THE THREE VICTIMS. They were all minor, still children, yes -- ages 6, 12, and 16 -- and the three were murdered, eight and seven years apart.
And they had disappeared, one kidnapped or abducted, before they were killed. Brutally, as state of their bodies showed.
The third and latest victim, whose body was found this week in Toledo City, was beheaded and tied to a tree.
Start the list with her:
[1] Crystal Joy Lagaras Abarquez, 12, a Grade 6 student, was found dead Thursday, February 19, 2026, in a forested area of Toledo City. She had disappeared eight days before, i.e. Wednesday, February 11.
Her head was severed and dumped a few meters from a tree in Sitio Pajo, Barangay Cabitoonan (near the boundary with Barangay Ibo). The decomposing body, already "beyond recognition," was tied to the tree, with a shoelace strung around her neck. Her school bag and other personal belongings were found nearby.
[2] The body of Christine Lee Silawan, 16, a high school student, was dumped on a vacant lot in Lapu-Lapu City. She was found March 11, 2019.
Christine Lee was naked from the waist down. She was raped, which the Public Attorney's Office forensics test later confirmed. Multiple stab wounds on the body; her face mutilated ("skinned beyond recognition") by using acid or scraping it with a sharp knife or bladed weapon.
[3] Ellah Joy Pique, 6, of Minglanilla, Cebu was "kidnapped" February 8, 2011, by a white male foreigner and Filipina companion while the grader was walking home with friends from school. She accepted the offer of a ride home from a couple in a Pajero. The following day, she was found dead.
Ellah Joy's naked body was wrapped, including three big stones, in a white bedsheet and thrown off a cliff in Barili town. She was killed with heavy blows on the head, her upper body showing dark bruises.
From Minglanilla where Ella Joy lived, Barili is about 45 to 46 kilometers away in southwest Cebu.
VICTIMS WERE LURED. [1] Crystal Joy Abarquez, who resided in Poblacion, Toledo City, was persuaded last Thursday to ride -- as shown in a CCTV footage -- on a motorcycle driven by Rowell Lagaras Villapina Jr., 27, a mechanic and her cousin.
The promise of a ride for an errand or a "suroy" apparently took her to a sitio in another barangay where she ended up with a severed head and the rest of her body being bound to a forest tree.
[2] Christine Lee Silawan became a friend of the self-confessed killer, one Renato "Renren" Llenes, through Facebook under the dummy account of "CJ Diaz." Christine Lee must have agreed to a physical meet-up with "Diaz"/Llenes.
Llenes, 43 in 2019, who had a live-in partner and three kids, in a sworn confession said he used scissors to stab Silawan and scrape skin off her face, aping a "Momo challenge" method of killing. He said he was influenced by illegal drugs when he killed Christine Lee.
[3] Ellah Joy Pique was walking home with friends when induced to hitch a ride with a couple in a Pajero, a Filipina and a foreigner.
Police called Ellah Joy's a case of kidnapping but hers and the two other cases, including the latest child murder in Toledo, involved consensual going-along ("dili pinugos nga pagkuyog").
SELF-CONFESSED SUSPECT IN CHRISTINE SILAWAN CASE owned up the killing but later denied it during arraignment.
Was Renato Llenes, aka CJ Diaz, the killer? That may never be ascertained for sure since he reportedly hanged himself in jail. Silawan's case has long been considered solved.
Before Llenes's arrest, there were other suspects, including Christine's boyfriend, but they were deemed cleared after the confession and subsequent "suicide."
ONLY ONE OF THE THREE CASES, as of now, is recorded as still unsolved: the Ellah Joy Pique murder.
But Pique's has long been more than a cold case. It's archived and forgotten, recalled only when other murders as atrocious as her killing come up.
The Regional Trial Court acquitted on October 8, 2014 Bella Ruby Santos, who was accused of the kidnapping and murder of Ellah Joy.
Prosecution, the ruling said, failed to prove that Bella Ruby was the woman with the foreigner who gave the child a ride. Santos' boyfriend, Charles Griffiths, the purported companion and Pajero driver, had left the country and gone out of the local court's jurisdiction.
LATEST CASE OF CHILD MURDER, the beheading in Toledo City last week, has gone beyond the whodunit stage.
Under PNP rules, the case is considered solved once the police have enough evidence, the suspect is identified and taken in custody, and charged with the prosecutors or the court.
The Toledo City police are there or almost there already.
Yet the public would like to know more than the identity of the suspect. They want the reason for the beheading of the child.