Unmasked: The Gonzales Family Killer (Non-fiction) by Kara Lawrence

Paperback:  Late on a chilly July night in 2001, residents of a quiet Sydney suburb were roused by Sef Gonzales, the son of their new neighbours, yelling that someone had murdered his family.  The brutal triple slaying inside 6 Collins Street shocked even the police.

The twenty-year-old orphaned son Sef quickly became the prime suspect and after an eleven-month investigation, he was arrested and charged with three counts of murder and one count of threatening product contamination.  He was refused bail and held in remand in Silverwater Correctional Centre. He was also denied access to the family's estate to fund his defense.

Almost three years after the murder in 2004, the trial revealed that Sef had planned the murders several months before it occurred.  Initially Sef researched the idea of poisoning his family, which led to an elaborate contamination hoax.  The court heard of numerous lies told to his friends, family and police regarding his whereabouts at the time of the murders.  It was later suggested that he was a pathological liar.

After a two-month trial, Sef was found guilty of all four charges and in September 2004, the day after his twenty-fourth birthday, was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences without parole for the murders of his parents and sister.

Justice Bruce James said, "I consider that the murders show features of very great heinousness and that there are no facts mitigating the objective seriousness of the murders and hence the murders fall within the worst category of cases of murder at common law."

In 2007, Sef Gonzales' appeal - that statements taken from him by police on the night of the murders may be inadmissible, as he was not cautioned - was dismissed as there had been no miscarriage of justice.

He is now serving his sentence at the maximum-security super prison in Goulburn, New South Wales, and still maintains his innocence.

About the author:  Kara Lawrence is a crime reporter for Sydney's Daily Telegraph and is one of the few journalists to have interviewed Sef Gonzales.  Working with sources close to the investigation and trial, she uncovers the true extent of the case's twists and turns.  Through exclusive access to key members of Sef's extended family, she probes the Gonzales' history to ask:  what would lead a young man from a wealthy and apparently stable home to commit the unspeakable crime of slaughtering his own family?  Is Sef Gonzales mad, or genuinely evil?

Unmasked:  The Gonzales Family Killer was published in 2006.