ONE of the most wanted persons accused of killing a village watchman and attempting to harm his son due to a feud between bystanders was nabbed by personnel of Mandaue City Police Office (MCPO) and Police Regional Office (PRO)-Central Visayas.
Lieutenant Colonel Niño Noserale, chief of the City Intelligence Unit (CIU), identified the suspect as Ramil Agbay Pucot, 51, currently residing in Poblacion, Bansalan, Davao del Sur.
Pucot was arrested after 24 years of hiding.
Noserale told SunStar on Tuesday, August 16, 2022, that Pucot, who was originally from Barangay Tawason, Mandaue City, shot a barangay watchman who was then only trying to pacify the suspect and his group's quarrel over another group of bystanders.
Initial reports revealed that one of Pucot's friends was accused of attacking (paregla) a member of the other group of bystanders in his area when the village watchman arrived to settle them.
Paregla is the act of waylaying an innocent person without any apparent reason, as defined by the Morphological Analysis of English Journalese in Cebu-based Dailies.
Pucot then defended his friend and ended up fighting with the watchman. He then shot the victim using a caliber .45 pistol. The victim was shot in the neck, resulting in his death.
The suspect also tried to shoot the watchman's son who witnessed the crime as the commotion happened only minutes away from the victim's residence. (The names of the watchman and his son have been withheld for privacy.)
After the incident, which happened on September 24, 1997, Pucot transferred to different places to evade arrest until one of the MCPO informants reported he was spotted in Bansalan working as a rice porter.
Noserale said right after the intelligence report, Pucot was put under surveillance for a year until he was finally arrested on Saturday afternoon, August 13.
Pucot ranked eighth in the list of most wanted persons in Central Visayas, said the PRO.
Noserale said one of the parameters used to declare an individual one of the most wanted persons is the severity of the crime he committed.
Pucot is currently detained at Hagonoy Police Station in Davao del Sur. He will be transferred to the MCPO within a week and will be endorsed to the Mandaue City Jail.
He will face charges for murder and attempted murder, which were issued by Judge Mercedes Gozo-Dadole of the Regional Trial Court Branch 28 in Mandaue City in 1997. (HIC)