Cops train eye on MRT ‘mystery man’

If there’s one person the Makati City police is desperately looking for to solve the brutal slay of a young woman last Friday, it is the unidentified man, who, security guards of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT 3) station in Gaudalupe said they saw loitering in the area.

"Siya ang pinaghahanap namin, (He’s the one we’re looking for) said Senior Police Officer 4 Leonardo Timtiman, officer-in-charge (OIC) of the Homicide Division. But Timtiman said the man is "not necessarily a suspect." "He is only one of the people we want to interview (about the incident)."

MRT security guards Domingo Queda, Allan Almadrones and a certain Almeria told investigators that they saw a man loitering on the third level of the train station where the bloodied body of Melba Espalardo was discovered early Friday morning.

Timtiman said the security guards could not describe the man, except that he was wearing what looked like an identification card around his neck. He maintained that a review of the security cameras of the MRT failed to provide important information.

Timtiman said Espalardo’s fastfood outlet uniform was found early yesterday morning at the Guadalupe cloverleaf, right under the MRT station.

Espalardo, 20, was a crewmember of a fastfood outlet on Reposo Street, Barangay Poblacion, Makati.

Timtiman said the victim’s boyfriend, Mark Anthony Abaroa, is an unlikely suspect in the killing. "If we would have a list of suspects, he would probably be among the least likely to have done it," Timtiman told reporters.

Timtiman said that the police believe there was only one perpetrator of the crime.

Abaroa told authorities that his girlfriend sent him a text message at around 4:45 a.m. telling him that the MRT station was still closed and that she still had to walk some distance. Fifteen minutes later, Abaroa tried to call Esapalardo through her mobile phone but he failed to reach her.