Senior Superintendent Rodolfo Mendoza, Pampanga police director, said investigators are considering all possible angles, including the involvement of a "Satanist cult," in the killing of Nestor Nucup.
"We find the case baffling," said Mendoza, noting that the body parts were dismembered "with medical precision" and that they "had apparently been drained of blood."
The victim’s arms and legs were placed in plastic bags and separately dumped in lahar wastelands in Porac and Bacolor. They were found last Feb. 4.
"The perpetrators must have done it on the night he was reported to have vanished, and by the way they did the crime, we could see there was hatred," Mendoza said.
Nucup’s elder brother Norman told reporters at Funeraria Angelina here that Nestor left their home at Villa Dolores last March 1 to report to his insurance office in the City of San Fernando. He never returned since then.
"We hope that his head will be found before the interment," he said. Their parents are expected to arrive from California today.
Norman said his brother was peace-loving and had no known enemies. But a few days before he disappeared, he told his elder sister Nerissa that someone had threatened him. Norman refused to elaborate.
Mendoza asked: "Could the perpetrator have kept the head for whatever reason?"
But he said it is possible that the severed head could have been dumped elsewhere.
"It’s just too gory," he added.
Meanwhile, the bodies of two men believed to be "salvage (summary execution)" victims were found along the North Luzon Expressway in Pulilan, Bulacan last Sunday.
The bodies were placed in plastic bags and dumped in a ricefield in Barangay Dulong Malabon. They bore gunshot wounds in the heads and bruises all over the body.
The two victims were tied up, and their mouths gagged with masking tape.
A paper found in one of the plastic bags had the words "Holdupper" and "Vigilante" written on each side. — Ding Cervantes, Ric Sapnu