A WOMAN was killed while her husband was injured when they were shot while attending a relative’s wake in Purok 1, Barangay Tuburan Sur, Danao City on Saturday night, September 10, 2022.
The victim, who was identified as 46-year-old Judith Luceñara Almerez, was declared dead on arrival at the hospital.
She was shot in the back of the head.
Her 48-year-old husband Rene, a construction worker, remains in critical condition. He was shot in the chest and in the knee.
The gunman was identified as Crisanto Roda Casinao, a 38-year-old tricycle driver who happens to be the couple’s neighbor in the barangay.
Executive Master Sergeant Reynante Manulat, chief investigator of the Danao Police Station, said personal grudge was the motive for the crime.
Manulat said the shooting took place at 8:20 p.m.
He said Casinao was aiming for the husband, but the latter hit the wife instead.
“So he pulled the trigger again to shoot the husband,” Manulat said in Cebuano.
Casinao fled and got rid of the .45 pistol. He parked his tricycle in Barangay Sabang and went to sleep only to wake up when police arrested him around 1 a.m. on Sunday, September 11.
Manulat said Casinao told him that he and Rene had an altercation the other month.
Casinao said the construction worker placed a butt of a cigarette made out of blackberry leaves in his collar, which burned him. This led to an argument, which almost turned into a fistfight, but Casinao told police he walked away because he didn’t want any trouble.
Casinao said the Almerezes also interfered whenever he and his wife had a fight.
However, the policeman believes there is a deeper motive that Casinao is not sharing.
The couple’s child said they thought it was a normal spat between neighbors, adding that Rene and Casinao didn’t even have to go to the barangay to settle the matter.
Casinao will be charged with murder and frustrated murder.