Man, 33, kills self

A PUJ driver allegedly killed himself in his house from depression on his friend’s death anniversary yesterday afternoon at Sitio Tayud, Barangay Pardo, Cebu City.

Carlos Martinez, 33, was seen by his live-in partner Escarlet Gabion sitting on the floor suspended with his neck tied in a red nylon rope to the ceiling.

“Before it happened, my husband gave me money and told me to visit the Sto. Niño Church to light a candle,” Gabion said in Cebuano. “I was not expecting that he was planning to commit suicide that day.”

Gabion decided to leave her two-year-old child at home when she went to the churchBut when she arrived, she saw her child crying.

She was alarmed and went to their room only to find that his live-in partner was already dead.

She told her child to seek for help from their neighbors to untie the rope.

“There is a tendency that the child saw the suicide incident because he was in trauma...” PO3 Wetzel Berry of Cebu City Police Office’s Homicide Section said in an interview with Sun.Star Cebu.

Gabion said her husband’s alleged suicide might result to his grievance for his friend’s death anniversary.

Earlier reports said that Martinez’s friend, who also served as his conductor in the PUJ he was driving, allegedly committed suicide last Oct. 27, 2010.

PO3 Berry also added that Martinez had been planning to commit suicide many times, but Gabion told him not to do so because he might leave his family orphaned.

Barangay Pardo Emergency Response (BPER) reported the incident at 5 p.m. and declared the victim dead on the spot.

St. Francis Funeral Homes concluded that Martinez death was due to asphyxia by hanging or loss of oxygen.

Martinez left his live-in partner and their children ages 10, 8 and 2. Careen L. Malahay, USJ-R Mass Comm intern