Trader kills wife, then self

SAN PEDRO, Laguna — Driven by intense jealousy, a Chinese-Filipino businessman fatally shot his wife and then turned the gun on himself inside their residence here last Friday night, authorities said.

Relatives found the bodies of William Chan, 45, and his wife, Catherine, in the bedroom. He had a bullet wound in the temple, she in the forehead.

Catherine’s mother, Juliet, said William was not keen on allowing his wife to work as a singer in Japan and that even without proof, he had suspected her of having an affair with another man.

Catherine had been undergoing personality development training at a promotions agency in Pasay City.

"It was better for her to go abroad. Aside from earning money, she could evade the intense jealousy of her husband," Juliet said.

Catherine’s cousin Alfred recalled that probably an hour before the tragedy, she asked him to bring her white shirt, pants and rubber shoes to her mother’s house where she planned to sleep that night to save her time in going to the promotions agency the following day.

It was William, however, who brought her things to her mother’s house, some three kilometers away from their residence at Calendola Village.

He returned home, and the couple had an argument inside their bedroom.

Alfred said he heard Catherine pleading for help but he ignored it, thinking that the spouses were just having another of their frequent quarrels.

Moments later, Alfred and other cousins who were also at the Chans’ house, heard three gunshots coming from the couple’s bedroom. They forcibly opened the door and found the two dead.