Shepparton musicians Sawandeep Singh Chhokar and Ethan Sfetcopoulos’s tragic final moments revealed

The father of a young Shepparton musician has spoken of the heartbreak as he found his son dying next to his already dead best mate.

Rashpal Singh Chhokar will be haunted forever by the sound of the alarm clock coming from his son’s bedroom this past Monday morning.

It was normal enough for Sawandeep, 20, to sleep late after being up all night listening to music and playing PlayStation with his best mate, Ethan Sfetcopoulos, 19.

But Mr Chhokar wasn’t going to let Sawandeep sleep through his alarm and be late for his shift at his new job; the Chhokar family earned everything they had in life through what a family friend described as their relentless “typical Indian work ethic”.

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When Mr Chhokar opened the door to get his son out of bed his world changed in an instant; Sawandeep was “just still breathing”, slumped over with a PlayStation controller still in his hand.

Ethan, who was welcome in the home like he was part of the family, was already dead.

Ambulances rushed to the Chhokar’s house on Kinchega Dr in North Shepparton, a neat new subdivision which seems a world away from some down-and-out suburbs closer to town.

Speaking about the tragedy for the first time to the Herald Sun, Mr Chhokar said it was a paramedic who delivered him the tragic news as waited in the living room.

“The lady said to me, ‘your son is no more’,” he said.

Best mates Sawandeep Singh Chhokar and Ethan Sfetcopoulos died at the Chhokar family home on Monday.

Detectives arrived soon after, and Sawandeep’s room was briefly cordoned off, as a crime scene, until police ruled out foul play.

Like most, Mr Chhokar suspects his son died of an overdose, but the coroner’s office told both young men’s families late this week that basic blood tests showed no obvious trace of drugs in their systems.

Pathologists will delve deeper and expect to have the results of autopsies next week.

“Drugs are not just a Shepparton problem, they’re everywhere,” Mr Chhokar said.

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If it was drugs which killed his son, Mr Chhokar fears there could be more out on the streets of Shepparton, waiting to wreak tragedy on another family.

Some of Sawandeep’s and Ethan’s mates have been quick to point the finger at Shepparton’s money-grubbing drug dealers, who they know have been increasingly cutting drugs with random household chemicals, as demand has spiked in recent months.

One friend, Tyson Cameron, this week described his mates as “two great kids who had a whole lot ahead of them”.

“(They) lost their lives to drugs,” he said.

Another, Kaitlin Edwards, said: “drugs don’t love you … get clean and be with the people that love you”.

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Regardless of what the autopsies find, the deaths of the two young men was a brutal kick in the guts for Shepparton, just as life seemed to be returning to normal after months of lonely lockdowns and brutal job losses.

Mr Chhokar said Sawandeep had spent much of the past few months in his room, working on his music, occasionally heading down to the nearby park to play basketball.

Ethan Sfetcopoulos, 19, died of a suspected drug overdose with his mate, Sawandeep Singh Chhokar, in Shepparton on Monday.

When a local radio station put an hour of Sawandeep’s and Ethan’s songs to air this week, it seemed like a call for help from beyond the grave.

Their songs, which they each worked on obsessively, had names like “please save me” and “remember me”; the presenters apologised for talking through tears.

Despite that, Mr Chhokar said Sawandeep didn’t seem to be “struggling with demons” as some friends have suggested.

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He said his son had a close group of friends and a loving family home, where he and his wife, Surinder, made sure he wanted for nothing.

Before the pandemic, the family had been on a holiday back to India, and Sawandeep had planned to save up, travel, and eventually move away from Shepparton.

“He was happy all the time,” Mr Chhokar said.

As he prepares for his son’s funeral, Mr Chhokar’s message is a simple one: “I want to say to everybody, don’t do any drugs, listen to your parents, live your life.”