Saturday, August 30, 2008 ‘Chop-chop’ suspects stay mum By Katrina A. Balmaceda Sun.Star Correspondent
“NOT GUILTY” was the plea entered by the three suspects in what has become known as the “chop-chop” murder when they were arraigned in court yesterday.
Richard Gudelosao, 27, Joseph Roy Cellar, 22, and Jean Antonette Medalle, 25, entered their pleas before Regional Trial Court Judge Generosa Labra at 10 a.m. yesterday.
They kept their heads bowed low the whole time, even when Judge Labra asked them to look at her.
The three face a double murder charge for allegedly strangling and killing cousins Eva Mae Peligro and Gwendolyn Balasta on July 24 and chopping their bodies in pieces.
It was a packed courtroom, with lawyers, media, students and representatives from the Crusade Against Violence anticipating the trio’s arraignment.
Wait
The family members of the two victims arrived in court early. Gwendolyn’s mother and Eva Mae’s parents, sister and brother-in-law waited for an hour and a half before the suspects were arraigned.
But there was no sign of Eva Mae’s fiancé Felix, who is the brother of accused Gudelosao. Felix is reportedly in the United States. He was the last person Eva Mae talked to before she died, when she suddenly left a sentence unfinished as they were chatting over the Internet.
The packed courtroom fell silent when the three suspects approached the judge. The criminal information for both cases was read aloud in Cebuano.
But when the chopping up of the bodies was mentioned, Diosdado Peligro, Eva Mae’s father, could no longer contain his sobbing.
Gudelosao and Cellar opted for silence when asked to enter their pleas. In an arraignment proceeding, silence is tantamount to pleading “not guilty.”
Their lawyer Salvador Solima entered a “not guilty” plea for them, noting that he wanted both to undergo a psychiatric examination.
Labra has yet to rule on Solima’s motion to have Gudelosao and Cellar undergo psychiatric examination. The victims’ families asked for 10 days to submit their comment on Solima’s motion.
Medalle, for her part, shook her head and answered, “not guilty” when asked to enter her plea.
While Medalle denied participation in the crime, Gudelosao and Cellar admitted to it in an extra-judicial confession and an affidavit, respectively.
But Solima, in an earlier interview, said his clients could not have been in their right state of mind when they committed the crime, and they may have been on drugs. He added that the two showed “a lack of remorse” when they narrated how they committed the crime.
In earlier newspaper reports, Gudelosao admitted to having smoked marijuana a day before the murder.
Gudelosao and Cellar’s statements differed on who between them strangled the victims, but they both admitted to slicing up the body parts with a single stainless steel kitchen knife in the bathroom of the house where Peligro lived. Cellar’s affidavit recounts the crime in gory detail.
They said Medalle, who was Gudelosao’s live-in partner, was the one who mopped up the blood that the two left.
The two added that they stored the chopped up body parts in at least 13 plastic bags and threw them in different spots off the Manipis road from Minglanilla to Toledo City.
The body parts were first discovered the day after, when grade school pupils saw a dog with a human hand in its mouth. Later, Gudelosao and Cellar led police along the
Manipis road to recover more of the two girls’ body parts.
Talisay City Prosecutor Marshall Rubia said they are doing their best to gather evidence and round up witnesses, adding that all he wants is justice.
Diosado, walking out of the Palace of Justice along with his family, echoed the hope of finding justice for his daughter.
