The municipal government of Cainta, Rizal has extended assistance to the family of the three-month-old boy who died after being scalded by his own uncle on Monday, May 15.
Mayor Elen Nieto has given financial assistance to Vivien Navarro, the mother of the 3-month-old fatality in Monday afternoon’s scalding incident in Cainta.
Navarro met Municipal Administrator Kit Nieto at the municipal hall where the former mayor assured her of the municipal government’s assistance.
The suspect, 18-year-old John Melvin Campos, a jobless man and cousin of Navarro who just came from Bulacan, was also presented by the police to Administrator Nieto at the municipal hall.
Maj. Alfonso Saligumba III, chief of the Cainta Police Station, told the Manila Bulletin that it was the concerned neighbors who discovered the crime after they rushed to the victim’s house after they got suspicious as to why the suspect, John Melvin Campos, 18, did not mention where Navarro’s youngest child was when he entrusted another of Navarro’s child to them.
A closed circuit television recording saw the suspect carrying the one-year-old child while he was moving around the community before he left the child with the victim’s neighbors.
It was learned that the victim, whose body was wrapped in a blanket, was found dead by neighbors shortly after the suspect left the community.
On early Monday morning, Navarro left her two kids under the watch of Campos to look for work.
Saligumba said Campos claimed that he boiled water in the kettle and instead of pouring the hot water into the basin to prepare a warm bath for the baby, he instead doused it on the crying infant.
Realizing what he had done, Campos left the infant for dead, carried the victim's older sibling, and left the house to look for a neighbor who could watch over the child.
Upon learning of the crime, the Cainta Police sought the help of the technical experts from Camp Crame that enabled the authorities to track the movement of Campos, first when he went to Payatas in Quezon City, then to San Mateo and Rodriquez, Rizal before finally heading to San Jose Del Monte in Bulacan on Monday night.
Police said while they were in Bulacan, the suspect’s relatives at first were hesitant to cooperate with the police, but when they were told of the consequences, they volunteered to provide information that led to the arrest of the suspect.
Saligumba said the suspect claimed to have used illegal drugs prior to the scalding incident prompting the police to subject him to an initial drug test at the police station and a confirmatory drug test through the Crime Laboratory.
Campos had been living in Navarro's rented apartment for more than a week since he left Bulacan.
Police said a case of murder has been filed against Campos who is now detained at the detention facility of the Cainta Police.