CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- The suspect in the murder of a mother and her daughter who voluntarily surrendered last Wednesday night has committed suicide.
Superintendent Eden Ugale, city chief of police, said Jay-R Catangal, the alleged killer of Cecille de Jesus, 34, and her daughter Cyla, 11, both of Barangay Dolores, hung himself inside the cell of this city’s police station.
Ugale said the suspect who surrendered to Barangay Dolores Chairman Melchor Caluag and was jailed at the City of San Fernando police station, asked permission from his guards to take a bath and use the comfort room.
After an hour, the bath room was overflowing with water prompting a policeman to destroy its door, Ugale said.
He said the policeman saw the suspect hanging from the grilled window of the bathroom. The official said the suspect tore the sides of the towel and fashioned them into a rope to hang himself, squatting to tighten the noose.
Ugale said they rushed the suspect to the nearest hospital but was declared dead on arrival by attending physicians.
The suspect, a resident of Sitio Looban, Barangay Dolores is a tri-wheeler driver. He forcibly made his way into the victim's apartments and stabbed them repeatedly. Reports said he carted away cash and the victims’ cellphones before he surrendered, presented to Mayor Oscar Rodriguez, and turned over to police authorities.
The mother and her daughter were found dead inside Quevedo Apartment at Villa Barosa, Subdivision, Dolores, this city, Wednesday early dawn.
Another daughter of De Jesus, Nica, 12, who sustained about 25 stab wounds in the body has survived the attacked, Ugale said.
The suspect was positively identified by Nica as their attacker.
Ugale said the husband of Cecille is an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) in Dubai.
Police ruled-out foul play in the suspect’s death as his relatives were in the police station at the time he committed suicide. (Ric Sapnu with reports from Jovi T. De Leon)