Barrameda kin seek missing witness

MANILA, Philippines — The surviving kin of Ruby Rose Barrameda yesterday appealed to authorities to offer a reward for the whereabouts of the lone witness who escaped from custody six years ago.

Rochelle Barrameda-Labarada and her parents Robert and Asuncion Barrameda attended yesterday’s hearing at the Malabon Regional Trial Court Branch 170 on their motion for reconsideration of the dismissal of the parricide and murder cases against the victim’s husband, Manuel Jimenez III; her father-in-law Navotas fishing magnate Lope Jimenez and other alleged cohorts.

In an interview, Labarada, an actress and former beauty queen, appealed to Malacañang and the Department of the Interior and Local Government to help them raise reward money to help locate Manuel Montero, a suspect who helped police locate her sister’s body, which was in a steel drum filled with cement, from the waters off Navotas in Manila Bay on June 10, 2009.

Then government witness Montero escaped from the National Capital Region Police Office headquarters in May 2013,  after recanting his sworn statement linking the Jimenezes to Barrameda’s murder.