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Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Wife dies, hubby hurt in gunplay
By Aledel G. Cuizon
CEBU -- A late night argument between a couple in Mandaue City turned bloody when they ended up shooting each other inside their room last Sunday.
Help came late as the door to their bedroom was opened only at 6 a.m. Monday.
Benjamin Rivas, 37, suffered a gunshot wound in the thigh while his wife Rochelle, 18, died of two gunshot wounds.
The incident is the ninth parricide, so far, in Cebu. The last one happened last week in Barangay Liki, Sogod, Cebu when a man hacked his wife to death after she allegedly called him a “rebel.”
Benjamin underwent surgery last night at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) in Cebu City to remove the bullet that also hit his kidney and colon.
The Rivas couple, who got married last Sept. 25, allegedly fought when Rochelle told her husband that she wants to go to Cebu City past 10 p.m. last Sunday.
Benjamin didn’t allow her, but she insisted. A neighbor heard her saying “wa’y makapugong nako.” (No one can stop me.)
The husband is jobless, and so was the wife. They lived with Benjamin’s father.
Rochelle allegedly shot her husband first, hitting him in the thigh. Benjamin then grabbed the .22 revolver and shot her.
Other neighbors also said that they heard an explosion but they only thought an object fell or something was banged on the wall.
Benjamin’s father knocked on the couple’s bedroom during the argument but the door wasn’t opened.
Around 6 a.m. Monday, he again banged on the door to force Benjamin to open it.
Benjamin allegedly called out to his father and asked for an ambulance. He said he couldn’t get up. He had to crawl toward the door to open it.
Benjamin was brought to the Chong Hua Hospital Monday morning but was later transferred to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City.
Rochelle, who hails from Barangay Tindog, Medellin, Cebu, was brought to Rolling Hills Memorial Chapels in Banilad, Mandaue City, where medico-legal officer Gil Macato, of the National Bureau of Investigation, conducted an autopsy.
Rochelle is Benjamin’s second wife. Benjamin has two children with his first wife, who died of cancer three years ago.
In a telephone interview, Macato said Rochelle also bore two punctured wounds in the neck.
A sharp object with an “irregular shape” can cause such wounds.
One bullet hit Rochelle in the right arm and exited through the chest. The second wound was also in the chest. Small contusions were also found on different parts of her body.
Police investigator Alfredo Andales of the Subangdaku Police Station said Benjamin remains a parricide suspect. Andales said the case needs a deeper probe because of the time it took the couple to be found after the shooting.
But according to initial investigation, Benjamin passed out after the shooting.
Maribel Rivas, Benjamin’s sister-in-law who was able to talk to him, said her brother shot Rochelle only after she shot him.
Maribel said she didn’t know that Benjamin had a gun until Monday. Sun.Star Cebu
(October 21, 2003 issue)
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