DAET, Camarines Norte -- A rash of robberies and a killing in a week’s time gripped this province where the latest victim was a teacher at La Consolacion College of Daet who was found dead July 17 in her rented apartment in Reves Compound at J. Lukban Extension corner Cabrods Street, Barangay 3, here.
Police authorities indentified the victim as Fely Zeñarosa Gabriel, 35 years old and a native of Basud, this province.
Alicia Zenarosa, mother of the victim, told investigators she knocked several times at the door of her daughter. She nervously sought the help of the apartment owner when no one opened the door.
When the door was finally opened, the mother got the shock of her life---her daughter laid sprawled, naked and dead on her bed. She was inconsolable.
According to investigators the dead teacher may had been hit on the head with a hard object causing her instant death.
A neighbor claimed hearing commotions in Gabriel’s room about midnight which was thought to be a petty quarrel. Then, the neighbor said, the commotions just died down.
It was ten hours later that mother Alicia arrived at the apartment to visit Gabriel only to discover the lifeless body of her daughter.
Gabriel was living alone in the rented apartment as her spouse works abroad as a seaman.
SPO4 Domingo Baay, officer on case, said they are looking at other angles that led to the death of Gabriel while waiting the autopsy report of medico legal Dr. Virginia Mazo.
Robbery
Last July 11, some 10 unidentified men aboard a tricycle and armed with M16 carbine and a pistol daringly robbed in broad daylight eight stores along the Maharlika Highway in Bagong Silang Uno, Labo, Camarines Norte.
Police Insp. Jayson , chief of Labo police force, said the robbers first stopped at the LJR Pawnshop, then proceeded to ransack at gunpoint seven more business establishments in the town.
Jayson added the robbers also held up two sales agents who were unloading their products in one of the stores along the Maharlika Highway here.
Emmanuel Parpan of Tabuco, Naga City, who was aboard one of the closed vans said he lost to the armed robbers P20,000 in cash and two units of cellular phones.
Parpan said the robbers fired at the front wheels of the van that forced them to stop the vehicle.
He said they were ordered to step out of the van and lie prone on the highway while the robbers ransacked the vans owned by Jaka Equities Corp.
Another victim was a Taiwanese national whose car the robbers took away, including P20,000 cash and an expensive Bulova watch.
As if robbing eight stores, two vans and several persons was not enough, the robbers fired several rounds at the gate of Manila Bicol South Road Academy which made high school students here scamper in panic as the others fainted in fear.
Police authorities here estimated the robbers looted some P400,000 worth of stolen items, cash and personal belongings from the victims.
The robbers wore bonnet and further covered their faces with handkerchiefs. They then escaped towards the direction of Capalonga town.
Hot pursuit
Police authorities said they were pursuing the robbers with help of the Army and sealed off possible exit points.
A checkpoint was immediately mounted at the Maharlika Highway after police learned from a tipster that one of the suspected robbers boarded a Superlines bus.
Police authorities found a dismantled M16 rifle, carbine and .45 caliber pistol hidden underneath vegetables inside a “bayong” placed at the top load rack of Superlines. The suspect who owned the “bayong” identified as Leonardo Capin of San Jose, San Fernando, Camarines Sur was immediately collared. Capin is a former member of the Citizen’s Armed Geographical Unit (Cafgu).
Capin gave away the name of one Domingo Velasco, a fugitive who bolted jail in March 2006, as the head of the robbery gang. He named Rodante Velasco, Rodel Pacao, Rogelio Avila, Quintin Olivares, Jaime Blanco and a certain Alfredo as among the group that staged the daylight robbery.
The arrested suspect further confessed that the gang is comprised of former rival groups that merged to operate in the two Camarines provinces.
Shooting cop
In a separate incident last Saturday, a police rookie found himself behind bars after shooting in the leg a 25-year old man in the midst of an altercation over a traffic jam in Daet town.
PO1 Archimedes Garcia, 25, married assigned at the 503rd Provincial Police Mobile Group, voluntarily surrendered to the police station after shooting Randy Roadel of Vinzons Avenue.
Investigator PO1 Michael Suria reported that Garcia and Roadel were plying the length of Governor Panotes Avenue. They exchanged angry looks that resulted in a fistfight, then the shooting incident.
Roadel was brought immediately to the Camarines Norte Provincial Hospital for treatment of his wounded right leg.
Murder
Meanwhile, a local court here meted a farmer 8 to l2 years of imprisonment after he was found guilty of killing his neighbor.
Based on the 9-page decision of Judge Arniel A. Dating of RTC Branch—Daet, accused Eutiquio P. Aldeza alias “Udong”, 50, resident of Barangay Matango, Vinzons, Camarines Norte, was found guilty of homicide.
Court records show that on November 9, 2000, the victim, Ramon Velacruz, 60, married, neighbor of the accused, and a construction worker in Metro Manila, while on his way home around 3:30 in the after noon, was confronted by Aldeza and then repeatedly stabbed him.
The judge gave weight to the testimonies of three witnesses, particularly of a doctor who performed the autopsy that revealed nine stab wounds contradicting Aldeza’s claim of self-defense.
Other witnesses in the case testified that Velacruz did not have a bolo and that revenge was the cause of stabbing. The bad blood between the accused and the victim started in l997 when the family of the accused failed to prove that the victim raped Aldeza’s niece when negative results came out in the medical examination.
Aldeza was ordered by the court to pay P50,000 in favor of the victim’s family and P29,571 more for actual damages.
