Unmasked: the Gonzales family killer, by Kara Lawrence

Extraordinary story of Sef Gonzales, a young man who killed his parents and sister in 2001 in their home at North Ryde. The Gonzales family were immigrants from the Philippines. Sef’s motive was that due to poor results at university, his disappointed parents had threatened to remove his car and disinherit him. The murders are noteworthy for their brutality and also for the amount (if not the quality) of planning that went into them and the attempted cover-up. This included spraying the words “Fuck off Asians KKK” on the wall of the house to support Sef’s claim that his family had been killed in a home invasion.

Following a controversy during the subsequent sale of the Gonzales house, the government introduced a law so that sellers have to disclose if a murder has occurred on a property.

Author Kara Lawrence reported the case for the Daily Telegraph, and clearly had excellent access to the detectives involved in the investigation to produce this gripping and disturbing account.