CEBU CITY – The city police here are now pursuing possible “love triangle” and drug angles as possible motive behind the killing of a woman who filed rape and extortion charges against 11 policemen of the Police Station 7.
Cebu City Police Office deputy director for operations, Lt. Col. Wilbert Parilla, said they have not yet identified the suspect who shot dead Retchie “Miles” Nepomuceno, 35, Monday night along the Natalio Bacalso Avenue in Basak-Pardo village in this city.
“We also focus on love triangle considering that she and her husband, in the morning of the day she was killed, exchanged text messages with Nepumoceno asking her husband to go back and live with him again,” Parilla said during a press conference Tuesday.
The police, Parilla said, will also look into the allegation of Nepomuceno’s former live-in partner who is now detained in a facility in this city run by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) that she had a boyfriend who is a cop.
The deputy chief of police also said Nepomuceno’s engagement in the drug ring would always come out during tactical interrogations conducted by police probers against arrested drug personalities.
Suicide
Two hours after Nepomuceno’s ambush in Basak-Pardo, a policeman who was among the 11 placed under investigation after she complained of extortion and rape, took his own life.
Staff Sgt. Celso Colita, one of the 11 members of the Sawang Calero Police Station who was accused by Nepomuceno of raiding her house for firearms but found none last month, was found dead inside the toilet of the Regional Special Operations Group (RSOG) outside the Camp Sergio Omeña Sr. in this city.
Colita was also accused of extorting the woman of PHP170,000.
In the press conference, Regional Drug Enforcement Unit (RDEU) 7 chief, Maj. Glenn Hife, said he was interviewing Colita about Nepomuceno’s “ambush” and his reported drug involvement before he shot himself using a .45-caliber pistol.
Along with Colita, the other cops who are under investigation are: Corporal Georny Abrasado, Corporal John Carl Aceron, Staff Sergeant Joseph Alcoseba, Staff Sergeant Michael Rhey Cabizares, Chief Master Sergeant Eric Edgar Emia, Corporal Ejill Ferrolino, Corporal Carlo Irizari, Corporal Rochelito Mabulay, Corporal Emmanuel Martinez, and Corporal Junel Pedroza.
The Integrity Management and Enhancement Group-Visayas Field Unit of the Philippine National Police and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR)-Central Visayas also launched parallel investigation on the 11 policemen, including Colita.
They have been relieved from their posts.
Asked by reporters if there is a possibility that Colita was involved in killing Nepomuceno, Parilla said “all those who are subjected to camp restriction could not go out”. (PNA)
