Shadowing Practice: The Perfect Family Didn’t Know Evil Was Living With Them | Sef Gonzales - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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On July 16th, 1990, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale hit northern Luzon in the Philippines.
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On July 16th, 1990, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale hit northern Luzon in the Philippines.
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Buildings across Baguio City came crashing down.
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In the stairway of a collapsing hotel,
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a nine-year-old boy was trapped as the walls came down around him,
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his leg pinned beneath debris.
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His father ran back inside,
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squeezing through a crack in the wall,
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reaching his son and pulling him free.
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He tore a ligament, saving his child,
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an injury that never fully healed.
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But the damage caused by the earthquake went far beyond that injury.
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The hotel was gone.
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Everything the family had built was reduced to rubble.
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They left the Philippines and started over in Sydney, Australia.
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The father, Teddy Gonzalez, retrained as a lawyer.
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He built a house he raised two children.
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The boy he had pulled from the rubble grew into a man.
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And in July 2001, in a four-bedroom house in North Ryde,
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a house the family had built for their new life,
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that boy killed his father,
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his mother, and his sister in cold blood.
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This is the case of Seth Gonzalez,
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one of the most followed murder trials in Australian history.
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A story about a family that survived a natural disaster,
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rebuilt everything, and was finally destroyed from the inside.
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The Gonzales family were originally from Baguio, in the Philippine highlands.
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Teddy was a trained lawyer.
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He and his wife, Loiva, married in 1977.
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Her son, Seth, was born in 1980,
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followed three years later by their daughter, Clodine.
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By 1990, they had built a stable life.
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Teddy was established in law,
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and the family had invested years of work into a 40-room hotel that they owned.
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And after the earthquake destroyed all their hard work,
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the family made the decision to leave.
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In 1991, they emigrated to Australia and settled in Sydney.
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Teddy requalified under the Australian legal system and established a law firm specializing in immigration law,
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while Loiva worked there alongside him.
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Over time, the business succeeded.
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By the late 1990s, they were doing well enough to buy land in the family-friendly suburb of North Rite
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and build a four-bedroom house, completed in 2000.
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They succeeded in establishing themselves in the country.
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They had six small dogs,
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and they attended St. Michael's Catholic Church.
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They were known in their community.
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From the outside, they looked like a normal,
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hard-working family, one that had rebuilt everything they had once lost.
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But court evidence would later describe a home where high expectations were enforced with severity,
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and pressure had been building for a long time.
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Teddy and Loiva wanted Seth to do well academically,
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to pursue medicine or law,
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and to give up his ambitions to become a singer and entertainer.
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Claudine was not spared from these expectations either.
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When her grades dropped and she was dating a boy they disapproved of,
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they sent her away to finish her schooling.
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Seth followed his parents' wishes and enrolled to study medical science at the University of New South Wales.
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but he withdrew after two years.
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He enrolled at another institution,
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this time to study law at Macquarie University.
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But P fared no better here.
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He was doing so poorly that he was at risk of expulsion.
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So he made a choice.
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Not a good choice, but a choice nonetheless.
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Instead of fixing the problem,
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he tried to hide it.
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He falsified his results, changed his grades,
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and showed his parents fabricated transcripts.
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For a while, it worked,
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until Claudine found out and went straight to their parents.
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That's when everything fell apart.
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His parents confronted him, and they didn't hold back.
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They threatened to take his car,
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the green Ford Festiva he loved.
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They threatened to strip away other privileges, even disinherit him entirely.
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But here's the thing, The falsified documents,
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the lies about his grades,
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this wasn't the first time he'd created his own reality.
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People who knew Seth said he constructed different versions of himself,
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allowing him to become whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted.
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To some friends, he had cancer.
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To others, he was a successful businessman,
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a model, a singer with a fan base.
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At one point, he even created a fan website about himself that he claimed was run by an admirer.
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Later in court, prosecutor Mark Tedeschi described him as a pathological liar.
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But what made it so dangerous was how believable he was.
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When he delivered a lie,
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he did so with unwavering conviction.
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And what is even more frightening is
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that the murder of his family wasn't something that Seth did in a fit of rage.
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It wasn't a sudden snap.
