Rape slay raps filed vs. 2

Rape with homicide charges were filed by the police yesterday against the two suspects in the molestation and brutal killing of 16-year-old Mary Joy Mayo in Hacienda Cabanbanan, Brgy. Zone 12-A, Talisay City, Negros Occidental, last July 2, 2007.

Talisay police probers, however, withheld the identities of the suspects, pending the issuance of an arrest warrant against them. The two were positively identified by an eyewitness, who recently surfaced and is cooperating with the police in the gruesome killing of Mayo last month.

The witness, a firewood gatherer, whose identity is also being withheld for security reasons, told the police that the two suspects waylaid, hogtied and hit the victim with a stone, and dragged her into a sugarcane field in the hacienda.

Police investigations also showed that the witness who hid in a "kawayanan" (bamboo grove), also heard two successive shots from the place where the victim had been dragged by the two suspects.

Findings of the medico-legal officer of the Talisay showed that the victim was molested, had two gunshot wounds on her breast and right leg, and seven incise wounds in the forehead.

The body of Mayo, a first year student of Carlos Hilado Memorial State College in Talisay City, was also discovered without her pants and underwear, in a sugarcane plantation of the place.

The lone eyewitness is now in the custody of the Talisay police.

While the police considers the case of Mayo solved with the positive identification of the suspects and the filing of the charges against them, the Bago police has not yet made any breakthrough in the identification of the suspects in the rape-slay of 13-year-old Maria Teresa Medrano on June 20.

Police investigations show that aside from having been molested, Medrano had four hack wounds in the nape and on the left side of her face, two fractured ribs and right lower jaw, hematoma in both knees and bite marks in her left breast. Her body was placed in a sack and dumped in a creek in Brgy. Central Ma-ao, Bago City.*GPB

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Escalante man drowns

A man who went to gather mussels (tahong) at the reclamation area in Bacolod City yesterday drowned while trying to get out of the muddy shores as the high tide was coming in.

Joel Goncillo, 28, of Escalante City, was found floating in the waters at the reclamation area five hours after the incident was reported to the police.

His cousin, Mary Jane Luces, said Goncillo went to the area around 7:30 a.m. with her brother Elmer Manayaga and a certain Jonathan. Luces said Elmer told her their cousin failed to swim back to the shore when the water started to rise.

She added that the victim was working as a porter at the BREDCO port. His wife and daughter live in Sitio Libertad in Escalante.

Inspector Rie Gumban of Police Precinct 2 said Goncillo's body was fished out of the water by volunteers from the Chinese Chamber rescue group around 3 p.m.

Their investigations showed that the victim did not know how to swim, Gumban said.*NAB

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3 police officers promoted

Three police officers in key positions at the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office were promoted recently on recommendation approved by the National Police Commission.

Promoted to police superintendent, a rank equivalent to lieutenant colonel in the military, were Chief Inspector Joseph Thomas Martir - Talisay police chief, Chief Inspector Jomil John Trio - Sipalay police chief, and Chief Inspector Violeta Noblezada - NOPPO Police Community Relations Officer.

Chief Inspector Moises Villaceran former provincial officer of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Negros Occidental, was also promoted to police superintendent and is now assigned at the Angeles City Police Office in Pampanga.

Martir, Trio and Villaceran are members of the Philippine National Police Academy Class '95, while Noblezada rose from the ranks, police records show.*GPB

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