Drug-crazed vendor stabs daughter dead

"Sige saluhin ninyo (Go ahead catch her!)" Thus shouted 33-year-old vendor Victor Perez before hurling his three-year-old daughter Melody from the window of their room at the fourth floor of the Sambahayan sa Rawis Tenement building in Tondo, Manila to the pavement below early yesterday.

Said to be hooked on illegal drugs, Perez also repeatedly stabbed his daughter before hurling her to her death by throwing her out.

The still visibly "high" father was mobbed by his neighbors shortly after committing his gruesome crime. He was turned over to police sporting black eyes.

Perez’s daughter Melody was rushed to the Gat Andres Bonifacio Hospital where she was declared dead on arrival due to five stab wounds in the chest and a bashed skull.

Homicide detectives of the Western Police District said the drug-crazed suspect first stabbed the toddler five times in the chest before throwing her out of the window. Perez was later arrested by elements of the Tondo police station. He is now detained at the WPD headquarters as parricide charges are now being readied against him.

Police said that at about 11 p.m. on Sunday night, Victor, who is staying at Room 403 of the tenement building, left his room and went to the adjacent room of Marcela Soner. Soner has been Melody’s guardian since her mother Marilyn left last October for Alkhobar, Saudi Arabia to work as domestic helper.

Investigator SPO4 Ernesto Jose Jr. said witnesses observed Victor acting strangely at his rented room before the incident.

Witnesses said Victor was insisting to see and talk to his wife who is working as a domestic helper in Saudi Arabia. When he failed to satisfy his want, Victor proceeded to his next-door neighbor Soner who was guarding his daughter Melody. He grabbed his daughter and took her inside his own room. Soner called on the suspect’s brother Rogelio but failed to appease Victor who locked himself inside the room. Rogelio said he could hear the muffled cries of his niece.

Police later arrived and tried to pursuade Victor to open his room and hand over his daughter to them. But to their surprise as the door was opened, Victor was holding up the bloodied body of his daughter and threw her out of the window from their fourth floor room.

When quizzed by police at his detention cell, Victor admitted being hooked in shabu. Investigators said the suspect could already be in his advanced state of addiction since he kept on repeating that he wants to see and talk to his wife who left the country last year. He was also mumbling that Melody was not his daughter.

SPO4 Jose said parricide charges are now being readied against the suspect.