Lawyer’s remains to be cremated

BAGUIO CITY — Part of the cremated remains of lawyer Teodoro Gonzales, who was murdered with his wife and daughter in Sydney, Australia last week, will be flown back to his native Baguio City, family representatives said yesterday.

Gonzales’ brother-in-law Earl Tesoro, husband of his sister Annie Tesoro, said in a telephone interview that a portion of the slain lawyer’s ashes will be flown back to Baguio as he wished.

According to Tesoro, Gonzales’ son and sole survivor Sef, 20, said it was also his father’s wish that part of his ashes remain in Australia, where they had lived for 10 years before the murder.

It was unclear, however, where Sef wants to inter the remains of his mother Mary Josephine, 43, and his sister Claudine, 18.

Family representatives made the announcement after Gonzales’ siblings, Frederick and Annie, flew to Sydney on Friday to help their nephew make funeral arrangements.

It was Sef, a law student, who found the bodies of his parents and sister after he returned to the family’s home in the suburb of North Ryde before midnight Tuesday.

His 46-year-old father was stabbed to death in a hallway while his mother was found in a living room of the two-story home and his sister in an upstairs bedroom with their throats cut.

Sources close to the police investigation said a racial slur was daubed on a wall close to one of the bodies but detectives still have not established a motive for the killings.

Sef, who is currently with his maternal grandmother, surnamed Claridades and living across the road, said he was devastated by the brutal slayings and appealed for help in finding his parents’ and sister’s killer.

Australian homicide investigators noted that the killings were exceptionally violent but could not determine the motive for the murders.

News reports had claimed that a racist message was scrawled in blood near one of the bodies but Australian police restricted the release of additional information.

While the Gonzales family are already Australian citizens, the Philippine government said it would actively support Sef and assist the Australian police, which have jurisdiction over the case.

The Gonzales family moved to Sydney from the Philippines in 1991 and had since become citizens and full members of the Australian community.

In Baguio City, there has been an outpouring of concern and sympathy from the friends and relatives of the Gonzales family who condoled via text messages, phone calls and cards every day.

Friends of the slain lawyer recalled that Gonzales was a good lawyer, passing the Bar at 15th place, and law professor at the Baguio Colleges Foundation.

"He was very good professor," said Che Alberto, one of his students at BCF.

"He was on top of class during high school. .He was the valedictorian at the St. Louis Boys High School and excelled in his pre-law," said his contemporary, lawyer Noe Villanueva.

Gonzales’ mother Belen, 70, is still in a state of shock and suffering from hypertension following news of the brutal slayings.

A close family friend said the family is appealing to media to give the old woman space since questions might only deepen wounds and worsen her heart ailment.