4 girls hacked, burned

BACOLOD CITY — A 22-year-old farmer admitted hacking to death four girls, aged six to 16, using a 22-inch bolo and then burning their makeshift hut in Cauayan town, 119 kilometers south of this city, last Wednesday.

The suspect, Saturnino Labanes Jr., told a radio interview that he committed the gruesome crime because he was angry with the parents of the four children, identified as Liezel Roldan, 16, and her siblings Irene, 11; Jennifer, nine; and Richelle, six.

Police arrested Labanes in the house of his sister Analyn in Buenavista, Guimaras, according to Senior Inspector Paterno Torralba, director of the 4th Provincial Mobile Group.

Police learned about the massacre in Sitio Macagi-ing, Barangay Baclao in Cauayan two days later after Labanes’ wife Marlin turned over to investigators his cousin Homer Montilla, who claimed to have witnessed the killings.

Montilla narrated how Labanes attacked the four children while they were sleeping at about 10 p.m. last Nov. 13. The parents of the minors were not in the house then.

Torralba said Labanes invited Montilla to accompany him to a charcoal-making site that night. But the suspect instead proceeded to the Roldans’ hut nearby and committed the crime.

Montilla said he fled after seeing Labanes hack the four children and burn the hut, apparently to hide his crime. He reported the incident to the girls’ parents only the following day.

Cauayan police investigators were still confirming Montilla’s claim that Liezel was pregnant.