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Monday, October 13, 2003
Girl torched over jewelry dies
THE six-year-old girl torched and maimed over a pair of earrings in Lapu-Lapu City can no longer tell the world her story. She died in the hospital Saturday.
Jessa Jayra Florito, of Sitio Kagudoy, Barangay Basak, Lapu-Lapu, died around 4:45 p.m. at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC).
Police believe, however, that they still have a strong case with the victim’s “dying declaration” in which she identified her attacker as a neighbor, Rubelyn Roble. This, investigators said, is admissible in court.
Investigators have yet to get a copy of the victim’s autopsy report and death certificate. Lapu-Lapu Homicide Chief SPO4 Geoffrey Baguio said the third-degree burns must have been too much for the girl.
Aside from the burns, the girl was discovered with broken legs, the back of her head smashed.
Baguio said Roble, 23, denied involvement in the incident. She told him there was somebody who looked for the girl before the incident, who may have been the attacker.
But years as an investigator prompted Baguio to notice things about Roble that for him are manifestations of guilt.
“She can’t look anyone straight in the eye, especially the girl’s mother. It is also obvious that she lacks sleep,” Baguio said.
Baguio did not press Roble to admit to the crime.
Named
He has prepared affidavits of at least three persons, SPO1 Rolito Jumao-as, who responded to the alarm, Roberto Tumulak, one of those who found Jessa, and her mother Florenda.
While on the way to VSMMC, Florenda asked her daughter if she knew her attacker. The girl replied, “Auntie.”
Asked whom she was referring to, the girl said she did not know the aunt’s name, other than that the woman was the “mother of Maryanne,” Florenda said in her affidavit.
Florenda asked if Jessa meant the sister of “Ejoy,” whose mother was Emerita. Jessa said no.
“Kana ba inahan Maryanne kanang ako kugos-kugoson (The mother of Maryanne, my playmate),” the girl had said, referring to Roble’s six-month-old daughter.
Florenda confirmed this by asking if she was referring to the wife of “Kasmot.” Jessa answered yes. Kasmot is the nickname of Ramil Pahugot, Roble’s live-in partner.
Florenda right away talked with her friend Riza Deniega, who informed Jumao-as. Jumao-as invited Roble to the police station.
Baguio said the girl’s reply when asked what Roble did to her made Florenda cry.
“Gikuha niya akong ariyos, iya ko gito-ok, gidala ko niya kasagbotan, gihimo ko suga,” said Baguio, quoting Florenda in her affidavit. (She took my earrings, then she strangled me, brought me to a grassy lot, and then lit me up like a torch.)
After that, the girl started having difficulty breathing. She lapsed into a coma until she died.
Motive
Baguio said a statement by a dying person is an “exception to hearsay evidence” and can stand in court. Roble’s motive could have been simple attraction to Jessa’s earrings sent her by her father, who works in the US.
“The suspect is still very young. The earrings must have lured her to commit the crime. She had to hurt the girl to prevent her from squealing on her,” Baguio said.
Roble is detained at the Lapu-Lapu City Police Station pending the filing of a robbery with homicide complaint against her.
Jessa went missing Friday night after she left for Roble’s house. Roble’s place is near the house of the girl’s aunt, in whose care Florenda left her daughter while she worked in a massage and skin clinic.
Florenda had to work because her husband Rodualdo is jailed in Boston, Massachusetts for working in the US without a permit. RHM |
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