Tuesday, December 23, 2008 ‘Jealousy’ drove man to kill live-in partner, daughter, 5
POLICE in Lapu-Lapu City are convinced that no other person was inside the house of couple Joel Pepito and Hazel Jimenez in Barangay Pajac when the two and their five-year-old daughter were found dead by their neighbors at past midnight Sunday.
No autopsy, however, was done on the body of Pepito, 32, to determine whether he took illegal drugs or was drunk when he allegedly stabbed dead his live-in partner and their daughter.
“It was really jealousy—as most of their neighbors believed that drove Pepito to kill his own family,” Acting City Police Director Mariano Natuel.
Quarrel
Homicide investigators recovered the kitchen knife that Pepito allegedly used in killing his family and concluded that it was a case of jealousy based also on the statements by their neighbors that he and his live-in partner regularly quarrel.
Pepito was found dead with a nylon cord around his neck inside their house in Sitio Kalubihan.
Beside him were the lifeless bodies of Jimenez, 21, and their daughter Desirelle, who both had three stab wounds in their chests.
Pepito reportedly came home at past 12 a.m. that day and confronted Jimenez about her alleged relationship with another man.
The neighbors claimed hearing Jimenez scream for help at past 1 a.m. but thought the couple was just quarreling.
But the silence that followed minutes after the altercation created suspicion among the neighbors, who peeped into the house and found all the three already dead.
Homicide investigator PO1 John Ricafort said one of the neighbors noticed a bloodstain in the house’s ladder.
The bodies of the three were brought to the Saint Francis Funeral Homes.
Homicide Chief Investigator Rolito Jumao-as said they will be asking the neighbors and the alleged boyfriend of Jimenez some questions as part of the investigation. (AIV)
