Carcar rape-slay suspects, 'witness' pass drug tests

The two suspects and the man who claimed he witnessed the rape-slay of a 13-year-old girl at barangay Ocaña in Carcar town were tested negative in the drug test conducted at the regional PNP Crime Laboratory last Monday, a reliable source said yesterday.

The test results are still to be sent to the Carcar police, the agency that requested the test, but the source said the suspects Maximo and Concordio Laputan, the girl's father and uncle, respectively, and the so-called witness Ronnie Tabura have been cleared in the drug tests.

The PNP Crime Laboratory has also been waiting for the results of the examination done at Camp Crame on some evidences, the pubic hair found from the crime scene and the seminal fluid found on the private organ of the victim.

The girl was last seen alive Tuesday night last week when her parents sent her out to buy rice. She disappeared since then until two days later when her dead body was found in the middle of a cornfield with her left breast reportedly slashed. Apparently she was sexually assaulted with her underwear and pair of slippers recovered several meters away.

Two days after that gory discovery while the police were investigating at the crime scene, Tabura appeared and volunteered information to the police. He claimed witnessing the commission of the crime and pointed at Maximo and Concordio as those who raped and stabbed the girl.

By Monday, a charge of rape with homicide was filed against Maximo and Concordio who in turn denied strongly Tabura's accusations saying they could never do it to their own loved one.

The two countered and accused Tabura instead as the alleged culprit. The Public Attorney's Office the other day then requested for a reinvestigation of the case arguing that the filing of charges was done hastily denying due process to the two accused.

PAO also said the Carcar police failed to consider an essential piece of evidence, a bloodied pair of khaki short, that Nida Laputan-Canape-sister of the two accused- had found near the crime scene and submitted to the police.

There were reports that Tabura allegedly owned the shorts and that this was already missing. But the source at the PNP Crime Laboratory yesterday declared the shorts not missing because the Carcar Police submitted this last Monday to be sent to Camp Crame for examination. - Ryan P. Borinaga