, began growing in the backyard of the Gonzales 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 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.

Mike Morford (54:09)

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 in New South Wales was also changed as a result of the couple changing their mind about the sale. According to finelaw.com au Fair Trading Minister Reba Meager said home buyers 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.

Mike Ferguson (54:49)

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, where, you know, such a grisly set of murders occurred. I, I know I wouldn't.

Mike Morford (55:20)

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.

Mike Ferguson (55:48)

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 soldiers 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 Olivo, 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 us. I know the Gonzales's were a good family and would have liked to know. 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.

Mike Morford (56:45)

In 2007, Seth was granted 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 special inquiry in 2018 and again in 2019 were also denied. In 2021, SEF made a third request for a special inquiry and pardon, but there were, according to the court's response in 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. According to TheAustralian.com in 2021, Seth admitted that 20 years earlier in 2001, he was a foolish Dumb kid who 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 Gonzales family or the shoes and clothing Seth was wearing that night.

Mike Ferguson (57:50)

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 1999, year old Seth was buried in the rubble of their hotel after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked the Philippines. 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. 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, 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.

Mike Morford (59:28)

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.

Mike Ferguson (59:58)

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. 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 most of us can't even fathom. He's going to kill his parents and his sister one, so they'll never find out what's going on in his life, that he's failing. But I think for me, more importantly, for the money, 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?

Mike Morford (61:55)

Yeah. What 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. 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.

Mike Ferguson (62:31)

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.

Mike Morford (62:44)

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.

Mike Ferguson (63:15)

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. 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. You and I don't understand it. 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.

Mike Morford (64:41)

If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with the handle criminologypod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com criminology podcast and you can join our Facebook discussion group Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans.

Mike Ferguson (64:56)

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 and Morph, we'll talk to you next week.

Mike Morford (65:08)

Take care everyone.

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