Picache ma’s alleged killer a vagabond, thief – probers

MANILA, Philippines - A vagabond, who had been hopping from one house to another, was how a police official described the helper tagged in the killing of actress Cherry Pie Picache’s elderly mother.

In fact, it was not the first time 29-year-old Michael “Dy” Flores was accused of stealing something from a house whose occupants gave him menial jobs, said Inspector Elmer Monsalve, head of the Homicide Investigation Section of the Quezon City Police District.

“We had talked to persons in Laguna, Cavite and Las Piñas, who had once welcomed Flores into their homes,” Monsalve said.

A teenage resident of Barangay Paligsahan, where Zenaida Sison lived, said Flores had been shooed away from the house of a sibling. In fact, Flores had only been in Sison’s neighborhood for a few years, Monsalve said.

He said the elderly woman had been giving Flores jobs for the past two to three months, whenever she needed something done in her house. Flores had allegedly talked about Sison’s jewelry to a resident of Barangay Paligsahan, Monsalve said.

Sison’s pieces of jewelry were missing when her body, riddled with stab wounds, was found on the night of Sept. 19.

While Flores had been working for Sison, he never stayed in the house. The pair of shorts and shirt left behind on the crime scene belonged to Flores, said Chief Inspector Rodel Marcelo.

According to Marcelo, the suspect is facing a complaint for robbery with homicide.

QCPD spokesperson Senior Inspector Maricar Taqueban called on tipsters to provide leads on the whereabouts of the missing suspect.

Taqueban even called on the public to be cautious of Flores, who had been known to go to beauty parlors in search of jobs. It is from one of these shops that the police managed to get a hold of the suspect’s photo, she said.