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It was something that he had considered,
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something he had planned, and something he had decided to go through with despite numerous opportunities to change course.
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The prosecution would later discover that he had made the decision to take their lives by early 2001,
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months before the murders even took place.
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Now let's go back to July 10th,
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2001, the day of the murders.
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At about 4pm, Seth left the family's law firm,
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where he was working part-time,
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and drove home to 6 Collins Street.
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Claudine was alone, studying at her desk in her bedroom upstairs.
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He went to the kitchen and took two knives from the knife block.
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He retrieved a baseball bat from his car.
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Then he went to Claudine's bedroom.
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He compressed her neck, trying to strangle her.
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He struck her head with the bat at least six times.
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He then stabbed her repeatedly,
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causing five major stab wounds to her neck and two to her torso.
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The cause of Claudine's death was the combined effect of neck compression,
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blunt force trauma to the head, and abdominal stab wounds.
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Having murdered his sister, Seth then waited.
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He had ample time to reconsider his plans.
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Loiva arrived home at around 5 30 p.m.
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In the living and dining room,
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Seth attacked her with one of the kitchen knives.
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She sustained multiple stab wounds to her face, neck, chest, and abdomen.
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Her windpipe was completely cut in two.
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Court documents note this occurred post-mortem.
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At around 6 p.m.
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Loiva's sister arrived at the house with her son.
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She noticed that both Sef's car and her sister's car were in the driveway,
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but the house was dark,
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unusually quiet, considering the presence of six dogs at the house.
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She rang the doorbell several times.
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No answer.
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She looked through a window and thought she noticed movement inside,
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but no one was coming to the door.
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So, the two left.
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Seth's aunt and cousin may have had a lucky escape.
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His father would not be so fortunate.
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Teddy arrived home at approximately 6.50pm.
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In the hallway, Seth attacked him with a knife.
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He suffered multiple stab wounds to the neck, chest, back, and abdomen.
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One penetrated his right lung,
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one penetrated his heart, and one partially severed his spinal cord.
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The forensic evidence showed defensive wounds.
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Teddy Gonzalez had fought for his life.
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After killing all three of his immediate family members,
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Seth disposed of the weapons,
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his blood-stained clothing, and the size 7 running shoes he had been wearing.
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He showered.
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He changed into clean clothing.
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but he wasn't finished.
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He took a can of blue spray paint and wrote,
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fuck off Asians KKK on a wall inside the house,
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staging the scene to look like a racially motivated hate crime.
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Then he drove to his friend Sam Desio's house,
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arriving at around 8 p.m.
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He gave no indication that he had just murdered his family in cold blood.
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The two went to the city.
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They ate at Planet Hollywood.
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They visited a video game arcade.
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Later that evening, after dropping Sam home,
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Seth returned to his home on Collins Street.
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Emergency services received a call from Seth at 11.48 p.m.
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According to what he told them,
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he had come home to find the bodies of his family members and intruders in his home.
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He claimed to have chased them, but they had escaped.
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He then ran to his neighbor's house and told them his parents had been shot.
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Police arrived to find three people dead and a young man grieving in the driveway.
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It looked, on the surface,
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like this man had suffered an unbearable tragedy.
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But within hours, the inconsistencies were already piling up.
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There was no sign of forced entry.
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Nothing of value had been taken not even the cash on the victims.
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The ransacking at the scene was superficial.
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The investigators had established the times of death.
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Given the three-hour span of killings,
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Clodine at around 4.30 pm,
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Teddy at nearly 7 pm,
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it was implausible that any random attackers would have stayed in the house that long.
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Seth claimed to have performed CPR,
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but the way he was acting struck investigators as detached and strange.
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Then there was the paint.
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Traces of the same blue spray paint used to graffiti the
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wall were found on the sleeve of a jumper belonging to Seth.
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A shoebox in his bedroom matched the size 7 running shoes that had left prints at the scene.
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In the days after the murders,
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Seth took a mixture of actions,
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some of which made sense given the apparent circumstances and some that made none at all.
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He gave a press conference calling for Australians to pay more attention to the killing of an Asian family.
