"There are indications that the killing of Elaine Malit was not related to her work," Senior Superintendent Policarpio Segubre, city police chief and head of Task Force Malit, told The STAR following the arrest of a nephew of hers.
The body of the victim, Elaine Malit, host of the daily radio program Buhay-Kalusugan over local station dwGV-AM, was found in the comfort room of her house in Barangay Sta. Teresita last Friday morning.
Segubre said the suspect was apparently drug-crazed when he committed the crime. Malit’s body bore seven stab wounds.
He declined to identify Malit’s nephew pending the gathering of all the evidence, saying, though, that probers were eyeing robbery as the motive.
Rudy Simeon, general manager of dwGV-AM here, said Malit had been a block-timer in the radio station for the past three years.
"I don’t think her murder was related to her job, although over a year ago, she hit an illegal recruiter in her program. But that issue has died down since then," Simeon said.
Segubre added that Malit’s program was not controversial as it largely endorsed a slimming tea product.
"So far, witnesses have pointed to the nephew of Malit as the suspect. It seems that the nephew was hooked on drugs," he said.
Simeon said Malit lived alone in her house as her German husband is often out of the country. The couple had no children, he added.
The last job-related killing of a journalist was last May 10 when Philip Agustin, publisher-editor of Starline Times News Recorder, was shot dead in his home in Dingalan, Aurora.