Crime classic

APALISOK

While taking some time off in the state of New York, I have grown to like watching the Investigation Discovery (ID) network which features series of real crime stories presented in documentary form. Plots of infidelities, romance gone wrong and greed wrapped in murder mysteries have attracted a huge following not only in the US but also in Canada, Europe, Mexico, Japan, Australia, the Middle East and Africa.

I have just finished watching four ID episodes; and I find the stories which are usually told through the narrative of witnesses, policemen, detectives, friends and families of the victims quite gripping.

The morality lines of good versus evil adapted in the justice process can be informative and entertaining at the same time.

Critics have panned ID for showing salacious materials; but based on what I saw (the episode featuring the case of a wealthy businessman Bill McLaughlin of Newport Beach who was murdered in 1994 by the lover of his fiancée), ID’s take on sex and violence would still be tame.

Viewers are regularly warned about sensitive police audio files that suggest of violent attacks, but based on what I saw, ID has not crossed the line.

According to the New York Times, ID is in the top five of most popular cable networks preferred by women aged 24–55. The real crime stories have been culled from police and newspaper reports and are mainly set in American towns or cities; but “it can be anywhere,” according to Mr. David Zaslav, CEO of the popular network.

Indeed, ID’s popularity lies on the fact that “crime is universal,” in the words of the top ID honcho.

Based on that reality, the killing of Bien Unido Mayor Gisela Boniel according to the findings of Central Visayas police authorities, or her disappearance, as insisted by her husband and prime suspect, Bohol Provincial Board Member Niño Rey Boniel, is off to become a crime classic worthy of Investigation Discovery.

To recall, the gruesome story as told by Mayor Boniel’s best friend Angela Leyson and later attested to by PB Member Boniel’s cohorts, it was on June 6 when Niño, accompanied by his bodyguards, forced their way inside a room in the Bien Unido Double Barrier Dive Camp where Angela and her friend, Mayor Gisela Boniel, were occupying.

Leyson said one of Niño’s men shot her using a taser gun, but before she lost consciousness, she saw Niño punch Gisela in the stomach.

Leyson said she was later driven by Boniel’s cohort to Tubigon where she boarded a boat bound for Mactan Island, thereupon she reported the incident to police authorities in Lapu-Lapu City.

As this developed, Niño’s men have come forward one by one to tell what they knew about the crime.

The board member’s cousin Reolito “Etad” Boniel told the police that the PB member shot Gisela in the head and later dumped her body in the sea near Caubian and Olango islands in Mactan.

While the police have built a case based on the testimonial evidence of three state witnesses, the dead body of Mayor Gisela or the corpus delicti in legal terminology remains missing.

The web’s legal resource on the corpus delicti principle is simple and straightforward.

“When a person is charged with larceny, the corpus delicti is proof that property was stolen. When a person is charged with the crime of arson, the corpus delicti is the burned property or evidence that arson was attempted. In a murder case, the corpus delicti is the dead body of the victim.”

The same principle is necessary in a criminal case “to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the charges against him/her. The prosecution in a criminal case has the burden of proving each element of a crime in order to secure a conviction.”

This is a bizarre case because the prosecution has challenged the defense to show proof that Mayor Gisela is alive, in which case, the principle on corpus delicti has been turned upside down.

On the other hand, how much simpler it would be for PB Member Boniel to be vindicated if he could help authorities locate his wife by, first of all, naming her Italian lover with whom she allegedly shacked up in Italy.

Law enforcement agencies worldwide have access to databases and with technology attached to their gadgets; information can be had with just a flick of a finger.

Insofar as finding the body of Mayor Gisela Boniel in the waters off Mactan, I am not sure if the prospects look bright if we consider that it has been close to three weeks since she was dumped in that area where sea currents make retrieval operations more difficult.

I have just finished reading an archived Time article describing the disappearance of US aviator Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly across the Atlantic and the first woman to fly nonstop across the US. In June 1, 1937, the Kansas native together with her copilot set off in their “flying laboratory” from Miami to an island some 2,550 miles away.

They never reached their destination. Then president Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to the succor of Earhart’s family by mobilizing the US Navy to scour the ocean at a staggering cost of US$250,000 a day.

Two years later, Ms. Earhart was pronounced legally dead.