Suspect claims: "Bad spirit" behind gruesome killing

CEBU, Philippines - The 29-year-old construction worker who killed his niece Monday in Barangay Villahermosa, Tabuelan claimed to have been possessed by bad spirits when he sliced open the victim’s stomach and took some of her internal organs.

Efren Matedios was arrested by police operatives of Tabuelan at 12:30 a.m. yesterday inside their house. He was already packing his clothes, preparing to escape when the police operatives arrived.

In a television report, Matedios claimed he did not intend to kill Lara Mae Concoles, 6. According to him, he only wanted to deliver the child from her mother and her grandmother who are allegedly planning to kill the victim.

“Nayawaan ko ato gusto ra nakong luwason siya sa iyang inahan ug apuhan nga gustong mopatay niya,” he said in an interview over TV Patrol Central Visayas.

Matedios also told the police that he killed the victim because he wanted them to be together.

Matedios killed his niece last Monday after his mother, Pablita, refused to let the victim sleep beside him.

The suspect attacked Pablita with the bolo but she was able to run despite the hack wounds she sustained in her left eye, both legs and various parts of her body.

The suspect turned his ire at his niece and killed her by opening the stomach and eating some of the internal organs. 

Tabuelan police chief investigator Christopher Sanchez said they are preparing the criminal complaint for murder against Matedios.

The police are also checking the possibility that he is a member of the cult “Sagrada Corazon.”

A member of the said cult also figured in a similar incident last year when he killed his one-year-old son because of suspicion that it was not his own. – (FREEMAN)