Probers have 4 sketches of gunman's description

Investigators of the killing of an American and the wounding of his Cebuana fiancée in barangay Labangon last Monday have now three identikits or sketches of the gunman, with one more sketch to come from the children of the woman victim herself.

Inspector Erlando Metante, homicide acting chief, told The Freeman that two identikits were based on the descriptions from two witnesses, the third one from a businessman who did the sketch himself and volunteered the information to investigators.

A fourth identikit would be done based on the accounts of the victim Catalina Cabanes' 11- and eight-year-old daughters who saw the gunman shot their mother and their 68-year-old American stepfather Victor Noe.

Identikit is defined as a likeness of a person's face constructed or sketched from descriptions of witnesses given to the police.

Metante said once these four identikits are in, investigators will start comparing them with each other and see if the image has a similarities to the face of the man who went to the victim's house before the shooting.

The gunman used a .45caliber pistol in killing Noe, who was hit on his head with the bullet piercing through his left cheek, and in seriously wounding Cabanes, who was hit on her left temple-all in front of Cabanes two daughters from her previous marriage.

Investigators believed the killer was a hired gun because the shooting was done expertly, and Metante said they already have in mind the suspected gunman and the mastermind but whose identities would not be divulged now.

The police did not provide the details yet on the possible motive in the attack, which they are now investigating, except that this had something to do with the victims' past relationships.

A businessman went to the Punta Princesa Police station yesterday saying he witnessed the shooting. He brought with him a sketch, which he did himself, of the face of the gunman, telling the police he was in his multi-cab when he passed by the scene exactly when the shooting occurred.

The police said this businessman could be the same man who went to the station, shortly after the shooting, claiming he saw the entire shooting and was even able to follow the two motorcycle-riding assailants on their escape toward Salvador Street in Labangon.

The other day, the police got four witnesses, two of them were from Mindanao that investigators said have vital information over the possible motive of the attack.

Police learned from Cabanes' daughter that Cabanes' marriage was recently annulled just recently, and that she and Noe had planned to get married themselves. The girl said Noe had planned to bring them to the United States next year.

Investigators have obtained documents showing that Noe was once a soldier who was recently connected with an aircraft company in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Noe owned a house at San Agustin Heights in barangay Tisa but he wanted to sell this and buy a new one from another place.

Metante and the homicide investigators, together with a representative from US Consulate, the victims' lawyer Nestor Avila, and officers of the homeowners group in the subdivision went recently to Noe's house to conduct an inventory of the American's belongings.

Since Noe and Cabanes were not married yet, the US government through the consular office would take into its custody Noe's property for safekeeping his own family from the US would come to recover them. - Edwin Ian Melecio