Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Paz Radaza voiced frustration over the progress in the police investigation of the murder of 17-year-old college student Karen Kaye Montebon.
No suspect has been arrested yet since the Sept. 15 killing.
An initial lead which linked a couple turned out to be false information.
A man and his 41-year-old girlfriend, who was followed to Bohol, showed up at the police station and denied knowing the victim.
Radaza, who has been receiving several raw tips, passed on two text messages from informants for investigators to check.
“I want those responsible for Karen’s death to be arrested immediately,” she told Lapu-Lapu city police chief Senior Supt. Armando Radoc.
“That’s why the city immediately offered P500,000 as a reward to show our all-out support for the police,” she said.
The case became a trending topic on social media after Karen’s strangled body was found in her bedroom in Corinthian Subdivision, a gated neighborhood of row houses.
Meanwhile, a new task force was created to solve the murder, this time headed by Supt. Rey Lyndon Lawas, chief of staff of the regional police office.
Chief Supt. Prudencio “Tom” Bañas, regional director, whom Mayor Radaza spoke with, said Lawas was a good choice as a former chief of the Lapu-Lapu police who is familiar with the area and has connections.
“Mas maganda ngayon. The more people working to solve the case, the better,” he said.
Asked by reporters if the case was close to being solved, Bañas admitted that police have a long way to go yet(“Malayo pa”).
Karen, a first-year accountancy student, was choked to death, according to a police autopsy report, that said she may have been killed between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. or soon after her parents and sister had stepped out of the house to go to work and school at 6 a.m.
Karen was laid to rest in the Mactan Memorial Garden in Lapu-Lapu City last Sunday.
Radoc, the city police chief, said police are being careful about their inquiry after a woman with long hair whom they suspected of involvement in the case turned out to be innocent. Witnesses ruled her out as a suspect, saying a much younger woman was seen knocking on the door of the Montebon’s house with a male companion waiting aboard a motorcycle.
“We already received a lot of information and text messages but many are just hoaxes,” he said.
The regional National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Criminal Investigation and Detective Group (CIDG) are helping in the case.
The Provincial Board (PB) yesterday passed three resolutions condemning the violence and calling for the speedy resolution on Karen’s murder.
They were sponsored by PB Members Joven Mondigo Jr., Miguel Antonio Magpale and Arleigh Jay Sitoy.
PB Member Sun Shimura said he will draft a resolution requesting all subdivisions to set up close circuit television cameras in their entrance and exits, a security measure the homeowners in Corinthian Subdivision are discussing after they changed their security guard agency. Correspondents Norman V. Mendoza, Apple Mae Ta-as and Melissa Q. Cabahug
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