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He appeared on television asking the killers to come forward and offering a reward of $100,000 Australian dollars,
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worth around $55,000 US dollars at the time,
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to anyone who provided information leading to the capture of those guilty of killing his family.
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At the joint funeral on July 20th,
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2001, held to commemorate all three of the family members who had died,
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he gave the eulogy.
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He claimed that his father was his hero,
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his mother the heart of the family,
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and his sister the life in it.
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Then he gave a performance that some found strange.
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He sang One Sweet Day,
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the Mariah Carey and Boys to Men Ballot, as a solo.
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Within a week of the funeral,
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he visited the family accountant to inquire about his inheritance.
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It was estimated he had an inheritance worth 1.5 million Australian dollars at home,
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and approximately 1.3 million Philippine pesos back in the Philippines.
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As an apparent victim of a crime,
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he was also eligible for a 15,000 Australian dollar payout.
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In total, he was looking at assets worth around 800,000 US dollars at the time.
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And Seth didn't waste any time upgrading his lifestyle.
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He moved into an apartment in Chatswood,
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traded in his parents' car,
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pawned his mother's jewelry, and placed a deposit on a Lexus,
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telling the dealership he would be paying for it with his inheritance.
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He contacted his godmother in the Philippines,
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telling her he had been diagnosed with a brain tumor,
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and asked her for $119,000 Australian dollars for the surgery.
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She declined.
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He appeared to have no concerns,
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but the police were not fooled by his performances and had been building their case against him in the background.
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His phone calls were being recorded.
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An undercover officer had befriended him.
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His internet records had been searched, revealing something concerning.
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Before he had taken the lives of his mother,
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father, and sister, he had researched poisons online.
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He ordered seeds from toxic plants.
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In the weeks before the murders,
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Loiva was admitted to hospital with what appeared to be food poisoning.
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She recovered and was discharged.
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In court, Justice Bruce James later stated he was satisfied that Loewe's illness was not food poisoning.
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It was the result of Seth administering poison extracted from the seeds he had ordered.
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The police also established that Seth had tried to cover his tracks.
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He had written letters to a food company,
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to police, and to quarantine authorities fabricating a contamination scare,
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just in case anyone got sick and questions were asked.
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A fingerprint on one of those letters would later become a crucial piece of evidence against him.
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Seth made endless attempts to cover his tracks.
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His first attempt at an alibi for the murders
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that he had waited in his car in the driveway before leaving to meet Sam was disproved in December 2001.
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Witnesses had seen his car on Collins Street during the time the murders took place.
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So he pivoted.
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He told police he had taken a taxi that day to avoid being recognized in his own car,
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and had visited a brothel called La Petite Aroma at the time of the murders.
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That also fell apart.
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The brothel's madam said the sex worker he claimed to have been with wasn't working that night.
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As for the taxi driver who had supposedly taken him there,
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the police found that Seth had approached him six months after the murders,
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and paid him to produce a false receipt dated July 10th, 2001.
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But that wasn't all.
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He also fabricated an email designed to raise suspicion against one of his father's business rivals.
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On May 30th, 2002, he staged attempted burglary at his Chatswood apartment and later claimed he had been abducted.
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The police were not convinced.
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On June 13th, 2002, detectives arrested Seth Gonzalez at his Chatswood apartment.
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He was charged with three counts of murder and one count of threatening product contamination.
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Seth's trial was held at New South Wales Supreme Court in April and May 2004.
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The prosecution was led by Mark Tedeschi, QC.
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The case covered the months of planning,
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the poison research, the constructed alibis,
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the staged crime scene, the paint on the jumper,
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the shoebox, and the taxi driver who had been paid.
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The evidence built toward a single conclusion,
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that Sef Gonzalez had killed his sister,
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waiting for his mother, killed her,
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waited for his father, and killed him.
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Because he was afraid of losing his car and his allowance,
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because he wanted to inherit the family's money without the inconvenience of earning it.
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On May 20th, 2004, the jury found Seth Gonzalez guilty on all four charges.
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On September 17th, 2004, Justice Bruce James sentenced him to three concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole.
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In his remarks, Justice James said,
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I consider that the murderer's show features a very great heinousness
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and that there are no facts mitigating the objective seriousness of the murders,
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and hence the murders fall within the worst category of cases of murder at common law.
