Karen Kaye laid to rest: Cops to probe 3 more persons

CEBU, Philippines- With Karen Kaye Montebon laid to rest yesterday, the police said they are looking at three more “persons of interest” in ongoing efforts to establish the identities of those behind her death.

“We have another three ‘persons of interest’ that the police investigators are pursuing,” Lapu-Lapu City Police Office Acting Director Armando Radoc told reporters yesterday.

That brings to six the number of people authorities have pursued as having possible connection to the crime; two of them, though, has already been cleared by LCPO.

Radoc declined to disclose the identities of the three persons as they could not yet be considered as suspects in the September 15 killing of the 17-year-old.

Karen was found lifeless by her father inside their house in Corinthian’s Subdivision, Sitio Suba-Masulog, Barangay Basak, Lapu-Lapu City Tuesday last week when he returned home for work. She was supposed to attend school as a first her accountancy student at 10 a.m. that day.

Yesterday afternoon, around 1,000 bid their last goodbye to Karen, who was laid in her final resting place at Mactan Island Memorial Garden in Barangay Marigondon, Lapu-Lapu City.

Prior to Karen’s burial, her family, relatives, friends, and classmates joined a eulogy for her inside a St. Peter’s Funeral Homes chapel in Mandaue City.

Diane, 21, Karen’s elder sister, said she will miss her sister, whom “arrived earlier” in heaven.

“I would miss our OOTDs (outfit of the day) together. This might be hard to accept….  Karen, my baby love, my sisterette- always remember that you are loved,” she said.

“We offer her prayers, and hoping that justice will not be buried together with her,” also said one classmate. Some of Karen’s friends wore black shirt bearing the words “#JUSTICEforKarenMontebon”. 

Other wore shirts with “Justice” printed on them. There were also those who pinned on their shirts yellow ribbons bearing the same word.

Around 40 vehicles, including city and University of San Carlos buses, joined the funeral cortege, at arrived at the cemetery around 2:45 p.m.

After the burial around 4 p.m., relatives and friends released white balloons with the words “We love you, We miss you”.

Radoc said the Police Regional Office-7 approved last Friday his request for the creation of a special investigation task force, which includes the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-7 and the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO).

He said they already got footages from a subdivision residence and a private establishment’s closed-circuit television cameras.

He likewise said that contrary to an earlier report, a woman who knocked on the door of the victim’s house around 7 a.m. on the same day Karen was found dead was not wearing a helmet.

“Ato gipa-enhance ang mga videos aron makit-an nato kung kinsang mga mosulod ug mugawas sa subdivision,” Radoc said. — /RHM (FREEMAN)