Couple killed in Bukidnon gun attack

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Gunmen killed a couple in an ambush in Barangay Kalasihan in Lantapan, Bukidnon on Friday afternoon, June 6.

Local executives and officials of the Bukidnon Provincial Police Office told reporters on Saturday, June 7, that Jayme Dipus, 58, and his 55-year-old spouse, Helen, both died instantly from multiple bullet wounds sustained in the attack.

Captain Sheila Joy Hangad of the Lantapan Municipal Police Station said on Saturday that the victims, both working in a sugarcane plantation in the municipality, were riding a motorcycle together on their way home when they were attacked by gunmen at Sitio Tigbi in Barangay Kalasihan, killing them both immediately.

Hangad, citing accounts of witnesses, said their killers escaped immediately using a getaway motorcycle. 

Police investigators and barangay officials who responded to the incident found five spent .45 caliber shells scattered in the crime scene, according to Hangad.  

Hangad said barangay officials in Kalasihan and in nearby Malaybalay City, which is near the area where Dipus and his wife were waylaid are helping them identify the culprits for prosecution.