Saturday, June 07, 2008 American 'pedophile' nabbed By Annabelle L. Ricalde
THE police caught red handed a suspected American pedophile Friday inside a pension house with a 16-year-old girl believed to be one of his victims after authorities got a tip from his own wife.
Operatives of Cogon Police Station arrested American national Daryl Eugene Tillman, 62, inside a lodging house along Osmeña Extension after his Filipina wife told police of his husband's tryst with the minor.
The victim (name is withheld), a resident of Tagoloan town in Misamis Oriental, was rescued by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) personnel who went along with the arresting police officers.
Tillman, a native of Iowa, denied the allegation, saying the minor was just a "friend."
Police Inspector Buenaventure Reyes, Cogon Police Station commander, however, said the minor confessed having an affair with the American when DSWD personnel interviewed her.
The girl said she met Tillman sometime in July 2007 outside her school in Tagoloan and, after several meetings, their affair blossomed and they begun dating secretly.
The victim's mother, who requested anonymity, said she already met Tillman and warned him to leave her daughter alone.
She said that was the last time she saw Tillman, but the two had been secretly meeting somewhere without her knowledge.
The damaging accounts came from Tillman's own wife, Genevieve, a resident of Zone 6, Barangay Cugman.
Genevieve told police that she and Tillman had been separated for over a year, and that she has a pending abuses case against her American husband.
She alleged that when they were still together, her husband would bring young girls in their home. At one point, she said Tillman requested her consent for a 12-year-old girl to sleep in her own bedroom.
Police said they are preparing charges against Tillman, while the victim was brought to a government hospital for proper medical examinations.
Tillman said he was innocent of the charges and complained that he was not informed of the crime he was arrested for.
