Police identify suspect in Angeles boy’s kidnap

ANGELES CITY - Police are hunting down a mechanic, who returned from Saipan last May, after he was tagged as one of five men who abducted the nine-year-old son of an Angeles City businessman last Monday. The boy was subsequently freed after his family paid a P500,000 ransom.

Senior Superintendent Angelito Pacia, Angeles police chief, said the suspect was "positively identified" from a record of his passport which probers traced to a car rental firm here.

Pacia requested that the suspect be not named so as not to derail the operations of Task Force Good Boy which was formed to solve the abduction.

This developed as police authorities differed on the reported abduction of a university coed here the other day.

Senior Superintendent Rodolfo Mendoza, Pampanga police director, confirmed the abduction but declined to give details.

The teenage student, however, managed to flee from her kidnappers and immediately informed her relatives about her ordeal.

But Pacia said that a teenage girl was, indeed, reported missing last Wednesday but that she merely failed to go home because she had no money for transport fare.

"I have talked to the parents and there was no kidnapping," he said.

For his part, Superintendent Sonny Cunanan, San Fernando City police chief, said all he heard were rumors that a high student of Holy Angel University had been kidnapped.

Pacia said the suspect in the boy’s abduction has never stayed in any of his houses in Tarlac and Pampanga since he returned from overseas work last May.

"He has had records of having rented cars since then," he said.

The boy was freed by his abductors at about 11:20 p.m. Monday at a gas station in Pulong Maragul here after his mother delivered the P500,000 ransom at the Monte Verde Subdivision in Barangay San Juan Mateo in Tarlac City at 3 p.m. that same day.

A white Mitsubishi Lancer used by the kidnappers was traced to the E-Car rental firm here. It reportedly had an improvised license plate when it was used but bore its original license plate when police found it.

Another getaway vehicle, a black Toyota Corolla, was found abandoned near Clark Field’s main gate, its tires flat and windshields shattered from gunshots fired by pursuing lawmen.