Court metes 40 years to man for killing relative’s partner

The court sentenced a shoemaker to reclusion perpetua, or a jail term of up to 40 years, for killing the common-law husband of his relative in barangay Liburon, Carcar City nine years ago.

The court also ordered Arnold “Tisoy” Canaya to pay the heirs of the victim, Alenjun Dimaunahan, P50,000 in indemnity after the court finds him guilty of murder.

On October 16, 1999, Canaya shot Dimaunahan to death while the victim was drinking with his co-employees. The accused, without provocation, opened fire at the victim.

It was only on March 27, 2000 that the accused was apprehended and brought into custody.

Canaya denied shooting to death Dimaunahan, saying that he was having a conversation with a certain An-An in the house of one Cely Lauron, a kilometer away from the place of the incident.

But prosecution witnesses Elderico Lauron and Gina Lauza testified that it was Canaya who shot the victim saying that the victim himself who was conscious at that time positively identified the accused as his assailant.

Lauron, in his testimony, said he had seen the accused in the act of shooting and running away from the crime scene.

Presiding Judge Gilbert Moises said that “positive identification where categorical and consistent and not attended by any showing the ill motive on the part of the eye witnesses on the matter, prevails over alibi and denial.”

He said that although the victim did not immediately die after he was shot, still it cannot be denied that the proximate cause of his death are the wounds he sustained from the shooting which were described by the attending physician. — Jasmin R. Uy/MEEV