NBI-7 PLUS TASKFORCE

Search in Bohol, Cebu for suspects; ‘Maybe the killers were professionals’

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI)started its own probe into the killing of 17-year-old Karen Kaye Montebon.

Her father James and his employer the Mactan Electric Company requested the civilian agency to step in, even as Lapu-Lapu city police cleared one  of two suspects who were the object of a hot pursuit operation in Cebu and Bohol.

A man and his former girlfriend, who had left for Bohol at noon on the day Karen was strangled at home in Corinthian Subdivision in Lapu-Lapu city,  already got in touch with Sr. Supt. Armando Radoc, Lapu-Lapu city police director.

Radoc said the man, a Consolacion town resident, went to the police office on Friday to clear his name.

After he was interrogated, the police were satisfied that he had no hand in the death of Karen, a 1st year accountancy student whose violent death set off online outrage and had  fellow-students in the University of San Carlos wearing black shirts, offering Mass and lighting candles in solidarity vigils on campus to press for justice for the slain teenager.

The woman in question was set to be picked up in Bohol by Lapu-Lapu police yesterday.

FIRST TIME TO REWARD

Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Paz Radaza welcomed the NBI’s help.  She said the reward of half a million pesos offered for information leading to the killers was the first time Lapu-Lapu city posted a bounty.

“Maybe these killers were professionals and are very dangerous to others if the can’t be apprehended,” shes aid.

Karen’s funeral is set for Sunday at the Mactan Memorial Garden in Marigondon, Lapu-Lapu City.

Investigators are focusing on identifying a man and woman who were seen parking their motorcycle outside the Montebon residence about 7 a.m. The female knocked on the door, and may have been let in by Karen, whose parents and elder sister had already left the house at 6 a.m. for work and school.

Witnesses said the man was wearing a helmet and stayed on the parked motorcycle while the woman, who had long hair and was in her 20s, knocked on the door.

Neighbors said they didn’t hear any scream or notice any commotion from the Montebon residence, a row house unit in a gated village.

Karen was found on the floor of her bedroom,her face bloodied and bruised.  She was fully dressed in shorts and a shirt.

An electric cord was found around her neck, but investigators cautioned that this may have been planted by the perpetrator to mislead others. The autopsy report said Karen died of “asphyxia by manual strangulation” or by the use of bare hands.

Karen’s mini-iPad and DSLR camera were missing, but police don’t think robbery was the real motive as other valuables in the house were intact.

A personal grudge and the possibility that Karen knew her attacker is one theory being explored by police investigators.

TASK FORCE

Radoc announced that the special investigation task team has been upgraded into Task Force Karen with a wider scope.

It is headed by Police Regional Office 7 and includes the police of Lapu-Lapu city, Mandaue city, Cebu City and Cebu province, and ther special units including the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG 7).

The NBI  will treats the investigation as a “command case”.  This means all their eight investigators will jointly work on the case to identify and file appropriate charges against the culprits.

“We’re actually starting from scratch. We could not establish the motive yet. So far, we’re still looking for possible witnesses,” said NBI Assistant Director Augusto Isidoro yesterday.

“We have to coordinate with the police. We need to collaborate with them,” Isidoro said.

Lapu-Lapu city police said they got their first break when an informant sent a text message hem that a woman from Looc, Lapu-Lapu City has left her residence at noon of Tuesday for Bohol.

Radoc said their hot pursuit operation on Thursday took them to Cebu City and Bohol.  No arrests were made.

But yesterday, the Radoc said, he was able to contact the woman and she assured to go with the police who went to Bohol to pick her up.

Radoc expressed doubts that this was the woman seen knocking on the victim’s house. Based on a  photo to of the female suspect, her features and hair did not fit the description of others about the woman knocking on the door f the Montebon residence.

Radoc said he still wanted interrogate the woman.

The earlier male suspect had ended his relationship with the woman since Sept. 1.

Radoc said a check with police records in Cebu province said he was not involved in illegal drugs.

Radoc said police have a third suspect in mind, but refused to give details.

“It’s premature to give details right now. We are still consolidating the evidences against the third suspect’, he added.

Thelma Chiong of the Crusade Against Violence echoed calls for law enforcers to solve the crime.

“I hope the death penalty will be reactivated,” she said in a television interview.

Chiong’s daughters Jacqueline and Marijoy were kidnapped and killed  in 2007. Six men, including Paco Larrañaga, scion of an influential family in Cebu, were convicted.

“Let’s stop taking advantage of women. I hope women’s groups should also help Karen’s family.