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Sef appealed in 2007.
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The court considered whether statements taken from him by police on the night of the murders were admissible,
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as he had not been formally cautioned.
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On November 27, 2007, the appeal was dismissed.
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It was determined that there had been no miscarriage of justice.
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The convictions were confirmed.
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But he applied for a special inquiry in 2018.
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Dismissed.
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Again in 2019.
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Dismissed.
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In March 2021, a third application.
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Dismissed.
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In May 2021, he submitted a petition to the Governor of New South Wales for a royal pardon.
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But again, it did not succeed.
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In August 2025, the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal granted Seth Gonzalez the right to lodge a further appeal.
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The basis was a diagnosis of PTSD that,
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he argued, had its origins in childhood sexual abuse,
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a disorder he had previously refused to acknowledge at the time of the original trial.
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As of the time of this recording,
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that appeal has not yet been heard.
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Teddy Gonzalez was 46 years old.
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He had built a hotel in Baguio,
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lost it in an earthquake,
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tore a ligament pulling his son from the rubble,
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moved to another side of the world,
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re-qualified as a lawyer, built a successful practice,
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built a house, and raised two children.
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Loiva Gonzalez was 43.
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She was the one who had persuaded the family to leave the Philippines and start over.
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By every account of people who knew her,
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she was the person who kept the family together.
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Claudine Gonzalez was 18.
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She had a whole future ahead of her.
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At the funeral, Seth described his sister as being an expert in smiling.
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We may never know the full reason that Seth decided to take their lives.
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We only know for sure that he did so after a long period of consideration.
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He researched, he planned, he experimented,
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and he took action, waiting for over an hour between each killing.
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And instead of showing remorse,
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he dedicated his time to constructing alibis,
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acquiring his family's wealth, and upgrading his standard of living.
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Ceph is currently being held at Lithgow Correctional Center in the Blue Mountains.
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The length of his incarceration depends on the outcome of his most recent appeal.
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We can only wait and see what happens.
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That is all for today.
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Thank you for watching.
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Context & Background
The video titled "The Perfect Family Didn’t Know Evil Was Living With Them | Sef Gonzales" dives into the tragic story of the Gonzales family, highlighting their journey from survival to devastation. It recounts the traumatic aftermath of a major earthquake in 1990 that forced them to leave their homeland in the Philippines for a new life in Australia. This context sets the stage for understanding the pressures faced by the family, particularly their son, Seth, who ultimately became involved in a notorious crime. By exploring these events through the storytelling lens, learners can grasp the complexity of human emotions and relationships.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- “Everything the family had built was reduced to rubble.” - This phrase denotes the loss and devastation that can occur after a traumatic event, useful in discussing personal experiences.
- “The pressure had been building for a long time.” - A great expression to describe situations where stress accumulates over time, relevant in academic or work environments.
- “They established themselves in the country.” - A practical phrase for new immigrants discussing their adaptation in a foreign land.
- “Enforced with severity.” - Useful when explaining strict rules or expectations in various contexts, such as family or work life.
- “A family-friendly suburb.” - Ideal to describe neighborhoods that cater to families, beneficial in real estate discussions.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To improve your English speaking skills using the phrases from this video, you can follow this structured shadowing guide:
- Watch the Video: Start by watching the entire video once without interruption to get a gist of the storyline and emotional tone.
- Listen Actively: Play the video again, focusing on the speaker's pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm. Pay close attention to the selected phrases listed above.
- Shadowing Practice: Use a shadowing app to repeat after the speaker. Mimic their delivery as closely as possible. This practice will help with your accent and fluency.
- Record Yourself: Use a recording tool to track your speech. Compare your pronunciation and pacing with the original. Identify areas for improvement.
- Daily Practice: Incorporate these phrases into your everyday conversation. Use a shadowing site to find similar content for continued practice, reinforcing your learning through regular exposure.
By utilizing these strategies, English learners can enhance their speaking abilities, particularly for situations relevant to personal narratives and conveying emotional complexity. Remember, consistent practice through techniques like shadow speech will lead to improvement, making you more comfortable and proficient in your English communication skills.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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