Complaints didn't show up: Police fail to file charges vs. suspect in moneylender slay

No charges were filed yesterday against the policeman suspected of killing a moneylender and her secretary inside a lending firm along T. Padilla Extension in barangay Tejero, last September 9.

Relatives of the victims failed to surface at the Homicide Office yesterday to execute an affidavit so that charges may be filed against the alleged assailant. However, complainants are expected to report to the office of Homicide chief Erlando Metante today.

Meanwhile, Cebu City Police chief Melvin Gayotin yesterday told reporters that the alleged assailant who is under his command showed up at the Security Service Group just recently.

Gayotin said he already ordered the chief of the police station where the cop reports to relieve him from his post and assign him at the SSG effective the other day, but that the alleged assailant who filed a leave last September 14 until October 2 did not report to the SSG until yesterday.

The said policeman was tagged as the one who shot PRH Lending Investors, Inc. owner Pilar Hernandez, 62, and her secretary Wevina Pancho, 55. The lending company reportedly only caters to policemen in Central Visayas.

Speculation surfaced that the incident might have been caused by a bad debt that the suspect could no longer pay or that he was barred by the firm to apply for another loan.

Police believed that the suspect might be a policeman because the shells recovered from the crime scene came from a 9mm caliber pistol, a gun commonly issued to the police force.

Investigators conducted several police lineups, inviting policemen assigned in the city and province and even from neighboring provinces, but all of these proved futile.

Police will be filing two different charges against the suspect, a separate charge for robbery with homicide for the death of Hernandez and a murder charge for the death of Pancho.

Hernandez was shot several times in the head and body and bore one stab wound on her back, while Pancho also suffered several gunshot wounds on her body and head. - Norvie S. Misa/MEEV