CEBU, Philippines — The 26-year-old man considered as a person of interest in the brutal murder of a 14-year-old girl in a mountainous village of Pinamungajan town on Monday morning denied he had a hand in the girl’s death.
No less than the parents of the girl considered the man as a possible suspect, saying that the latter was often sighted passing their house in Sitio Kaimito, Barangay Guimbawian.
However, the man denied before the police yesterday that he killed the girl.
“Sa pagkakaron, ni-deny man gyud siya (For now, he denies the allegations),” Police Major Felicisimo Aranas, chief of the Pinamungajan police, told reporters.
During interrogation, the man told the police that he did not go to the house of the victim. He also said that he was not aware of the incident because he went to water their vegetable garden and then collected twigs for cooking.
Police said the man could not be considered a suspect as of this writing because of the lack of concrete evidence to link him to the case.
Nevertheless, Aranas said they are still conducting a deeper probe to check the veracity of the accounts of the man.
Initial check by the police showed that the man did not have prior criminal records in the barangay, contrary to what the mother of the victim, Bina Andayop, said earlier.
Andayop believed it was the man, an alleged drug addict, who killed her daughter because he often passed by their house. She also believed that he raped her before stabbing her in the different parts of her body and slitting her throat.
Aranas said that based on their investigation, neighbors said they could not point to a previous incident in which the man was linked to a crime or misbehavior.
“Wa pud si kapitan miingon nga user ning bataa (The village chief did not say he used drugs),” Aranas said.
The victim’s house is located some 20 meters away from the man’s house.
At present, Aranas is calling on witnesses to come forward to back the victim’s family’s claim that the POI is a suspect.
For now, he said, more investigation is needed.
Aranas confirmed though that the POI admitted his acquaintance with the victim and her family.
Aranas said they could not yet confirm if the victim was raped until the autopsy result is released.
The 14-year-old went missing in the middle of the night Sunday in their house. Thinking that their elder sister was just preparing for school that night, the other siblings did not bother when she was nowhere to be found.
The siblings only relayed to their parents that their sister had gone missing early morning when she was still not around.
The parents were working as vendors at the Carbon Public Market, about 70 kilometers from home. JMD (FREEMAN)