The principal suspect, a video game shop caretaker, pointed the police to the grave of his victim.
Suspect Gener Santos, 21, of Block 23 Lot 1, claiming he was bothered by his conscience, admitted killing Maricar Esguerra, 19, a neighbor last Saturday.
The suspect, accompanied by his father, voluntarily surrendered to PO2 Jasper Gaton of the Caloocan City police Station Investigation and Detection Management Bureau (SIDMB) at 10:30 p.m. last Wednesday.
Inspector Romeo Onte, SIDMB chief, requested the exhumation of the victim which was undertaken by a Scene of the Crime Operations (SOCO) team. SOCO medico-legal officer Chief Inspector Filemon Porciuncula said the victim sustained two stab wounds in the chest, two in the neck that pierced her windpipe and cut a major artery.
Apart from these, she also suffered multiple bleeding wounds on the left side of the face causing internal bleeding in the brain. Santos said he first stabbed the girl before hitting her in the face with an empty beer bottle.
The suspect told probers he then put her inside a rice sack before burying her in a relative’s vacant lot not far from the video game shop.
Marlon, 27, the victim’s brother said his sister was last seen last Saturday afternoon.
Reports showed at about 10 p.m., the suspect was about to close the shop when five unidentified teenagers, one of them the victim, were asked to leave by the suspect. But they refused.
He claimed they were trying to steal from the video coin box. A heated argument ensued with one allegedly stabbing him with a knife, which cut his palm.
He said he took a kitchen knife, chased after the group and caught up with the victim and stabbed her repeatedly. The victim, when exhumed, was found naked from the waist down.
The suspect said he did not rape the victim. — Jerry Botial