Mom of slain ‘Japino’ boy implicates brod-in-law

STA. ROSA, Laguna — The mother of a six-year-old Japanese-Filipino boy, whose remains were exhumed in Norzagaray, Bulacan last Friday, 11 days after he was abducted, has tagged her brother-in-law as the brains behind the crime.

Ma. Teresa Bartolay Adachi, 37, in a sworn affidavit given to the 4th Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, implicated Alex Vargas, husband of her sister Nancy, as the leader of five ski mask-wearing men who broke into their home here shortly before midnight last April 15.

The men killed Nancy and the family driver, Nelson Aglahi, and took Adachi’s son Takeshi with them when she failed to give any cash to the group.

Mrs. Adachi, who was spared by the group, could not say how she was able to recognize Vargas as one of the five men, except saying that she was confident in her allegation.

Mrs. Adachi’s accusation was corroborated by a witness who told CIDG investigators that Vargas had hired him to be one of the lookouts, promising to pay each of them P500,000.

Probers suspect that Vargas could have pulled off the crime because Mrs. Adachi, a widow, was to receive a huge sum from a Japanese insurance company.

Vargas, said to be a fixer at the Land Transportation Office in Quezon City, reportedly used his wife Nancy to get information on when her sister would receive the money. Probers believe Nancy was killed apparently because she fed the wrong information.

According to the 4th CIDG, the ski mask-wearing men herded everyone inside the Adachi residence, including Nancy’s daughters Roselyn, 9, and Annalyn, 11, and Mrs. Adachi’s other child, Aya, 13, and tied them up with plastic straw.

Failing to find any money, the men brought Nancy and Aglahi to the toilet and killed them there. The group carted away some appliances and jewelry and seized Takeshi when they fled.