CEBU CITY – A case of crime of passion.

Police here announced that the killing of Rhea Mae Tocmo is considered solved after a construction worker admitted to be behind the gruesome killing.

Investigators said too much jealousy drove Simeon Gabutero, 22, to kill Tocmo, whose body was found inside an abandoned cardboard box on the side of the road in Barangay Tisa here on July 17.

SIMEON Gabutero (left) admits killing Rhea Mae Tocmo in an extra-judicial confession before the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office on Thursday, August 10. (Contributed photo)

Gabutero admitted killing Tocmo by executing an extra-judicial confession before the Cebu City Prosecutor's Office on Thursday, August 10.

The suspect was arrested on July 29 for possession of an unlicensed firearm.

Police later announced that Gabutero was the person who sold the missing cellphone of Tocmo.

Gabutero later pointed to his neighbor, Roberto Gabison, as the one who instructed him to sell the cellphone. Gabison denied Gabutero’s accusation. 

Gabison said he and Gabutero were not close acquaintances and he did not know Tocmo at all.

Police Major Angelito Valleser, chief of the Labangon Police Station, said Gabutero cried when he admitted his involvement in the crime.

“Be a man. Don’t be a coward. You have to face the consequences of what you did,” Valleser recalled what he told the suspect when he convinced him to admit the crime.

Valleser said he told Gabutero that investigators had gathered enough evidence that would pin him down as the killer.

“I told him that we are not buying his alibi when he said he was not involved in the crime,” Valleser said.

Aside from closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage, the strongest evidence that the police gathered was the result of the DNA test, Valleser said.

Valleser said the DNA samples found in Tocmo’s fingernails matched those of Gabutero.

It was possible that Tocmo clawed the suspect’s arms when she was choked, Valleser said.

Valleser said Gabutero became emotional when he and Gabutero talked on August 8.

“He hugged me. He cried and said that he had done so much to help Rhea Mae,” said Valleser.

In his admission, Gabutero said he came to know Tocmo through Facebook.

The suspect and the victim became a couple last December 5.

Although they only became sweethearts through Facebook, Gabutero admitted he deeply fell in love with Tocmo.

Gabutero said as a construction worker, he earned P400 a day and most of his earnings were sent to Tocmo to support her studies.

He said that all along, he was made to believe that Tocmo was studying in Davao City.

Gabutero was shocked to find out that Tocmo did not actually enroll and belatedly learned that the woman was already in Cebu.

Tocmo arrived in Cebu last June 14 and stayed in a boarding house in Barangay Looc, Mandaue City.

When Tocmo finally admitted on July 16 that she was already in Cebu, she was asked by Gabutero to go to his boarding house in Barangay Guadalupe, Cebu City.

The couple’s first meeting turned out to be their only encounter.

Tocmo was drunk when she arrived at the suspect’s place past midnight, Valleser said.

At the boarding house, Gabutero confronted Tocmo after she discovered that the woman was chatting with several men using various Facebook accounts.

Valleser said Gabutero also found drug paraphernalia in the woman’s bag.

“Gabutero was frustrated because he found out that the money he sent to the woman was not put to good use,” Valleser said in a press conference.

Gabutero became more upset that Tocmo only laughed at him during the confrontation, said Valleser.

At the height of the confrontation, Gabutero lost his temper and killed Tocmo through an arm choke.

Gabutero placed Tocmo’s body in a box and dumped it by the road in Tisa aboard a motorcycle.

Valleser said investigators are still trying to identify the person who accompanied Gabutero in dumping the woman’s body in Tisa.

“We faced a lot of challenges in investigating this crime. We have gathered concrete pieces of evidence and we assure the public that we have an airtight case that would withstand conviction,” said Valleser.

Police Col. Ireneo Dalogdog, chief of the Cebu City Police Office, said the case is deemed solved but it is not considered closed yet pending the formal filing of charges against the suspect.

A charge of murder will be filed against Gabutero, police said.