By DANNY ESTACIO
SANTA ROSA CITY, Laguna – A woman faces a kidnapping case after pretending that she and her two minor children were abducted in this city and demanding a P1.5-million ransom from the children's grandmother, her former mother-in-law, in this city on Thursday, July 11.
Police identified the woman as Mariedon.
Mariedon and her two children, aged seven and nine, were allegedly kidnapped at 12:36 p.m. on Thursday in Purok 2, Barangay Aplaya.
Her former mother-in-law, Milagros Vallejo, reported the incident to the police after receiving a video clip through Facebook messenger from the alleged kidnapper using the woman’s phone and account demanding ransom.
The video showed the two children tied up next to a man wearing a hoodie.
However, Police Lt. Col. Dwight Fonte Jr., police chief here, said they doubted the story after reviewing closed-circuit television camera footages in the area that showed the family calmly boarding a jeepney before the alleged kidnapping.
Police raised suspicion about the incident and continued their communication with the woman who admitted that the kidnapping was fake to enable her to get money from her former mother-in-law to pay off their debts.
She promised to return the children and go back home. Police suspect that the man in the video is the woman's new live-in partner.
Follow-up investigation is ongoing.