Investigation is still ongoing to uncover the brains behind the murder of two female minors, who were found dumped in Tuba, Benguet on Oct. 31.
Benguet Police Provincial Office Director Col. Damian Olsim said the special investigation task group (SITG) assigned to handle the case has listed persons of interest over the case.
Olsim clarified though the persons of interest are not the same as the suspects; as the latter needed more reasonable grounds to be called a such based on evidence.
“Hopefully it could help the investigation. But they do not have direct link of what happened,” Olsim said.
He said the SITG has gathered affidavits of the parents, friends, relatives, neighbors, and other possible individuals that could provide a lead to the case.
He hopes to piece the scenarios all together to find out what happened to the minors who were found bounded, gagged, blind-folded, and a cloth bag on their heads, at a ravine at sitio Indonas, Taloy Sur.
Lt/Col. Dominga Terrado of the Police Community Affairs and Development Unit said the victims suffered blunt traumatic injury as cause of death based on the autopsy report.
The bodies were found by a resident from the area who reported it to the Tuba Municipal Police Station.
The victims were then identified by M/Sgt. Albert Quiros, father of one of the victims, who is assigned at the Urdaneta City Police Office.
The victims were together when they disappeared and that there were no witnesses who could point to the last person the cousins were last seen with.
Olsim said it is possible the victims were already dead when brought to the site, which is 30 meters away from the Palispis-Aspiras (Marcos) Highway.
He said the cousins, who both dropped out in school, were living in separate apartments in Urdaneta, away from their parents when they went missing on Oct. 28.
The task group is in coordination with the Urdaneta City Police Station and Pozzorubio MPS. – Ofelia C. Empian
April 26, 2024
