Ronda cops out to arrest suspect in decade-old chicken theft case as mayor was being murdered

OPERATIVES of the Ronda Police Station on Wednesday were out to arrest two persons who were suspects in decade-old cases at the time that Mayor Mariano Blanco III of Ronda town was being murdered inside his office at the municipal hall.

Epifanio Talledo, 50, was arrested at his residence in the mountain barangay of Vive in Ronda at around 1:40 a.m. while his cousin Jude Ian was taken into police custody two hours later in Consolacion town.

Talledo is facing theft charges in court for allegedly stealing a chicken 12 years ago, or in 2006, while Jude Ian was charged with frustrated murder for purportedly trying to kill another person in 2007.

“We finally served the arrest warrants against these two suspects,” PO3 Joselito de Aquino, desk officer of the Ronda Police Station, told Cebu Daily News.

Sometime past 1 a.m. on Wednesday, five policemen of the Ronda Police Station led by their precinct commander, Senior Insp. Jay Soto Palcon, went to Barangay Vive — about five kilometers from their headquarters — to supposedly serve the arrest warrant issued by Judge Augustine Vestil of the Regional Trial Court Branch 56 in Mandaue City against the cousins.

But before they reached the place, the operatives received a call from fellow policemen that Blanco was killed by unknown assailants inside the municipal hall of Ronda, reportedly prompting Palcon and his men to return to the station.

Only two policemen were left in the station but both did not respond to the shooting incident at the municipal hall, which was just five meters away.

De Aquino said the operatives decided to serve the arrest warrants against the Talledo cousins on Thursday.

Why only now?

But Talledo denied the accusation against him and even questioned the timing of the arrest.

“Why am I arrested now? I’ve been strolling around the plaza near the police station and yet they never seized me,” he said in Cebuano.

“This is an old case and I even thought this was already dismissed,” he added, as he belied charges that he stole a chicken.

Talledo and Jude Ian were now detained at the Ronda Police Station stockade while waiting for the police to present them to the court.