4 get life for 2013 kidnap-slay

MANILA, Philippines — Four men were meted life imprisonment yesterday for kidnapping and killing 25-year-old advertising executive Kae Davantes in 2013.

Judge Salvador Timbang Jr. of Las Piñas Regional Trial Court Branch 253 found Lloyd Enriquez, Samuel Decimo, Kelvin Jorek Evangelista and Jomar Pepito guilty of robbery with homicide. 

Another suspect, Baser Manalang, is still at large. 

The four were ordered to jointly and severally pay Davantes’ heirs P50,000 as death indemnity, P50,000 as moral damages and P25,000 as temperate damages.

Davantes went missing at around 1 a.m. on Sept. 7, 2013 after a night out in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.

Her body was found under a bridge in Silang, Cavite, about an hour away from her home in Las Piñas. She had been gagged, hogtied and stabbed in the chest.

Former president Benigno Aquino III offered a P2-million reward for the capture of Davantes’ killers.

Reggie Diel, a suspect turned witness, said all six of them robbed jeepney passengers on several occasions, but on that night, they drew a blank waiting for a jeepney to hit in Cavite.

They ended up outside Davantes’ home in Moonwalk Village and Pepito, referring to the victim, said, “Pwede na iyan (she will do),” according to Diel.

Davantes left her car and was opening the gate of her house when they forced her into Pepito’s car at gunpoint and brought her to Tagaytay City, where the group debated whether they should kill her since she had seen their car, Diel said.

He said he did not know who actually killed Davantes, but the court said identifying the actual perpetrator is unnecessary.

“The act of one was the act of all,” the decision read.

Diel said they sold Davantes’ laptop and two cell phones at a mall in Alabang for P2,300.

They burned Davantes’ car after they failed to sell it, he said.

Davantes’ parents wept as Enriquez and Evangelista, who were also crying, apologized repeatedly.

Her father, Pedro, said he did not “have anything against these children… but they have to suffer for what they did.”