Court to rule on chop-chop murders

Monday, March 7, 2011

TEN days from now, the court will hand down its verdict on one of the three suspects in the killing of two women in Talisay City more than two years ago.

Judge Generosa Labra will decide on March 15 the case against taxi driver Joseph Roy Cellar, one of the suspects in the killing of Eva Mae Peligro and Gwendolyn Balasta in their house in Barangay Maghaway, Talisay City last July 24, 2008.

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The chopped-up bodies of the victims were dumped in various sites in the cities of Naga and Talisay and Minglanilla town.

At the crime scene, Peter Mapait, head security guard of Azienda Firenze where the victims were murdered, said days after the killings, unusual occurrences have been noticed inside the house.

Mapait, who patrols the subdivision, said a resident told him he heard sounds as if somebody was breaking glasses inside the house.

This happened even after the homeowners’ group held novena prayers at the house days after the killing. The group had asked the monks at the Marian Shrine in Simala, Sibonga, Cebu to pray in the area and bless it.

Mapait said he was told by one of the monks not to be surprised if they see “smoke” coming from the house. The monk said these will be the victims’ spirits leaving the area.

“Ug tinuod gyud. Anang pagka-gabii, kita ko ug ang akong kauban nga roving guard og aso. Kuyawan ko oy, unya ang baho sa aso kay murag kamangyan (And it’s true. That evening, I and another guard saw smoke from the house. I was terrified, the smoke smelled like incense),” Mapait said.

After that, Mapait said, he and the other guards and the rest of the residents in the village no longer noticed any unusual occurrence at the house.

For more than a year now, Mapait said, a caretaker has been staying in the house.

Eva Mae’s 50-year-old father, Diosdado, said it has been his family’s prayers that justice will be served.

The Peligro and Balasta families are from Sierra-Bullones, Bohol, where the bodies of
the victims are buried in a public cemetery at the town proper.

He said every Saturday and Sunday, his family goes to the cemetery to visit his daughter and Balasta and offer prayers.

As much as possible, they do not miss the hearings of the case in Cebu City.

Before leaving for Cebu on March 15 for the promulgation, Diosdado said, they will visit the victims’ graves.

Defense lawyer Salvador Solima said he hopes the court will grant their earlier petition to downgrade the case against Cellar from murder to homicide.

Solima said that although Cellar admitted having participated in the killings of his neighbors, he said there are mitigating circumstances showing the suspect had no intention to kill them.

Cellar had entered a guilty plea.

The two women were strangled and stabbed to death before their bodies were cut into pieces.

The police filed double murder charges against the three suspects in what became known as the “chop-chop” murder case in Cebu.

Labra, presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court Branch 23, had scheduled Cellar’s promulgation last Dec. 14, 2010. But she deferred the reading of the verdict after Solima filed a motion that sought to postpone the proceeding.

At that time, Solima said he would first want Cellar to testify in court for the prime suspect, Richard Gudelosao, before his fate is decided.

Had the promulgation been pursued in December last year, private prosecutor Julius Cesar Entise said, there would have been “technical glitches” because the two other suspects – Gudelosao and Jean Antonette Medalle – were not present during the first scheduled arraignment in December last year.

“They (Gudelosao and Medalle) could then ask to have the testimony of Cellar nullified because the other accused were absent, which can further delay the proceedings,” Entise had told reporters.

Gudelosao is the prime suspect in the killing of his brother’s fiancée, Peligro.

Medalle is his common-law wife.

Gudelosao’s brother, an engineer, had migrated to the US. Initial investigation showed that jealousy and strained family relations between the taxi driver and Peligro were the motives of the murder.

The victims’ bodies were cut up and the pieces were placed inside garbage bags. The bags were loaded into Gudelosao’s taxi and thrown in separate areas in the cities of Talisay and Naga and Minglanilla town.

Medalle allegedly connived with her boyfriend in the killing.

Solima said Gudelosao had no hand in the murder of the two victims. He said Medalle was not present in the area when the crime was committed. She was in Barangay Lahug, Cebu City.