‘Gun-for-hire’ kills apartment owner in Quiot

CEBU, Philippines - An apartment owner was gunned down by a masked assailant Wednesday night inside his own apartment in Barangay Quiot, Cebu City.

Bayani Apartment owner Alfonso Bayani III, 51, died immediately of at least five gunshot wounds to different parts of his body.

According to Senior Police Officer 2 Rommel Bancog of the Homicide Section of the Cebu City Police Office, Bayani was playing card games with three friends at the ground floor of his two-storey apartment at past 6 p.m. on Wednesday prior to the incident.

With the door left opened, Bancog said a stranger wearing a white mask and a helmet suddenly went inside the apartment and asked the group in vernacular, “Kinsa’y Jun ninyo (Who among you is Jun)?”

As soon as Bayani replied that it was him, the stranger shot him, hitting his neck.

Bancog said the three others immediately scampered away, leaving Bayani behind already lying on the floor.

Before fleeing away, the assailant shot the victim again many times as if making sure that he would not stay alive.

Cebu City Emergency Services personnel responded to the area but the victim already succumbed to five gunshot wounds to different parts of his body.

Responding policemen found from the crime scene five empty shells of a cal. 45 pistol and two deformed slug.

Bancog said as per their assessment, the assailant appeared to be a gun-for-hire considering that he did not know who his target was until the victim responded.

He said there was no closed-circuit television camera installed in the apartment, making it harder to identify the perpetrator.

The motive of the crime could be personal grudge, said Bancog, but they have yet to clearly talk with the victim’s family who was still very emotional when they last interviewed them.  (FREEMAN)