Female lawyer shot dead in Davao Norte

DAVAO CITY--A female lawyer was shot dead by unidentified perpetrators in Tagum City Monday morning, police said.

Chief Insp Milgrace Driz, Police Regional Office (PRO)-11 spokesperson, identified the victim as Connie Del Rio Villamor, married and a resident of Purok Pag-asa, Barangay Visayan village in Tagum.

Based on initial investigation, Driz said Villamor was driving her black Subaru forester and was traversing the vicinity of Manga Elementary School on Purok Gabayan 1 Manga, Barangay Mankilam, when two unidentified motorcycle-riding perpetrators overtook on the driver side and shot her several times.

The car swerved when she was shot and hit a concrete fence, before the suspects fled.

When the police arrived at the crime scene, Driz said Villamor was already attended to by the team from the Tagum City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office and rushed her to the Davao regional medical center.

The Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) found two fired cartridges from a .45 caliber pistol in the area.

In a follow-up investigation, Driz said the victim sustained multiple gunshot wounds on her body and was declared dead on arrival by the attending physician. She was then moved to Rubio funeral services.

Driz said investigators from the Tagum City Police are looking into personal grudge or work-related as the possible motive of the killing. Some motive that may arise depending on the evidence gathered, she said.

“For now, the investigators are still digging deeper to the investigation and further urged witnesses to come out and report to the police the circumstance of the case and cooperate so that we may easily bring justice to the family of the lawyer,” she added. (Rhoda Grace B. Saron/PNA)