Police hold friend as 'slay suspect'

Cebu - One of the suspects involved in the killing of a call center supervisor last week is now under the protective custody of the police after she confessed participation in crime and named four other cohorts.

Although police are now discounting the possibility of a love triangle, they still could not ascertain the motive of the killing. 

This is because the investigation was cut short last Monday afternoon when the suspect’s mother, who accompanied her was rushed to the hospital after she suffered a “mild stroke” during the questioning.

The investigation resumed yesterday morning, but when she was already starting to give her free and voluntary statement, the investigation was halted after the suspect herself got hysterical and collapsed. Police also brought her to the hospital.

Hours after being brought to the hospital, the suspect asked an investigator to visit her at the hospital were she finally confessed her participation to the crime and named her cohorts.

Since the investigation was halted with the suspect’s confinement, the police are yet to determine the extent of her participation in the crime and the real motive in the killing.

However, Intelligence and Detective Management Bureau (IDMB) Chief Eddie Recamara said that although the case is now 90 percent solved with the confession of the victim’s close friend, they cannot yet divulge the names of her four alleged cohorts until the case will be filed in court.

What triggered the investigators to doubt the suspect was the inconsistency in the information she provided to the police.

She also allegedly offered evidence supposedly to mislead the police in their investigation.

However, one of the evidence she presented to the police supposedly to mislead them also forced her to confess later of her participation.

During the course of investigation yesterday morning, the suspect who presented a print out of her chat messages to the victim’s boyfriend has convinced the police that the victim’s cellular phone, which was missing after her death, is with the suspect.

Police said they were convinced that the victim’s cellular phone was with the suspect, this after they also called up the victim’s boyfriend who was also surprised why the suspect was able to use the “codename” which he and victim used during their chats, which only he an Lynn Vi Ybarita, the victim, knew.

 Police said that the suspect was able to chat with Ybarita’s boyfriend last January 20 and 21, and the victim was already dead by then.

The victim’s boyfriend also knew that it was not Ybarita who he was chatting with as the other person was using a different online account.

It was at this point of her confession that the suspect became hysterical and collapsed.

Late last night, sources at the Mandaue City Police Office said that the suspect has retracted her statements.

Ybarita’s body was found stuffed into two trash bags inside room 309 of the Nikkei Garden Hotel in barangay Subangdaku, Mandaue City last January 22 at 8 p.m.

The body of Ybarita, which was shed of its clothes, bore 24 stab wounds.

Ybarita, 26, was a single mother with a seven-year-old child.

She worked at Teletech, a call center, which has offices along A. S. Fortuna St.

The family of Ybarita reported her missing last January 20. She was last seen by her parents during the Sinulog grand parade last January 18. –/NLQ (THE FREEMAN)