A British entrepreneur has proposed turning a Sydney house where a Filipino-Australian slaughtered his family into a gruesome museum commemorating one of the city’s grisliest crimes.
The neat brick home in the affluent suburb of Epping has been dubbed Australia’s house of horrors and was the subject of fresh controversy this week when a real estate agent sold it to a Taiwanese couple without telling them of its bloody past.
Student Sef Gonzales (24) killed his father, mother and teenage sister in 2001 in the house that British businessman Craig Gill said he wanted to convert into a tourist attraction.
”You’ve got the Harbour Bridge, you’ve got the Sydney Opera House and I think we could use the House of Epping for example,” Gill told Channel Seven.
The businessman said his plan would bail out the couple who unwittingly bought the home for 800 000 Australian dollars (US$576 000).
”I’ve spoken to the agent. We have an offer on the table. We’re waiting now to find out [if] we’re accepted, from there we will obviously look for the planning permission,” he said.
Gill moved to snap up the house after widespread media coverage of how real estate agents sold the property to Taiwan-born Ellen Lin and Derek Kwok in August without telling them about the murders that took place inside.
It was only after Sef Gonzales was sentenced last month to three life terms in prison that they discovered the dark history of their new home.
The Buddhist couple said they could not move in, even though they risked losing their deposit, because they feared the murder victims’ ghosts remained in the house.
Gill admitted his motive in bidding for the property was not a community-minded effort to help out the couple.
”First, I want to make some money out of the property. And by doing that I’m going to open it up as a tourist attraction,” he said.
Gill’s business plan involves charging two dollars (US$1 45) for entry.
Gonzales was sentenced to die behind bars for stabbing and strangling his sister, knifing his father repeatedly in the chest and slashing his mother’s throat.
House of horror attractions are nothing new to Gill who says he once lived next door to the home of Jack the Ripper, itself a tourist drawcard in Britain.
He admitted some people might oppose his plan as being in poor taste, including neighbours.
”It must be a horrible idea, but I’ve already got something like 2 500 people who’ve already said they would queue to go into the house,” Gill said.
”At the end of the day, I think people want to see these things.” – Sapa-AFP