MANILA, Philippines — Police on Friday night arrested three suspects in the killing of Senior M/Sgt. Diane Marie Mollenido and her eight-year-old son John Ysmael, who were found dead in Bulacan and Tarlac, an official confirmed to The STAR.
The police official, who asked not to be named, said the suspects nabbed in two separate operations in Quezon City were a car agent, her husband and their “striker.”
The agent, Diane’s godchild, is a person of interest because she was the last person seen together with the victims on Jan. 16. The Mollenidos were in Novaliches, Quezon City that day to sell a car through the agent.
The agent’s husband, meanwhile, is a dismissed police officer.
Authorities captured the suspects in two separate operations in Barangays San Agustin and San Bartolome. They retrieved P100,000 in cash and the two phones owned by Diane and John Ysmael.
Using K-9 dogs, metal detectors and drone cameras, police returned to Pulilan, Bulacan yesterday to locate the gun that was allegedly used to kill the victims. Diane was found lifeless in a creek along Pulilan-Baliuag Bypass Road on Jan. 24, with a gunshot wound to her left ear.
According to the police source, authorities are closing in on the car transaction as the clearest motive yet behind the killings.
Two days after Diane was found, John Ysmael was discovered at a calamansi farm in Victoria, Tarlac, with autopsy results showing he died of asphyxiation by suffocation.
The suspects are now under the custody of the Quezon City Police District.
Vehicle recovered
Meanwhile, police recovered in Angeles City, Pampanga yesterday an abandoned vehicle allegedly used to dump the victims’ bodies.
Brig. Gen. Ponce Rogelio Peñones Jr., Central Luzon police director, said the abandoned car, a sports utility vehicle, was found around 8:20 a.m. along Zakura Street, Deca Clark Homes in Barangay Margot.
One of the arrested suspects, the alleged “striker,” led the police to the abandoned vehicle.
The Angeles City Forensic Unit was requested for crime scene processing and the Highway Patrol Group for further verification of the vehicle, Peñones said. — Ramon Efren Lazaro