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Parricide charge dropped vs editor


The editor-in-chief of a Makati-based publishing firm who was earlier accused of killing his wife was cleared Friday by the Makati City prosecutor’s office which ordered the dismissal of the parricide charge. Cleared was Ibarra Gutierrez, editor-in-chief and chairman of the board of the Media G8way Corporation. The charges against Gutierrez were filed after his wife, Delia - president and chief executive officer of Media G8way Corporation - was found stabbed to dead inside the office of their firm on September last year. The Media G8way is the publisher of magazines like the PC World. In an 18-page resolution, second assistant City prosecutor Henry Salazar said the prosecution failed to establish probable cause against Gutierrez. “After a thorough examination and evaluation of each and every piece of evidence submitted by the parties and the arguments advanced in support of their respective submission the undersigned believes and so holds that there exist no sufficient evidence which warrant a finding of probable cause for the crime of parricide" the resolution read. Records showed that in September last year, the body of Delia was found inside the comfort room of her office located at the 3rd floor of the Eurovilla II Building on 118 Rufino st., Legaspi Village Makati. Delia bore several stab wounds on the chest and a slashed neck. Relying on the testimony of employees of the Media G8, who said that Gutierrez was the last person they saw entering the victim’s office and medico-legal findings, the Makati police filed parricide charges against Gutierrez. However, the victim’s children filed a motion to dismiss the parricide charges against their father saying that the charge is “absolutely preposterous and definitely baseless suspicions sans any competent evidence." They cited that the second autopsy conducted by University of the Philippines (UP) forensic pathologist Raquel Fortun contradicted initial medico-legal findings. For his part, Gutierrez denied killing his wife saying that his wife committed suicide due to the company’s financial difficulties. In dismissing the case, Salazar noted that there was no commotion or struggle in the comfort room where Delia’s body was found. “There were no defense wounds found in the hands and arms of the deceased indicate that there was no commotion and that the deceased was not assaulted as to reasonably infer she was killed,"he said. "In the absence of any tell-tale signs of a struggle, it cannot with reasonable certainty be concluded that the deceased was killed. On the contrary, the absence thereof favors a reasonable inference that she may have committed suicide" he added. The prosecutor also said the police failed to pinpoint or provide witnesses that could directly pinpoint criminal responsibility upon the respondent. “Assuming that the knife wound sustained by the deceased were not self-inflicted the police, after the conduct of its investigation, failed to establish, despite earnest efforts, to find anyone who could pinpoint criminal responsibility upon anybody for the death of the deceased. The police likewise failed to prove with certainty that the respondent was the last person to enter the deceased’ room" Salazar said.- GMAnews.TV

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