By SHIELA MAE BUTLIG
with JOEY NACALABAN
Correspondents
POLICE yesterday pressed rape and homicide charges against the primary suspect in the gruesome killing of a teenager in Tagoloan town in Misamis Oriental, early this week.
Tagoloan police chief Maj. Rogelio Manalang said 18-year-old Justine Villanueva of Natumolan, Tagoloan, was charged before the Misamis Oriental Provincial Prosecutor’s Office.
Manalang said Villanueva, who was arrested in Tuesday, admitted to killing Mae Ann Mancao, also 18 years.
Villanueva was arrested after investigators found his exchange of social media messages with Mancao. Police said Villanueva was also the last person to interact with Mancao on social media.
Manalang said there were also witnesses who pointed to Villanueva. The witnesses said they saw Mancao and Villanueva hours before the female was found murdered in an abandoned house.
At first, according to Manalang, Villanueva denied the allegation but he subsequently admitted to killing Mancao during an interrogation.
“When we showed the suspect his exchange of messages with the victim, he (Villanueva) was in shock,” said Manalang.
When he was told about witnesses seeing him walking together with the victim near the crime scene around midnight, Villanueva told police that he and Mancao were in a drinking binge on Sunday night.
Manalang said Villanueva and Mancao, already drunk, then went to the abandoned house where the rape and killing took place. Mancao was found on Monday morning with her throat slit with a piece of a broken glass; police said she was also raped.
“There’s no doubt. We cornered him. He admitted to committing the crime in front of his parents,” said Manalang.
He said Villanueva told police that he killed Mancao for fear that she would sue him for rape.
