Albay ‘serial killer’ hunted

LEGAZPI CITY - Police are tracking down who could be Bicol’s very own Jack the Ripper.

A 21-year-old computer student and alleged drug addict is wanted for the killing of three women and an Australian couple in March and September last year.

Senior Superintendent Pedro Tango, Albay police director, said during a press conference at Albay Hotel here the other day that police detectives are now following various leads on the whereabouts of Jesse Ray Otañez, also known as Michael Sarmiento, and his mother Evelyn.

There have been reports that Otañez is hiding in Ligao City, Daet town in Camarines Norte and in Bulacan province, Tango said.

"A tracker team has been organized to serve three warrants of arrest against the suspect," he added.

Last July 1, Judge Romeo Dañas issued a warrant of arrest for Otañez for the killing of Australian couple Augustus and Corazon Kuhle.

The following day, another judge, Vladimir Brusola, issued a warrant for him for the slaying of beauticians Marilyn Jentalan and Aganes Bagalay.

The third arrest warrant issued by Judge Pedro Soriano was for the killing of another woman, Ma. Isabel Juarez.

No less than Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) founding chairman Dante Jimenez described Otañez as deadly.

"This man is dangerous. Unlike a night stalker, this man kills even during daytime wherever he goes," Jimenez said.

At the press conference, the VACC, along with the families and friends of Otañez’s victims, appealed to the public to help locate the suspect.

Tango said Otañez first killed Juarez, a nurse and an underwear marketer, on March 3 last year at the St. Joseph Medical Clinic in Barangay Guilid, Ligao City.

Several witnesses narrated to the police that they saw the suspect and his mother at the scene of the crime. The victim’s cellphone, bracelet, necklace and bag were missing.

Investigators later recovered pawnshop papers for Juarez’s jewelry in the name of one Michael Sarmiento as well as the victim’s cellphone that he sold to a police asset.

Four days later, Jentalan and Bagalay were killed inside the Farhana Skin Care and Beauty Parlor in Albay.

Tango said a witness overheard Otañez bragging about killing two women who had refused to dance with him inside a beauty parlor.

The suspect even showed a caliber .38 revolver to prove it, Tango added.

Next, Tango said, Otañez killed the Kuhle couple inside the Kyama building in Barangay Bonot this city on Sept. 12 last year.

Otañez became a suspect in the Kuhles’ murders after police found his name in Corazon’s diary.

The Kuhles’ relatives told probers that a certain Michael Sarmiento negotiated the sale of the couple’s house in Barangay Bonot on behalf of a relative from London.

Tests on the slugs found in the bodies of Jentalan and the Kuhles revealed that they were fired from the same gun — a caliber .38 revolver.

Superintendent Francisco Uyami, this city’s police chief, said his men later recovered the gun as well as a computer motherboard and a PC power supply in a garbage heap near Otañez’s boarding house on Washington Drive here.

When interviewed by the police, boarders complained about their cellphones and cash being stolen.

"Our men discovered demon-like scribblings in the room where he stayed," Uyami said.

Relatives and friends of the victims, however, expressed dismay over the slow pace of the police in apprehending the suspect.

Robert Padilla, brother of Corazon Kuhle, asked retired police Superintendent Popoy Angeles, said to be a brother of Otañez’s mother, to help in the case.

Tango said he would ask the Department of the Interior and Local Government to include Otañez in its list of most wanted persons in Bicol and to put up a reward for his arrest.