TALISAY CITY, Cebu — The early morning peace of Sunday in Barangay Tabunok of this city was broken when a gunman fired repeatedly at a live-in couple riding on a motorcycle, killing them on the spot.
P03 Glenn Besande, the case investigator from the Talisay City Police Station, identified the slain couple as Felix Yaris, 30, and Carol Dixie Bacalso, 30, both residents of the city.
Besande said the incident happened at past 4 a.m. today, March 24, 2019, while the couple was on board the motorcycle driven by Yaris along R. Rabaya Street in Sitio Lansiawan of Barangay Tabunok, where most of the business establishments of the city are located.
Scene of the Crime Operatives (Soco) of the Talisay City Police Station cordon the area where a motorcycle-riding couple – Felix Yaris, 30, and Carol Dixie Bacalso, 30, – was ambushed and killed past 4 a.m. of March 24, 2019 in Barangay Tabunok, Talisay City. |CDND Photo/Benjie Talisic
According to Besande, they were still determining what exactly happened because witnesses had two versions about the incident.
The first version claimed that the couple was being tailed by another motorcycle driven by a man and with a woman as a back rider. It was allegedly the woman who fired at the victims. After the initial shots and after the couple fell from their motorcycle, the assailants came back and the woman fired once more at the victims, ensuring they were dead they fled to unknown directions.
The other version, according to Besande, claimed that the couple were traversing R. Rabaya Street when another motorcycle boarded by two men came from behind and fired repeatedly at the couple even after they had fallen on the ground.
Investigators, who found nine empty bullets on the crime scene, are now securing the CCTV cameras around the establishments in the area to find out if they could find footage that could lead them to the assailants, Besande said.
Chief Inspector Ardioleto Cabagnot, the deputy police chief of Talisay City, however said they were looking at two possible angles in the couple’s death: either related to illegal drugs or personal grudge.
He said they were informed that Yaris was involved in a fight two days prior to his killing. The other motive could be drug-related amid allegations linking Bacalso to the illegal drugs trade. /elb