Isabela cops find evidence in kidnap-slay of Chinese couple, agent

ECHAGUE, Isabela – Police operatives on Saturday found in a warehouse “substantial" pieces of evidence in the abduction of a Chinese couple and their agent in Barangay Ipil in this town a month ago. Isabela police spokesman Police Supt. Roberto Bucad said police operatives found at a building owned by suspected mastermind Jaylord Dimal, a 25-year-old rice trader, at least seven spent caliber .22 shells, six pieces of torn and blood-stained clothes, a black shoulder bag, two Chinese immigration identification cards, a Banco De Oro bank book, and a pump belt. Chinese couple Lucio Pua (Xinyi Pua), 39, and Rosemarie Pua (Juhua Pan), 40, and their agent Gemma Eugenio-Estrada, 44, were kidnapped on September 6, and then shot dead and chopped into pieces allegedly by Dimal and his cohorts. The body parts were then dumped at various rivers in Santiago City and nearby Quirino province. The new evidence were gathered in joint operations of the Isabela provincial police, Echague town police, crime laboratory experts, scene-of-the-crime operatives and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Emergency Response, through a search warrant issued by a Regional Trial Court in Isabela. Earlier, police found the Pua couple’s Honda CRV abandoned in a private hospital, a chopped arm of a woman fished out of a river in Santiago City and the skulls, believed to be those of the victims, along Santiago City and Quirino rivers. Apart from the P100,000 cash reward pledged by the Filipino Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Isabela, the provincial police likewise offered P200,000 reward for any resident who can find the other body parts of the Puas and their agent. On September 27, cases of kidnapping with multiple murder charges were filed against three of the six suspects before the Isabela Prosecutor's Office in Ilagan town. Kidnap-for-ransom and multiple murder charges were lodged against Dimal and his alleged cohorts, Allan Castillo and Eduardo Sapipi. Three others – Arvin Guiao, Robert Baccay and Ernesto Billador – meanwhile surrendered to the police and sought protection as state witnesses. Bucad said Dimal allegedly shot all three victims on the head and ordered Castillo to chop the victims' remains. Sapipi meanwhile dumped the bodies into different rivers and places in Isabela and Quirino provinces. The Pua couple reportedly had P1.7 million in their possession when they went to visit Dimal on September 6. The couple went to Echague town to collect payment for rice stocks sold to Dimal, but failed to return home on the same day.—Joel Nueva, JMA/JV, GMANews.TV