TACLOBAN CITY – Three suspects, including a minor, in the killing of a couple here last week have been charged with homicide aggravated by rape before the Calbayog City Prosecutor’s Office.
The suspects are now in the custody of the Calbayog City police.
Haunted by guilt, the minor, accompanied by his mother, a lawyer, and a social worker, surrendered to the authorities, which led to the resolution of the case.
The minor suspect confessed his involvement in the robbery and killing of Jade Andre Bestudio, an engineering student, and his fiancé Roan Jeallen Lamparas, a high school teacher.
The couple was last seen alive on June 13 when Bestudio fetched her from a drugstore in Barangay Capoocan.
Police said Lamparas was still able to send a text message to her family, informing them that she was kidnapped.
Lamparas was believed to have been raped before she was killed since she was found naked and full of bruises, with her skull crushed, on June 14, in Barangay Bagacay.
Earlier that day, Bestudio was found lifeless with a bullet wound in the head on a grassy part of the Diversion Road in Barangay San Policarpo.
Closed-circuit television camera (CCTV) footage and accounts of concerned citizens also revealed that the victims were last seen together with the suspects, which caused probers to check on their identities.
It was learned that two of them, identified as Jericho Payos and Glenn Baculpo, have standing warrants of arrest for robbery. This prompted the police to launch a manhunt against the persons of interest which led to their arrest.
Payos was collared on June 16, while Baculpo was arrested in Tarangnan, Samar days after.
In a press conference, authorities explained that the absence of the victims’ belongings indicated the possible motive of the suspects in the killing. Their belongings were recovered in Barangay apoocan based on the confessions of the suspects.
Police believe that the seminal fluid found by forensics from Lamparas' body, the bullet found near the victim, and the handgun seized from the suspects, as well as the fingerprints lifted from their belongings, further strengthen their case.